My friend told me this story about  a guy his friend worked with.

The guy was in LA on business. He met a girl in the hotel’s bar, and after a couple of drinks, the pair went upstairs. After that, the guy remembers nothing. He woke up in the bathtub in his hotel room, naked, covered to his waist in ice with an IV in his arm. In bold letters on the mirror, someone wrote: DON’T MOVE! You have just had surgery. One of your kidneys has been removed. We have called 911 for you. The guy passed out, and when he woke up he was in the ICU, and missing a kidney. The detectives told him that a ring of organ thieves is targeting business men. Good story, huh? But it’s not true. It’s an urban legend.

Here’s another urban legend: the Government is giving away land. Everyone knows someone who heard it from someone that there is free land out West, down South, up North, and even in the Canadian wilderness. Sorry folks, it’s just not true. There is no such thing as free government land, from any government on the planet. Such stories are just urban legends. Everyone knows someone who heard it from someone whose cousin worked with a guy whose brother’s friend got free land in Texas (or wherever). The problem is, no one seems to know the exact person who claimed the free government land. That’s how urban legends work: they seem legitimate because the person telling the story seems to personally involved. But if you pay attention, it becomes apparent that they are just repeating  the story.

Every now and then, we get a letter from someone looking for information on free or nearly free land. The latest came from someone claiming there is free land in Canada. Of course, it didn’t contain any contact information for the Canadian officials in charge of passing out the free land, not even the name of anyone who got a parcel of free land, just a few lines insisting that there is free land. So, at the risk of being abundantly redundant: there is no such thing as free land. The Homestead Act of 1862 that allowed settlers to claim 40 acres to farm, was abolished in 1976. Canada had a similar law that was enacted in 1872 and subsequently abolished in 1918. While the governments of the U.S. and Canada do sell land parcels on occasion, they sell them at market value. While buying land from the government can be inexpensive, it certainly isn’t free.

If you’re still looking for free land, don’t despair. I know a guy whose brother works with my cousin’s first step-sister who is friends with a gal at NASA who told her that she could by land for next to nothing on Mars and the Moon. Just a few dollars for thousands of acres!