How A Rumor About The 27 Club Started A Chilling Superstition

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

The item that four members of the 27 Club were said to have been carrying is none other than a white cigarette lighter. A quick internet search will yield various accounts of how Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all were carrying one on them when their bodies were discovered. The white lighters are supposedly mentioned in each of their autopsy reports, making this rumor seem all the more official (via Entity Magazine). 

Adding to the white lighter supposedly being a harbinger of death is the dead giveaway it can be to police when searching a subject. Those who are no stranger to smoking pot will know that the end of a cigarette lighter is often used to pack a bowl with a fresh refill of marijuana. The contact with this end of the lighter gets it exposed to ash, which will discolor it over time. This signals to law enforcement that the owner of the lighter might be holding illegal drugs, leading to law enforcement's rationale to do a more thorough search. Darker lighters will not show this discoloration, thus helping to ward off a search (via Atlas Obscura). The online stories also state that the makers of these lighters, Bic, only had them available in two colors in those days. Those who want to avoid bad luck should have chosen the black lighters, leaving the less conscious folks to purchase the white ones. A little bit of careful research will show that nothing we've written about these supposed cursed lighters is true, however.

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