One thousand Iranian-Christian refugees are not coming to Lewiston-Auburn.

We heard the rumor Wednesday morning, derived from a local coffee klatch. It seems plausible, on its face, given the Twin Cities’ growing refugee population, predominantly from Somalia. Lewiston-Auburn, in fact, has the highest concentration (not population) of Somali refugees of any city in the United States.

But an influx of Iranian Christians – about 1,000, we heard – seemed strange. So we checked it out and, within a few minutes, discovered it was bunk.

“I hope that’s true,” says Abe Ghaffari, the president of Iranian Christians International, a Colorado-based nonprofit. The organization advocates on behalf of Iranian Christians, and has assisted in limited resettlement of them over the years, according to Ghaffari.

That all changed on 9/11, he adds. Now, Ghaffari says its easier for Iranian Christians to enter the United States illegally than as refugees. “The only way this could happen is through special political considerations,” he says, which he identifies as highly unlikely to be bestowed. (Ghaffari isn’t a fan of U.S. immigration authorities.)

City administration in Lewiston also knew nothing of any new emigration or refugee resettlement, which we expect they would, given the tumultuous lessons of the past five years. This leaves only one possible explanation for the story of the 1,000 Iranian Christians:

It just isn’t true.

Rumors, as we’ve found, are nonperishable items. They have shelf lives second only to Spam and sardines, and no matter how often disproved, they never seem to go away. Somali refugees in Lewiston-Auburn, for example, still receive free cars, but only because people insist on believing they do.

Despite this resilience, however, most rumors are easily dispelled. All it takes is curiosity, and the decision against believing something that sounds like it isn’t true. The 1,000 Iranian Christians was an easy rumor to quash; others are harder, but that should only strengthen the resolve to scuttle them.

Debunking rumors is frustrating because of their cyclical nature. Many popular ones, like the Somali driver with the “UPYD4IT” license plate, come around like comets.

That plate doesn’t exist, as we’ve pointed out, but people still swear seeing it on everything from a gold Lexus to a green Subaru around the Twin Cities.

This work needs to be done, by entities like the newspaper (which serves as a clearinghouse for most rumors), or, most important, by the public.

Only through vetting the rumors and stereotypes that swirl around L-A will the truthful, and serious, issues that could face the community be identified, and the rest put where they belong.

The scrap heap.