No one knows where the rumor first started that a famous atheist was trying to ban all mention of God from the airwaves.
The Federal Communications Commission denied it. Nevertheless, millions of people continued to write letters to the commission.
In response, the FCC sent out its own letters. Then it ran public-service ads saying the rumor was not true.
Letters still came. People called in.
So the FCC started a hot line and mailed pamphlets to citizens who believed the rumor.
But e-mail boomed, and with it more gossip, generating still more mail -- despite the FCC's Web page devoted to debunking the rumor.
Nearly three decades -- and more than 10 million letters, e-mails and phone calls later -- the agency that deregulated the telecommunications industry and helped usher in the communications revolution seems to have met defeat in its fight against this one rumor. Since 1974 -- when the rumor first surfaced -- the commission has spent untold dollars and employee time responding to citizens worried that the late Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the leader of a well-known atheist movement, is trying to halt all religious references on the radio and TV.
Just to be clear: There is no O'Hair broadcast petition. In fact, O'Hair -- the founder of American Atheists Inc., best known for championing a ban on prayer in schools -- has been dead since 1995.
Nothing else at the FCC rivals this rumor, in both its longevity and its bizarre ability to withstand the commission's repeated attempts to convey the truth. Every year, around Christmas and Easter, something breathes new life into it. Last month, the FCC received 108 O'Hair-related correspondences. In October, it received 249, in September, 124, and in August, 91.
It's nothing short of exasperating for K. Dane Snowden, who heads the FCC's consumer bureau and wishes he could finally dispel the rumor.
"It is one of the most fascinating urban myths that continues to grow. The FCC has no authority to ban religious programming. It literally is a myth," he said.
Snowden himself got a chain letter about the rumor several years ago, and his mother recently called to ask whether it was true.
It's hard to track precisely how much the FCC has spent over the last 27 years on this rumor, Snowden said. Several divisions of the FCC each spent thousands of dollars on postage, envelopes and letters responding to the complaints. The biggest loss is time -- thousands of hours went into sifting through and responding to O'Hair-related mail, he said.
It all started with a 1974 request by two community-radio advocates, Lorenzo Milam and Jeremy Lansman. They asked the commission to freeze all applications from religious groups seeking to use radio and broadcast stations designated for educational purposes. O'Hair had nothing to do with their petition.
The following year, the FCC denied the request on the grounds that it could not discriminate against applicants on the basis of religion. With that, petition number RM-2493 died. But the rumor lives on.
In 1976 alone, the FCC received 4 million letters about O'Hair and the fictitious petition.
"Before e-mail, just the volume of [letters] was a real problem -- getting them all into the mailroom," recalled Rosemary Kimball, a spokeswoman who started working at the commission 30 years ago and remembers when the rumor started. The letters would arrive in enormous canvas sacks, and at first the commission -- which responds to each inquiry individually -- opened the letters. It soon, however, got so out of hand that the letters were opened in the mailroom.
Many are form letters and petitions circulated by church groups. Now, since anthrax spores have given traditional mail a bad name, more complaints arrive in the form of e-mail.
"I am an American and am very thankful for my American Heritage," wrote one man from his home in Lithuania. "I protest any effort to remove from radio or television, programs designed to nurture faith in God, or to remove Christmas programs, Christmas songs, or Christmas carols from public airwaves," he wrote.
About three years ago, the rumor spread to include the CBS television drama "Touched by an Angel," which many believed was in danger of getting pulled from the airwaves. That rumor touched off another letter-writing campaign. CBS doesn't want to give the rumor any credence, so it hasn't addressed the issue publicly, said Pam Gorode, manager of prime-time television shows at CBS. "I don't know where it emanates from," but it resurfaces about twice a year, she said.
Over the years, the FCC used ads in newspapers and on radio and television to try to debunk the myth. But the effect of the media blitzes isn't lasting: "It dies down a little bit for that cycle, and then it crops up again," Snowden said, a hint of despair in his voice. The FCC's hot line, 888-CALL-FCC, is staffed with people who read scripted responses to concerned callers, and the FCC's Web site posts an explanation. Still, the letters keep coming.
The American Atheists, which had no involvement with the 1974 application, also has a Web page for visitors asking about the rumor.
The whole thing is odd, said Ellen Johnson, president of the 2,000-member organization, based in New Jersey. But as far as the group's membership is concerned, religion itself is bunk, so it doesn't seem odd that religious people believe this urban legend, she said.
"They accept all kind of weird ideas which I think are weird," Johnson said. The O'Hair rumor serves the function of a modern-day religious crusade, she said. "I really think it's something to rally the troops, even if it's made up."
The story seemed plausible enough to letter writer Anita Robinson, who called the FCC about an e-mail she received last year from her cousin about O'Hair's alleged broadcast petition. Robinson, a nurse and mother of four living in Lincoln City, Ore., knows O'Hair for her successful quest before the Supreme Court to have school prayer banned in 1963.
Linda Lowe, a Dallas resident who had heard the rumor through both her church and her sister, also called the FCC to inquire about the rumor. "I typically don't get into this stuff with chain letters," but she wanted to give her sister the facts, she said.
"I never thought a false issue could continue for 26-plus years," said the FCC's Snowden, who plans to take his message across the country and ask various religious leaders for their help in laying the issue to rest.
"I have committed myself," Snowden said. But battling falsehoods is incredibly hard, he said. "It's like Sisyphus pushing up the rock."
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