Hoax Museum Blog: Animals

Jesus Pets — Jesus Pets points out a serious problem that born-again Christians must face if they own a pet: Many Christians believe that animals do not go to heaven. So when Jesus comes back and you return with him to heaven, will there be somebody to take care of your dog or cat?

Happily, they offer a solution: We are assembling a community of heathen pet-lovers to care for pets that are “left-behind.” We are coordinating with feed mills and kennels in preparation for your post-apocalyptic pet care needs.

Clearly this is tongue-in-cheek, though it's a clever idea. (I'd happily agree to look after someone's animal for a fee in case of rapture, since I anticipate being left behind.)

If you poke around the JesusPets site a bit more (follow the Jesus Links link), you'll find hundreds of pages full of links to religious sites. Each of these link pages runs google ads. So what I think is going on is that someone created the JesusPets page as a ploy to get lots of people (like me) to link to it, thereby increasing its pagerank. This, in turn, will increase the pagerank of all those link pages running the ads and, in theory, generate plenty of ad revenue. Whoever dreamed up this scheme is definitely going to be around post-rapture. (via J-Walk)

Frozen Squirrel Breaks Windshield — Norwich Union, a UK car insurance company, has published a list of the ten weirdest claims it received in 2005. Topping the list is this:

"A frozen squirrel fell out of a tree and crashed through the windscreen on to the passenger seat."

Unfortunately Norwich Union doesn't say if it found the claims to be legitimate. It only says that it received them. In the case of the frozen squirrel, you really have to wonder if it could be true. I suppose a squirrel could freeze to death up in a tree, and it could then fall onto a car parked below. But it would have to fall pretty far to pick up enough momentum to crash through the windshield. Though maybe the car wasn't parked. Maybe it was moving. This is clearly a case where more details are needed. (via The Guardian)

Fish Spells Allah and Muhammad — Oscar, who's a fish, lives in a tank in Waterfoot, England. He's attracting quite a bit of attention because markings on one side of his body seem to spell out the name Allah in arabic script, while markings on his other side seem to spell out Muhammad. Since I don't know arabic, I'm not in a position to judge how much the markings look like these words. But at least saying that markings spell a word is a bit more cut-and-dry than saying that markings look like Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or someone else whose appearance is unknown. (And now that I think about it, I suppose the Muslim ban on images of Muhammad means that the world will never get to see pieces of toast or frying pans bearing the image of Muhammad.) People who have examined Oscar are quite confident that the markings haven't been painted on in any way. I'm sure Oscar's new-found status as a miracle fish won't hurt the price the pet shop owner can fetch for him. (Thanks to Paul Farrington for the link.)

Pets In Uniform — Wouldn't it be great to have a picture of Fido dressed in a military uniform to keep on the mantel? Unfortunately actually dressing Fido in the uniform can be a hassle, but thankfully there's now an alternative, PetsInUniform.com:

Imagine: your dog, cat, or other pet in full military regalia. We make this fantasy a reality. Using the latest digital techniques, we combine a photo of your pet with the uniform and background of your choice.

I don't think this would work for my cat, since she imagines herself more as royalty than as military.

What Happens When Dogs Attack a Bull — This series of images of two pit bulls attacking a bull are a couple of months old (though they're new to me). They recall those images of a mule attacking a mountain lion. Despite looking rather surreal (especially that one of the dog suspended in air above the bull), not to mention bizarre (what were the dogs thinking?), they are real. This scene occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, outside of New Orleans, when the two pit bulls, crazed with hunger, decided that a bull would make a great dinner. They were wrong. A reporter for the Sunday Telegraph witnessed the scene:

Like a wrestling tag team, the bitch and the dog attacked with awesome ferocity, leaping at the bull's head and latching on to its muzzle. The stricken bull repeatedly shook the dogs off, flinging them up to 15 feet in the air. But they took turns to keep up the attack, exhausting the bull which was by now smeared with blood. Even after the bull trampled the bitch, leaving it dazed, the dog stepped up its attack... It was too dangerous for an unarmed witness to intervene but The Sunday Telegraph flagged down a National Guard truck. Seeing what was happening, a soldier shot the bitch in the head. The dog paused before resuming the attack. It took two bullets to stop it dead.

Goldfish Have No Memory — Popular legend has it that goldfish have no memory, which is why they're happy to swim around in small glass bowls. (Actually, I had never heard this legend before, but my wife had.) Now researchers in the UK have debunked this legend. The Telegraph reports:

The urban legend of the amnesiac fish has been dealt a new blow by a study which shows that goldfish can learn to avoid parts of their tanks where they receive electric shocks for at least 24 hours, probably longer... The new study was conducted by Rebecca Dunlop, Sarah Millsopp and Peter Laming at the Queen's University of Belfast and is published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science... The Belfast team showed that goldfish can remember accurately where in their tanks they receive electric shocks. The stronger the shocks, the less likely the fish were to return to the sector of the tank where they had received them. The team reported similar results with trout.

Giving fish electric shocks sounds a little cruel, but I guess you can't test them with flash cards, or put them in a maze. Of course, the legend of the forgetful fish might have arisen because goldfish are oxygen-deprived and near blindness from being kept in those little round bowls.

Fighting Dinosaurs Fossil — Zkato wants to know if the fossil of fighting dinosaurs found on the website of the Nakasato dinosaur Center is real. The fossil does sound a little too good to be true:

One Protoceratops, a herbivorous (plant-eating) dinosaur, perished in the struggle with a carnivorous theropod, Velociraptor. After their death 80 million years ago, both skeletons were fossilized, then finally unearthed in 1971 in fully articulated forms without having been smashed.

However, not only is it real, it's one of the most famous fossils in the world. It was found in Mongolia in 1971, and was exhibited in 2000 at the American Museum of Natural History. An episode of Discovery Channel's Dinosaur Planet included a computer-graphic reconstruction of the struggle between the protoceratops and the velociraptor. The fighting dinosaur website seems to be circulating around right now because someone linked to it on digg.com.

The big mystery is how the two dinosaurs managed to get buried alive while fighting. Dinosaur Planet's theory is that "the animals were most likely fighting on a rain-soaked sand dune which collapsed preserving them mid-battle." Or they could have gotten stuck in a sudden sandstorm. A few other theories are outlined in a post on cryptozoology.com.

32-pound Cat — I love fat cat pictures, and here are some good ones, courtesy of Kieran Charette who reports that they were taken at a vets office in Vancouver. Apparently the cat is perfectly healthy. Just large. 32 pounds, to be exact. (Which makes him 8 pounds lighter than Sassy, aka Munchkin.) I don't see any reason why these pictures would be fake. (Although the datestamp on the pictures--09/01/2007--is obviously wrong.)

Budgie Enjoys Cross-Stitching — Birds can be very clever, but so clever that they'll take up stitching as a hobby? I'm not so sure about that, though that's what Sandra Battye claims of her three-year-old budgie, Spike. She says:

"She would sit on my shoulder and watch me for hours. One day I just sat and didn’t stitch. It seemed to frustrate her. Then suddenly she picked up the needle in her beak and began cross-stitching herself. I was staggered. Now I can’t stop her. She still gets a bit confused at how the patterns work but she is very good at pulling and pushing the needle through the fabric."

Cross-Stitcher magazine gave Spike its Young Cross-Stitcher of the Year Award for 2005. I'm willing to believe that the budgie might enjoy picking up the needle and tugging on it... but actually maneuvering the needle through the fabric is a bit harder to believe. Though sometimes animals do amazing things. I'd like to see a video of Spike in action before I list this as real. I'm curious how much help the owner gives the budgie. (Thanks to Melanie Brock for the link)

Rescued Cat and Frogkitten — The expression on this cat's face is pretty wild, but I don't see any evidence of photoshopping. I found the image on this Russian livejournal site, so I'm guessing it might be a Russian fireman who just saved the cat.


This little guy, however, ("frogkitten" -- whose image has been floating around the internet for years) has definitely been photoshopped.

The Case of the Gary-lous Parrot — Remember that story about the British parrot that kept squawking the phrase "I love you, Gary", thereby revealing to its owner, Chris Taylor, that his girlfriend was having an affair with a guy named Gary? It was all over the news about a week ago. (Charybdis posted it in the forum.) Well, it's looking more and more like the story was bogus. The couple has been refusing offers of thousands of pounds to get their photo taken with the parrot. In fact, it's not clear that the couple even exists since the freelance reporters who produced the story are the only ones who have access to them. The New York Times has posted a correction to its original story about the parrot:

An article on Wednesday about infidelity exposed by a chatty parrot described the way the parrot, owned by a man living with his girlfriend in Leeds, England, kept screeching the name of the woman's secret lover. When the parrot said "I love you, Gary," in what sounded like the woman's voice, her boyfriend (whose name is not Gary) broke up with her. Although the article reported that the information had been obtained from reports in The Daily Telegraph and other British newspapers, The Times could not verify the former couple's accounts because the information was given to the British press by a freelance journalist who charged for the account. The Times does not pay for information. The Times should have disclosed fully to readers why we relied on other news reports. Or, perhaps it would have been prudent, given that condition, for The Times to have resisted parroting the episode at all.

The New York Daily News encountered similar difficulties when it tried to track down the couple, leading it to speculate that the entire thing was a case of an urban legend reported as news:

When The News' Adam Nichols investigated the tale, he found strikingly similar ones earlier in the year, in Israel and Germany. When contacted, freelancer Paul Hardaker, who wrote the original story, would not give up his sources. "You see the same stories about parrots over and over, going back hundreds of years," explained urban legend expert David Mikkelson, who runs the Web site www.snopes.com. "I really have a hard time believing that there are that many people who are caught by parrots blurting out their lovers' names."

Whopper Hopper — It's good to see that people are still making whopper hopper photos. (via Daily Owned)

Dog Leaps From Overpass — Charles G. Jetchick was driving along, minding his own business, when suddenly a dog crashed through his window. It had fallen from an overpass. Police don't think it was thrown. Instead, they speculate the dog fell by accident while trying to avoid a car. The police officer commented: ""We've had rocks and other stuff like that fall off of overpasses. This would be the first dog we've had." The Anomalist, however, speculates that it might be another case of canine suicide... because like spontaneous human combustion, spontaneous canine suicide can strike at any time.

Mystery Cayman Fish — David Emery forwarded me the link to this creepy looking fish that washed up on the beach on Cayman Brac over the weekend. The local paper there is trying to figure out what in the heck it is:

It is roughly thirty inches long, more than half of which is a long, eel-like tail attached to a fish body. It has pale pink scales, pectoral fins, a dorsal fin and a small feathery fin on its belly. Local fishermen say they have not seen a creature quite like this before. It has boney bristles all along its spine, right down to the tip of its tail and small sharp teeth, which curve slightly inward.

If you have any idea, let them know. I assume it is a real fish. Kentaro Mori speculates that it's a deep-sea creature, like these. (Remember them? They're the fish that supposedly washed up on beaches after the Asian tsunami.)

Update: According to the Cayman Net News, in an article posted January 20, 2006, the mystery fish has been identified: "Croy McCoy, a research scientist at the Department of Environment, told Cayman Net News that, based on the description and photos provided, he believes the fish is a member of the Family Macrouridae (Coryphaenoididae), better known as grenadiers or rattails." (Thanks to Rswilson for posting this link in the comments. And let it be noted that Nemo was right.)

Flaming Mouse Burns Down House — Over in the forum, the 'flaming rodent of doom' thread discusses a story that was reported last weekend about a man who threw a mouse onto a pile of burning of leaves, only to have the mouse run out of the leaves and back at the house, setting the entire structure on fire. Served the guy right, most people thought. But the story also sounded a little too weird to be true. And sure enough, Charybdis just posted a link to an update (which I thought deserved a place here on the front page of the site) in which the guy whose house burned down swears that isn't what happened. He says the mouse was already dead when he threw it on the fire and the wind blew the flames towards his house:

Capt. Jim Lyssy of the Fort Sumner Fire Department said the rumor probably got started because there was "a little too much excitement" at the time of the fire. Mares lost everything -- and has no insurance -- but the mouse story still makes him smile. "I started laughing, and I'll be laughing from now on," he said. "It's silly."

Cyclops Kitten — Ichneutron sent me a link to this picture of Cy, the Cyclops Kitten on Yahoo Photos. According to the info on Yahoo, Cy was born in Redmond, Oregon, on Dec. 28, 2005 with only one eye and no nose. He lived for one day. The other cat in the litter (there were only two) was born normal. The photo is by Traci Allen. There's no reason to think the photo isn't real. The condition is known as Cyclopia. Messybeast.com gives this description of it:

The eyes are fused into a single enlarged eye that is placed below the nose (the nose may or may not form, if it forms it resembles a proboscis). Much of the face may be missing, such that the eye and proboscis (if present) are placed near the crown of the skull... Severe cases of cyclopia result in stillbirth or in death within a few hours of birth.

The four-eyed kitten, however, remains a hoax.

Update: I notice that quite a few people are calling hoax on this picture. But I'm keeping it listed as real. After all, it's a known form of mutation, and the photo has a source.

Update 2: And the photoshops of Cy have begun.


Update 3 (April 8, 2006): Cy's owner has sold him to the Lost Museum, a creationist museum opening soon in Phoenix, NY.

The Tempest Prognosticator (aka Leech Barometer) — Students of the history of meteorology may be aware of the Tempest Prognosticator of Dr. George Merryweather, but it was news to me. The Tempest Prognosticator was a device invented in the mid-nineteenth century that allowed the forecast of storms, via leeches. Apparently there's been some debate about whether this contraption actually existed, but author Paul Collins, on his blog, confirms that it did. In fact, it was displayed at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Here's how it worked:

The "Tempest Prognosticator" consisted of twelve pint bottles of white glass, round the base of a circular stand, at the top of which was a bell surrounded by twelve hammers. Each bottle was connected with one of the hammers through a metal tube in its neck, containing a piece of whalebone and a wire, to which was attached a small gilt chain. Here is the inventor’s description of how the Prognosticator works: "After having arranged this mouse trap contrivance, into each bottle was poured rain water, to the height of an inch and a half; and a leech placed in every bottle, which was to be its future residence; and when influenced by the electromagnetic state of the atmosphere a number of leeches ascended into the tubes; in doing which they dislodged the whalebone and caused the bell to ring."

Paul Collins also reports that some guy has built a working replica of the Prognsticator, and has it on display at the Barometer World Museum in Devon, England. No word on whether it actually worked.

Woman Marries Dolphin — A British woman has married a dolphin. The touching ceremony took place at Dolphin Reef in the Israeli port of Eilat (which is, I guess, where the dolphin lives). The dolphin is named Cindy, but despite the female name seems to be a male. (That would have made it even more unconventional if it was a gay interspecies marriage.) No word on where the couple plan to honeymoon. And one can only speculate on whether this marriage will ever be consummated.

This may be the first human/dolphin marriage, but I don't think it's the first interspecies marriage. After all, I've posted before about Marry Your Pet, the website that provides a marriage certificate to those who want to wed their beloved animal. As for weird weddings, the other example that comes to mind (besides Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson) is that woman who married a dead poet.

Fake Fox Hunts — Fox hunts on the day after Christmas (Boxing Day) are a British tradition. However, due to a recent ban on fox hunting, any (legal) hunts this year are going to have to be fake. Which has me a bit puzzled. What does a fake hunt involve? The UPI report, where I read about these fake fox hunts, simply says that:

Although banned, thousands of fox hunters in Britain took to the trails Monday on horseback for the annual Boxing Day hunt, some of them chasing only scent.

I assume they must be dragging a dead fox to leave its scent for the dogs. Or maybe they have spray bottles (eau de fox). But how does the hunt conclude? After riding around for a while, does everyone just go home? Or do they let the dogs find the dead fox? I wonder how the Free Church of Country Sports feels about fake fox hunts?

Are Santa’s Reindeer Female? (An update) — Last year there was some discussion on the site about the gender of Santa's reindeer. The theory (as stated in an email that was doing the rounds) is that Santa's reindeer all have to be female because male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, whereas female reindeer retain their antlers until the spring. Big Gary, who's wintering in Alaska, has sent along this photo of "a bull reindeer in Fairbanks, Alaska, this Wednesday, December 21, 2005," which pretty much settles the question of whether male reindeers can have their antlers in late December, around Christmas time. They obviously can. So Santa's reindeer could be male or female. Thanks, Gary.