145 General claim verifications avg. score 4.7/10 53 rated true or mostly true 87 rated false or misleading
“A group of owls is called a parliament.”
"Parliament" is indeed a widely recognized collective noun for a group of owls, confirmed across multiple reference sources including HowStuffWorks, Birdfact, and Grammar Monster. The phrase "is called" does not imply it is the only term — alternatives like "stare" and "wisdom" also exist — but "parliament" is the most commonly cited. The term's exact historical origin is debated, but its current usage in English is well established and uncontested.
“More people are killed annually by vending machines than by sharks worldwide.”
This popular claim lacks reliable support. Shark fatalities are well-documented at roughly 6–12 deaths per year worldwide. However, there is no credible, current global dataset for vending machine deaths—estimates range wildly from zero (since 2008) to 2–3 per year to an unverified "13 annually," mostly drawn from outdated U.S.-only data from the 1978–1995 era. The best available evidence suggests sharks now kill as many or more people annually worldwide than vending machines do, making this claim misleading.
“Statistical data shows that women have worse driving records than men.”
This claim is false. The most authoritative data — from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and peer-reviewed research — consistently shows that men have higher crash rates than women when properly adjusted for driving exposure. Men's fatal crash involvement per 100 million miles is 63% higher than women's. The argument that women have "worse records" relies on poorly defined per-capita metrics from low-authority law-firm blogs, which lack valid denominators and conflict with rigorous, exposure-controlled studies.
“The calendar configuration for February 2026 is claimed to occur only once every 823 years.”
This claim is false. The "once every 823 years" figure is a recycled internet hoax. Every non-leap-year February has exactly 28 days, meaning it always contains exactly four of each weekday — that's basic math, not a miracle. The specific "perfect February" layout where February 1 falls on a Sunday last occurred in 2015 and will happen again in 2037. The Gregorian calendar repeats on a 400-year cycle, making an 823-year uniqueness claim mathematically impossible.
“The Bermuda Triangle is a region in the North Atlantic where ships and planes disappear at a rate that cannot be explained by conventional means.”
This claim is false. Authoritative sources including Britannica, the BBC, and Lloyd's of London data confirm that the Bermuda Triangle does not have a higher rate of ship or plane disappearances than any comparable region of the Atlantic. Many famous incidents have conventional explanations — storms, navigation errors, heavy traffic, and equipment failure. While some individual cases remain unsolved, that is true of maritime incidents worldwide and does not support the claim of an inexplicable regional phenomenon.