Tonight Global News in Toronto (Ontario in-joke: The Toronto Sun Show
) interrupted their pitch for a Toronto franchise of Without a Trace to spread this classic urban legend. They couldn't get an interviewer to claim that even a friend-of-a-friend actually implemented the legend, but the kid who explained the colour-code wanted to remain anonymous, so I guess that's preponderance of evidence.
Maybe someday they'll teach hacks to use Google in journalism school, until that happens we shouldn't be surprised when they start copying stories from The Onion.