Conspiracy theories and urban myths can reveal much about the cultures they originate from and how people relate to the power structures governing them. It's entertaining for some of us, but deadly serious for others, such as the 39 people who annihilated themselves based on a rumor that a spaceship was tailing the Hale-Bopp comet. South of the border, in Guatemala, locals react to the problems of poverty and its impact on children by accusing foreigners from North America of selling their childrens' vital organs on the black market. In Yugoslavia, we have what is known as the public secret. These nuggets of information arise in an environment where public information is vehemently guarded and rumors takes up the slack.
Yugoslav culture possesses a particularily active oral culture with a well-developed grapevine.
Journalism as practiced here taps into the grapevine and amplifies the story even greater, sometimes without much fact checking and attribution. Whether these things can be proven or not, the main thing is people behave as if they are true. Most of the public secrets I've read about recently deal with personal health and safety. Think about those mad cows discovered in Pancevo next time you take a bite out of that pljeskavica. Watch where you step on the bus or wind up like that woman who died after falling through rotting floorboards.