There are many rumors floating around the World Wide Web concerning the question of who invented the Internet. Most of them are completely false, but many of them are also ludicrous enough to be pretty amusing.

One claim is that Al Gore invented the Internet while dining at the Hotel Palomar in DuPont Circle. For his efforts, he was given a commemorative Internet dish by the head chef. It is said that Gore ate off his Internet dish at every meal until he finally hung up the Internet dish in the oval office.

What About Howard Hughes? Another claim is that Howard Hughes invented the Internet in 1935 in conjunction with the Germans and IG Farben. Like the rumor that fish would often jump into Hughes net whenever he was fishing, but that Hughes never caught any fish because Hughes net had a hole in it, this rumor is ridiculous in its grandeur and anachronism. Part of the claim goes that Hughes took the H4 Hercules, one of the largest aircraft ever built, and launched his own personal business satellite. This business satellite was said to contain a golden room in which Hughes reclined on a Louis Quatorze chaise longue. Live Tiki music played in the background while Hughes sipped cognac and surfed a proto Internet on a secret 50s era government laptop constructed out of platinum and Brazil wood.

Bill Gates then? Still another rumor attributes the Internets creation to Bill Gates. As a young boy picking corn in Iowa, Mr. Gates is said to have first conceived of an incandescent rural satellite Internet that would serve as a midnight sun, enabling people to talk on computers while the corn grew five times faster. He mentioned the idea to his father, who told Bill to scale it back some. "Instead of a rural satellite Internet, how about just an Internet?" This story is similar to other Gates apocrypha, such as the anecdote concerning Gates finances in which Bill Gates is said to have told the media that yes, he pinches pennies, but unlike other philanthropists, he pinches them "very lightly."

The True Answer Is: No Single Person. The Internet comes in many forms these days. Anything from dial-up to cable to Internet dishes, and yes, even a rural satellite Internet (although it does not help the corn grow at night). The real truth is that no one person can be said to be its inventor. Its inventors are many, including one J.C.R. Licklider, who you have probably never heard of, but who described, in 1962, an Internet, like worldwide network of computers that he called the "Galactic Network." Next thing you know, people are going to twist those words around and start claiming that Leonard Nimoy discovered the Internet in a distant nebula.

But hey, the truth is out there.