| DATE | COMMENT |
| January 31, 2002 | NIGERIAN BANK SCAM speaking of modern day hoaxes, this is an example of a much-used Nigerian scam to hoax unsuspecting people out of money. I have received many of these. They are illegal of course because of the international money transfer issues. I had been waiting for another to pop into my email and here it is. ____________________________ Dear Sir, I am Dr. Mrs Maryam Abacha, the wife of General Sani Abacha, Nigerian Head of State from 1993-1998 . My Husband died suddenly in 1998,while in office. I am writing to solicit your assistance. This measure was taken after a strong consideration. The present Government in Nigeria has subjected us, the remaining member of the family to maltreatment. The Government has launched series of probe which led to freezing of all Foreign and local accounts operated and owned by my late husband, the Late Head of State. At the moment my remaining Eldest son , Mohammed Abacha is being held in prison to answer and provide any remaining information regarding other accounts both local and international which my husband operated which the Government does not know about. Because of the above problems with the present government, I am in a desperate situation to use your assistance for services to help me lodge into your account the only remaining money in dollars currency which is (US$15.5m) Fifteen million five hunreded thousand United States Dollars . This money was never kept in the bank. This is the only remaining money left to take care of the family. The money in question is presently in a Security company and it is registered as Gold and Diamond. No one knows that the consignment contains money except you and I. Due to the probe and investigation on my family by the present government, I have made contact with a diplomat, my late husband's friend who has agreed to move this money to Europe where he is Highly connected through diplomatic baggage. As soon as you indicate your interest the consignment will move on your name and you will come down to the country as you may wish and sign out the consignment as the beneficiary. As soon as you sign out the consignment you will open an account for the money and lodge it into your account as these countries operate free banking system, you will then give instruction for the immediate transfer of the money into your nominated account in your country, I will then fly to your base for sharing and investment. You will have 15% of the total money for your assistance. A high level of secrecy is required to ensure success as the arrangement is solid,i can assure you that this transaction is 100%risk free. Regards Yours truly DR,MRS MARYAM ABACHA The Nigerian Bank Scam is decades old. If you fall for it, the scam artists will inevitably find a way to separate you from your money. An amusing analysis of such e-mails appeared in Salon.com a while back. Check it out here: http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2001/08/07/419scams/print.html. |
| January 31, 2002 |
JUST SAYING HI hey i dont know who you are but i just whanted to say hi well i beter let you go love kandi Thanks for dropping by and saying hello! |
| January 28, 2002 |
'MY PARTY' VIRUS I was told that I should beware of a virus titled "My Party" I would like to know if this is a hoax. Apparently there is a computer virus going around that is being called 'My Party.' Here's a link to more info: http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173987.html |
| January 24, 2002 |
THE LIZARD-HEADED FISH I got drawn in to your site looking for more on a vague memory of seeing the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest years ago. It still cracks me up. I also enjoyed many stuffed and mounted jackalopes when I visited Utah, and was gratified to see your photos. The concern I have is with the "Lizard Headed Fish" http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/photos/lizardfish.html Basically, I was going thru the photos and got to this one and thought to myself, "That looks like an Alligator Gar" (aka Lepisosteus spatala) Granted the illustration is a little crude, but if you have ever seen one, the similarity is uncanny. A couple good pictures are: http://www.earthwave.org/gars/garnose.jpg http://www.earthwave.org/gars/bloodygar.jpg also see: http://www.northmosportsmen.com/alligatorgar.htm To be fair, I wouldn't believe in this fish either if I'd not seen one in a tank on a trip to Mississippi with my father when I was 14. -Clint I think you could be right about the Alligator Gar being the lizard-headed fish. That's fascinating! I got my information from a book by Peter Dance called Animal Fakes & Frauds. Dance is a very well respected conchologist and natural historian. I'll try to contact him to see if he has any insight into the lizard-headed fish/alligator gar parallel. Thanks for the info. |
| January 23, 2002 |
BOTTOMLESS HOLE Ever heard of this? My mother was listening to KFI the other night and e-mailed this msg: Last night, a man called in to Art Bell on KFI, and told of a huge hole in the ground on his property, which measures over 9 ft. in diameter. It has a retaining wall around it, and a heavy metal lid. He has lived there for 4 years, he said. There is something very mysterious about this hole. For many years, everyone who lives around there (it must be out in the desert...as there are no modern conveniences), dumps all of their trash, even furniture, old refrigerators, dead animals, etc. into this huge hole, and he said you can never hear anything hit the bottom. He tried to measure the depth with fishing line...and it went down for several miles, and hadn't stopped yet...so he gave up. Now, the Feds have moved in and taken over, and everyone must stay away from the hole. This is unbelievable! Wish you could have heard this! What do you suppose caused this huge hole? Something was said, too, that he or someone heard screaming and agonizing voices coming from down t! here. Spooky! One of them even mentioned that it might be coming from Hell. This man sounded so sincere, and was very serious, telling all the details. He didn't sound like some kind of a kook. I don't know what to make of it. Is there some way we could find out if there is any credibility to this on the internet? Ever heard of this before? Thanks! Diana I think there was once an episode of the Simpsons about a bottomless hole in the ground such as the one you describe. I doubt there really is such a hole. |
| January 23, 2002 |
OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE There is a hoax that if you send the email about OUTBACK STEAK HOUSE to 5 people you will receive a check in the mail for real money. It is amazing how much money...like if you send it to 100 people you will reeceive thousands. If you send it to 11 people supposedly a certficate for $25 good at OUTBACK STEAK HOUSE will appear on your screen and you can print it. Is this a hoax or what.???? Yes, it's a hoax. Similar e-mail hoaxes are floating around out there in cyberspace involing Microsoft, Nike, and Honda (to name a few off the top of my head). There is no way for these companies to know how many people an e-mail is forwarded to. By forwarding the e-mail you're just cluttering the inboxes of your friends. |
| January 23, 2002 |
WANTING DIRECTION I'm sending you this e-mail because you asked. I don't know why. Is this a hoax in itself? Can I send you an e-mail of our dog? What sort of e-mail would you really like? You aren't specific enough as to what you want when you ask "Use the textbox below to send me an e-mail. I'd be happy to receive an e-mail of your dog. Maybe when I said, "Use the textbox below to send me an e-mail," I should have added, "And look to the immediate left of the textbox for more detailed directions." |
| January 22, 2002 |
TERRORISM HOAX? The dirty little secret about "anti-terrorist measures" is that they are camouflage for arangements the real, but concealed, purpose of which is to control public opposition to rapidly developing totalitarianism. By calling these "anti-terrorist measures" the globalists can present them to the public as necessary for their protection, as if the public needed such "protection". To bring this one off, the public has long been bombarded by propaganda to convince us that we are about to become the victims of an enormous, excalating storm of terrorism. The globalists endeavor to scare the hell out of us by a threat that doesn't exist, as a scheme by which it is hoped we shall be induced to quietly accept the massive deterioration of life incurred by the imposition of totalitarianism. Our prayer is supposed to be: "Bless our leaders, Oh Lord, for their selfless labors to shield us from harm." This should be seen as the "Terrorism Hoax". Your theory brings up shades of George Orwell's 1984. Drumming up external threats to rally the populace has always been a favorite ploy of governments, but on the other hand, no one can deny the reality of what happened on September 11. When I created my Gullibility Test, I hoped that it would demonstrate the difficulty of knowing when to believe, and when to doubt. That principle, I would say, applies throughout life, not just for the Gullibility Test. The question of when to believe the words of our political leaders, and when to doubt them, is a case in point. People will inevitably arrive at different conclusions after hearing and seeing the same evidence. |
| January 22, 2002 |
OLIVER NORTH The Oliver North legend http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/ollie.html |
| January 21, 2002 |
BEDFORD HOAXES I lived in Bedford, England from 1976 until 1983. It took me a few years to catch on to the habit of their April Fools tradition. Goodness knows how many I perpetuated back to my family in the States every April. Two of them come to mind, and honestly, many folks, including myself believed them. The Bedford Times - a free newspaper (not a joke) was the perpetual harbinger of these ruses! And, they would usually issue a preview the week before of the upcoming April Fools issue and it still caught many by surprise. Two of the best I can recall were: Danish Cruise Ship Docks in Bedford! This was during the time when Brits were flocking across the Channel for cheap booze and cigaretts. The story stated the the Danes had even higher taxes and relished the idea of coming to England for "Duty Free Shopping." Their was a front page picture of a cruise ship tied up to the local rowing club landing and pictures of Danish shoppers on the High Street. Although Bedford was indeed on the Ouse River, there was no way a cruise ship could come in from the English Channel and navigate the Ouse to Bedford - no way. Yet I and I'm sure many others believed it. Ironically, I belonged to the Bedford Rowing Club and the area where the cruise ship was to dock was right next to where we launched our boats (i.e. - carry over your head, flip and in the water!) Never even entertained the thought that the bridges we rowed under were at most 5 feet over our heads and during the spring flood stage, we could not row because the water was to th! e top of the arches. The next one that got me, again, same newspaper, following year, was that the drought and locks had caused such a deterioration of the river flow that the Ouse in Bedford was being diverted and the river channel was being paved over to be populated by restaurants and outside stands. Geez, we all thought what a great boone for Bedford, a town that declared a holiday the day that McDonalds opened on the High Street in the old location of Wimpy's (a British hamburger establishment as famous as McD's in Britain). Anyway, Bedfordshire Times - a great source to review for April Fool shenanigans - as are most of the Brit local newspapers (which are usually free and paid for by advertising.) Now that I'm living back in America I sure would love to someone to perpetuate the fun. And they say the Brits are 'stodgy' - ha !!! |
| January 21, 2002 |
POLAR GRAVITY Dear Mr. Boese: The answer to the Gullibility Test question #20, states that "being closer to the center of the earth means that the pull of gravity is stronger at [one of the earth's poles]" and that this effect, in addition to centrifugal force at the equator, causes you weigh a pound heavier at one of the poles (on a spring scale, ignoring the effect of the sun, moon, local mountains, temperature effects, etc.) If that is true, then gravity is stronger at the poles and they are lower. Why doesn't all the water on earth rush to the poles, leaving the equator high and dry? The reason is that gravity is NOT stronger at the poles. You have fallen for one of the great myths that high school teachers foist on their students: that mass acts as if it was concentrated at its center of gravity. That only applies to homogenous spheres from the outside. Example #1: drill a hole to the earth's core, effectively making it bowl-shaped. As you approach the core, obviously the force of gravity goes to zero. Example #2: it is fairly well known that inside any homogenous spherical shell that gravity is zero everywhere. You do not get attracted to the center. To really determine the force of gravity, you have to integrate the force from each infinitely small volume of mass. I decided to determine the force around a pancake-shaped disk 10,000 units in diameter and 10 units thick. I summed the force from each unit cube towards a point one unit from the center and another point one unit from the edge. The force at the edge was 2.42 times greater than the center (and obviously directed at right angles to it). The pancake example makes sense if you consider that there is much more mass underfoot when you are standing on the edge than when you are standing at the center. As for the earth, I strongly suspect that you weigh pretty much the same everywhere. After all, the reason the earth bulged at the equator was to balance the gravitational and centrifugal forces. It is surprising how many "ask the scientist" web sites say that you weigh more at the poles -- but then disagree on the calculation! Although this is not really a hoax, it must count as one of the big myths of science. Regards, Glenn Well, I'm not a geologist or physicist, but it still makes sense to me that the closer you move to the center of a gravitational mass, the greater the pull of gravity becomes, whereas the further away from the center you move, the less it becomes. I would assume that the same centrifugal force which causes the earth to flatten out at the poles, would prevent all the water from being sucked towards the poles by the slightly higher gravity there. |
| January 20, 2002 |
THE PYRAMID OF KHUFU The great pyramid of khufu was built by people who understood pi.It's height is 481.4' it,s sides are 756' times 4 gives you a perimeter of 3024'. Consider the height as a radius double it to get the diameter 962.8 times it by pi 3.14 to get the circufence 3023.192. Their perimeter is the circumfence.They also understood the golden mean as the slope is 50". True or False. Sorry, I have no idea. |
| January 20, 2002 |
THE SHROUD OF TURIN I like your site concept. the accurracy has a ways to go. article on 'Shroud of Turin' is woefully lacking !! Or perhaps you are perpetuating your own hoax ? I've wearily concluded that it's impossible to win when it comes to the Shroud of Turin. Whatever I've written about it, someone has always taken issue with. |
| January 19, 2002 |
C.S. LEWIS HOAX This site recommended by science and history editor, B.G., a correspondent of mine. Hoax not included on this site is the 20th-21st century C.S. Lewis Hoax--confirmed by A.Q.Morton's (and others) computer studies of his post- humous works edited by Walter Hooper. GREAT site you have, Mr Boese. Sincerely, SEC |
| January 19, 2002 |
ENRON Where's Enron? I speculated back in June, 2001 that the California energy crisis was all a hoax. Maybe I was right. |
| January 18, 2002 |
THE LAWS OF NATURE AND DICK VAN DYKE Alex, Entertaining site. Saw the article in the Christian Science Monitor (which will no doubt increase your hits and e-mail for a while). Comments on Questions 14 & 19 in your Gullibility Test: For a discussion of the constancy, or lack thereof, of fundamental physical constants, see: http://www.sheldrake.org/experiments/constants/index.html Sheldrake may have some quack in him, but he is very bright and does ask good questions. In a book he wrote a few years ago, he showed a graph of measurements of the speed of light over about a century. It hovered around a constant value for a decade or so, then underwent a step change at some point, where it would hover for another decade or so. He asserted that the changes were associated with the prominence of the investigator and the reluctance of others to disagree with the prominent person. And he's quite right about the resolution -- around the 1970's or early 1980's, a consortium redefined the fundamental units (the second, the meter, and the speed of light) in an apparently circular fashion. The speed of light is now, by definition, exactly 299792458 meters per second. The second is tied to a number of cycles of light in a photon emitted in a particular state transition of a cesium atom, and the meter is then defined as the product of the second and the speed of light. (This may not be circular, but I have trouble seeing how it's not.) So there won't be any new experiments to determine its value. I first heard of Sheldrake years ago in an article in Natural History magazine, describing his experiments to learn how pigeons navigate. He never solved the problem, but his experiments were very interesting, and extremely low cost. A favorite -- he tried numbing the olfactory nerve, to test whether they used scents to navigate. He found that Italian pigeons had difficulty without their sense of smell, but German pigeons did not. As another comment on laws of nature, you might look for a very old science fiction story by Charles L. Harness, "The New Reality." In the early part of the story, he lists a number of anomalies over the centuries, such as the ancient Chaldeans using 3 as the value of pi. He suggests that even a child with a string could see that there was something not quite right with that value. He talks about Eratosthenes, who more than two centuries ago estimated the circumference of the earth to within 10% or so of the actual value, but grossly underestimated the distance to the moon, and suggests that maybe the latter distance had changed over time. In the story, an evil scientist has designed an experiment in which he will send a single photon toward a lens placed at exactly 45 degrees to its path, so that the probability of reflection or refraction is exactly 50%. He then expects the photon will not "know" which to do, and will slow down to "think" about it. And in doing so, will no longer be travelling at the speed of light, hence will cease to exist, leading to a paradox in which energy is destroyed. Which sort of relates to Question 19. For an example of a hoax, on a much less scientific note -- in 1976, Dick Van Dyke had a very short-lived variety show on television, called "Van Dyke and Company." Bob Einstein was the head writer. On one of the shows, they scrolled a banner story across the bottom of the screen with a bulletin that said the L.A. Rams had traded their star running back, John Cappelletti, to the University of Notre Dame for Quasimodo. According to the newspapers, the local station carrying the show had its switchboard flooded with calls from irate Rams fans (easy pickings for a hoaxster). I did a brief web search for this story just now, found references to the show but not to this stunt, but do remember seeing it and reading about the reaction. Regards, Ed |
| January 18, 2002 |
SIDD FINCH One of the beauties of the Sidd Finch story (#3 April Fool story) is that the first letter of each of the first several words of the story spell out "April Fool" or something to this effect if my memory serves me right. Great site! |
| January 18, 2002 |
THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN NORTH DAKOTA In the April 1998 hoax page, you wrote.... In actuality, the University of Southern North Dakota does not exist; However, it has received a lot of favorable publicity from Peter Schickele, who uses it as a base of operations for his presentations of music by the famous composer PDQ Bach. |
| January 17, 2002 |
BOILERPLATE, THE VICTORIAN ERA ROBOT I thought the hoax about Jonathan Swift and the astrologer was pretty amusing. I'd never heard that story before . . . Surprised you have nothing on the Alien Autopsy tv show, unless I missed it . . . Here's a web site about a Victorian Era Robot: http://www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate Is it a hoax? A joke? Real?? . . . How about something on Harry Hoxsey, the "Quack who cured cancer"? He and his clinic were eventually driven out of the country and into Mexico by the American Medical Association, all because the medical establishment was threatened by his naturalistic remedies. So the "hoax" wasn't actually Hoxsey, but the claims of the A.M.A. There wasn't as much profit in it as there was in surgery. By the way, Hoxsey's success rate at curing cancer was supposedly 80% . . . And while we're on the subject of wild accusations made for greed/politican gain, how about something on the hysteria surrounding the danger of marijuana? You can tie this into the film "Reefer Madness" and the LIES made about it in a Congressional hearing before it was criminalized. People need to realize that what was read into the record by proto-drug czar Harry J. Anslinger were yellow journalism stories from William Randolph Hearst's gore files, FOR GOD SAKES!!! Not truth about real dangers, but sensationalistic garbage about how blacks and Mexicans on dope attack white women. And this is why marijuana is illegal today! You'd be doing a great service to have something on your site about this ongoing fraud . . . Without sounding too much like a conspiracy nut, I think the government is capable of concealing the truth on certain matters. Which is why I give creedence to things like: Alt 3 (I have a copy of the book, by the same makers of the tv program, I believe, and they certainly don't sound like they're playing an April Fool's prank. I think they were coerced into making it seem like it was); the moon-landing; and Egyptian artifacts found in the Arizona desert, now hidden deep within the walls of the Smithsonian (after all, if it got out that Ancient Egyptians were in America, many of our cherished beliefs about civilization and religion would be challenged or destroyed. (And wouldn't that just be so inconvient to have to rewrite history???) Besides, the Smithsonian has also been hiding the facts about hemp, even refusing to admit in their "Life in America; 1780s to the 1800s" exhibit that this was a primary fiber during that time period) . . . Ok, I've rambled on enough. Keep up the good work! Thanks for the link to Boilerplate, the Victorian Era Robot. After a lot of head scratching and searching through reference books, I concluded that Boilerplate is a hoax, though a very well-conceived one. First of all, if you dig deep enough in the site you find descriptions of Boilerplate walking around as if he were a fully-functioning form of artificial intelligence. That clearly wasn't possible in the 1890s. Also, almost none of the source material exists that is referenced on the site. I'm planning on putting something up about the alien autopsy hoax, when I have more time. |
| January 16, 2002 |
SPANISH UMMO UFO HOAX I really like the site. One hoax that isn't included is the Spanish Ummo UFO hoax. There is a long article on the Fortean Times website: http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/149_ummo.shtml Personally, I would also like to see the Dropa Stones also exposed as a hoax, as well as other Ufo stuff. |
| January 16, 2002 |
INDIANS SELLING MANHATTAN You are mistaken in your acertion that Indians were so stupid as to sell an island for $24 in beads. The Dutch paid $2,400 in goods to the Canarsees' for the island and it wasn't theres to sell. The Weckquaesgeeks lived on the island. Irving Wallace, David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace,SIGNIFICA (New York:Dutton,1983)326. Actually, I never claimed that Indians sold the island for $24 in beads, so I think we're pretty much in agreement about what happened. I had written that the Dutch traders paid what was the equivalent of $24 in 1846 dollars (not beads), but I've now changed it to make it more clear what I meant. See the revised version in the gullibility test answers. |
| January 14, 2002 |
TOM KEATING ARTIST Dear Sir You need to amend your piece on the above artist. He was in fact charged and stood trial at the Old Baily in London. I leave the rest of the research up to you. Silky You're right. I should have said that the charges brought against him were eventually dropped. Thanks. |
| January 13, 2002 |
THE JESUS TREE Hey, Did you forget about "The Jesus Tree" in Mliford Ct.? Apparently I did. Is this what you're referring to: http://www.thegatesofheaven.com/shepherd.html |
| January 9, 2002 |
MARTHA STEWART AND I 1a. What is the difference between a gag, a prank, a trick, a practical joke, a scam, a sting (operation), a ruse, a false alibi, a hoax and a...well...things like: waving-a-fresh-polaroid-in-the-air-even-though-it-doesn't-develop-any-faster or briskly-rubbing-an-ink-pen-between-your-hands (tip down)-"to-make-the-ink-flow better" (a perpetuated hoax?)? 1b. What distinguishes the above from things like: urban legends, tall tales, riddles and bad jokes? 2. I proved both gullible and skeptical on your test, although the rating system might need a look "under the hood". The "overall" rating stated that I only answered six correctly whereas the "gullibility" stated that I only fell for five(out of twenty). Does this sound right to you? I figured I actually scored a sixteen. Either way, I was thrilled to see the work you put into it and was intrigued by the answers (this being a site about hoaxes, I paused for a real-life gullibility check as I was reading some of the answers. Tell us, Martha Stewart, I mean Marilyn vos Savant, I mean Alex Boese, how do you do it without a sizeable staff or plenty of free time? Thank you for an engaging experience; I will pass this address on to my son, my brother, my father and my best friend-- and three others who just came to mind. About your score: There are ten 'true' statements and ten false ones. If you got six correct overall, and identified five of the false questions correctly, then you must have disbelieved all but 1 of the true statements. At least, I think that sounds right. I'm sure the scoring program couldn't have screwed up because computers never make mistakes. How do I do it without a sizable staff? Well, I actually am Martha Stewart, cleverly disguised. As for what distinguishes a hoax from all the other things you listed. There's no hard and fast rule. Hoaxes are deceptions that involve the public, or get public attention. Pranks, on the other hand, are more private affairs. They could involve just two friends. Urban legends don't have authors (they're like folktales), they just seem to emerge out of the culture and get repeated again and again, whereas hoaxes are clearly perpetrated by someone and are usually discrete occurences. |