"nowdays, a quick search will tell you the truth"...usually! We all know the internet can be an unreliable source at times...:P
Playing this brought back to memory a "bogus faq" written for FF6 (FF3US) that was a tongue-in-cheek compilation of fictional secrets in that game. I remember having a good laugh at that!
The interesting thing about this is that you CAN catch mew in pokemon gen 1; There are all sorts of obscure (and maybe not so obscure) glitches in these older games and sometimes reality has an interesting way of being just as incredulous as playground rumors.
As someone who runs A Link to the Past Randomizer for speed, some of the tricks that I pull off on a semi-regular basis really do sound like this sort of crazy thing! "Shoot three arrows into the wall, then lay two bombs, and jump into the water, then you can swim without the flippers!"
Maybe that is something that really appeals about speedrunning and glitch hunting, it feels like you are going through these games and having the experience of actually having these "secret tricks" be real! (and not just urban legends that never seem to pan out)