Hoax Museum Blog: Miscellaneous

Grovers Mill, New Jersey — So I managed to finish the first draft of my book the night before I flew to Virginia to spend the 4th of July weekend with my parents. And yesterday my wife and I started off on our driving tour of the east coast. Today we arrived in Grovers Mill, New Jersey (the first stop on our 'hoax tour'), where in 1938 Martians supposedly landed, thereby launching a mass panic throughout the United States. Here I am getting out of our rented car in Grovers Mill.
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The first thing we went to see was the War of the Worlds Memorial, located in a park in the center of town. To call Grovers Mill a town is actually a bit of an overstatement... a small collection of houses would be a more accurate description of it. To get to the memorial you have to walk across the park. As we did this we rapidly discovered that this park was home to more animal crap than any other park in the world. There literally wasn't a square foot of grass free of animal droppings. I think they were from deer. It was like navigating a minefield. Anyway, we finally arrived at the memorial safe and sound. Just behind the memorial is the scenic Grovers Mill Pond (note: sarcasm... the pond is like a stagnant wasteland).
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The next thing we wanted to see was the water tower that local residents had supposedly shot at, mistaking it for a martian. After a lot of searching, driving up and down the main road, we couldn't find it. So finally we asked the guy at the local auto parts/gardening store for directions. It turned out that the tower was right next door to the parts store, but you couldn't see it because trees had grown up all around it, totally concealing it. We had walked right past it. Apparently the man whose property it stands on doesn't like people coming to look at it, so he's allowed it to get grown over. You can only catch a small glimpse of it through the branches of the trees. The guy at the auto parts store told us that a photographer from the NY Times had been out there the week before to get a picture of the tower (because of the new War of the Worlds movie that just came out, and which I haven't seen yet), but he finally gave up, concluding that it was impossible to get a picture of it.
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So that was Grovers Mill. Tonight we're in Roxbury, in upstate New York. Tomorrow we head further upstate to see the Cardiff Giant in Cooperstown.
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005.   Comments (21)

Update About the Site and the Book — I thought I had reached a point where I was almost done with the book and would have more time to focus on the site again. Sadly, I was mistaken. It turned out that there was still a LOT left to do (clearing permissions for images, finishing a few chapters, editing, etc.). So that's why I haven't been posting much stuff lately. And I might as well admit that until July, I may not be able to post anything more because I really need to focus totally on the book. But come July, I have to be done, because my wife and I are going on vacation then (a long-planned vacation), and she's told me that I WILL NOT still be working on the book then, so that's pretty much an absolute deadline. So I should be able to resume posting then.

My wife and I will be doing a driving tour of hoaxes and wineries in the Northeastern U.S. After spending July 4 with my parents, we'll be driving up to Grovers Mill in New Jersey (where the Martians landed in 1938), then on up to Cooperstown, NY where the Cardiff Giant is. We'll next spend some time in the Niagara Falls area (visit some wineries in that region), then head over to Detroit where the fake Cardiff giant is. Next we drive to the Forevertron antigravity machine in Wisconsin, and finish up in Minneapolis where we're visiting family. Hopefully we'll also find lots of other interesting stuff along the way. I'm bringing along my laptop, so I should be able to post pictures of the trip as I go along (if I can find wireless internet connection along the way).

On another topic, after much debate my publisher and I have finally settled on a title for the book. My original title was the FAKE REALITY FIELD GUIDE, but that got canned because it was deemed not fun/quirky enough. So instead we've settled on HIPPO EATS DWARF: A FIELD GUIDE TO HOAXES AND OTHER FORMS OF B.S.

Hippo Eats Dwarf refers to the media hoax of the same name. We chose it basically because it's such a strange phrase, so it provides some indication that the book is full of strange things. I was a little worried that the dwarf (or 'little people') community would take offense, but I hope not. 'A field guide to hoaxes' is obvious. 'And other forms of b.s.' was settled on after a lot of discussion. The book is full of things that are kind of hoaxy, but not quite hoaxes: botox masks, Michael Jackson's nose, imaginary girlfriends, bizarre reality tv concepts, staged political events, etc. I was referring to all of this as 'fake reality', but my publisher convinced me that most people browsing books in a bookstore wouldn't know what that meant. So we settled on 'b.s.' instead because there seems to be a surge of interest in studies about b.s. (such as Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit, and Laura Penny's Your Call is Important To Us: The Truth About Bullshit). The marketing people at my publisher figured that 'b.s.' would better convey what I was talking about. Plus, it's funnier.

I'm still kind of fond of 'The Fake Reality Field Guide', but my publisher is probably right that not enough people would understand what I was referring to.
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005.   Comments (33)

Cottingley Fairy Copyright Question — image I have the good fortune of having a site that ranks relatively high in search engines. But this also means that I have the misfortune of easily attracting the attention of anyone out there who might object to something on my site, or who might want to claim that I'm infringing their copyright by my use of some material. So, in the past, I've had National Geographic threaten me, plus I've had complaints from the Time Travel Mutual Fund and the Human-Flavored Tofu Company (see below), among others.

Now the British Science and Society Picture Library has joined this list. They've sent me a cease-and-desist letter demanding that I either remove all images of the Cottingley Fairies from my site, or pay them a licensing fee for their use.

This raises an interesting legal question. The Cottingley Fairy images were taken in 1917 and published (in England) in 1920. They were also published in America. The earliest American publication of them that I'm aware of is the American edition of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Coming of the Fairies (George H. Doran Co., New York, 1922).

U.S. law states that everything published in America before 1923 is now in the public domain. Therefore, in America the Cottingley fairy images are in the public domain. But the law in the U.K. is that the images remain under copyright for 70 years after the death of the photographer. The two women who took the images died in the 1980s, so the images will remain copyrighted in Britain until around 2050.

So do the British copyrights have any legal status in America? I'm not sure. The closest parallel I can find is the case of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, which is copyrighted in the UK, but is in the public domain in the US. Efforts to enforce the UK copyrights in America have not been successful. When Project Gutenberg made the text of Peter Pan freely available on its site, it simply added a disclaimer noting that the text was public domain in the U.S., but not elsewhere.

So for now I'm telling the Science and Society Picture Library that the images are remaining exactly where they are. I've already traded five or six emails with them about this, and they don't seem willing to give up their claim. But I don't think they have a valid case, so I'm not budging.
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005.   Comments (44)

Wanted: Contest Ideas — image A new book about hoaxes has just come out. A Treasury of Deception: Liars, Misleaders, Hoodwinkers, and the Extraordinary True Stories of History's Greatest Hoaxes, Fakes, and Frauds by Michael Farquhar. The publisher (Penguin) sent me a free copy to help promote the book--which means that we get to have another book give-away contest! The winner gets the book. However, I can't think of a good contest to have (my brain is just too tired right now). I'm inclined to do another urban-legend/hoax haiku contest, since that was pretty fun last time. However, I thought I'd take suggestions first. If anyone can think of a fun contest, leave your suggestion in the comments. Otherwise, in about a week, I'll do another hoax haiku thing.
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005.   Comments (45)


I’m Back — I haven't posted for a couple of days. I was just too busy. I had to turn in something to my editor by June 1 (today), which I managed to do. So I've had a few late nights in the past week. Anyway, I now should have more time for the site again, though I'm not completely done with the book yet. I still have a few more chapters, but they're relatively easy ones.
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005.   Comments (18)

NPR Radio Show — Tomorrow (May 26) I'm going to be a guest on an NPR show, Odyssey, which is broadcast out of Chicago. Not that I'm going all the way to Chicago for the show. I'll be in the NPR studios in San Diego. The topic of the show will be "Falling for Hoaxes": From Piltdown Man to crop circles, history is littered with hoaxes that have grabbed headlines and fooled the public. So why do we keep falling for them? (my answer: because we're idiots!)

The other guest will be a historian from UC Davis, Michael Saler. The two of us will be having a discussion with the host, Gretchen Helfrich, and we'll take questions from callers at the end of the show (from what I understand). I've been getting quite a lot of media attention lately, what with being on the Paula Zahn show a week or two ago. I have the Runaway Bride to thank for it all. Anyway, the show will be on at noon Chicago time, if you want to listen. But not all NPR affiliates carry the show.
Posted: Wed May 25, 2005.   Comments (11)

Light Posting Ahead — I haven't been posting as much to the site lately. That's because the deadline for turning in the manuscript for my next book is fast approaching. It's due in about two weeks, so posting in the near future will probably be even lighter. I'm finding it hard to focus on the book and the site at the same time, so the site temporarily has to go on auto-pilot. But I'm not going to disappear entirely. There will be scattered posts. I just can't promise that they'll appear regularly.
Posted: Mon May 23, 2005.   Comments (5)

Photos of the Museum of Hoaxes — Some of you have asked about the images of the Museum that appeared in the piece on CNN. They were created by Eric Schucard of Carlsbad, CA about a month ago (he was hoping I could get USA Today to run them, but no such luck). I've uploaded them so everyone can check them out. At some point (when I'm done with the book) I'll redesign my 'About the Museum' page to incorporate them.
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2005.   Comments (5)

Paula Zahn Tonight — If you watch the Paula Zahn Show on CNN tonight (monday, May 2) you'll see an interesting guest: Me! They wanted someone who could blab on about hoaxes for a couple of minutes, so I fit the part. I didn't get to speak to Paula herself. In fact, I was actually looking at the wall during the entire interview while speaking to a reporter on speakerphone. It airs 8-9pm Eastern time, and 5-6pm Pacific. I think they're going to have a segment about 2 minutes long in which they're interviewing me.
Posted: Mon May 02, 2005.   Comments (30)

April Fool’s Day Effect — The site seems to be loading very slowly today, and a few people have reported not being able to access it at all. This is the beginning of the April Fool's Day effect. Traffic to the site increases and causes the performance of the site to nosedive. I'm guessing this will last until April 2nd. There's absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005.   Comments (10)

Getting Ready for April Fools Day — April Fool's Day is usually the day when this site gets the most visitors. In the past this has caused the site to crash... so if nothing on the site seems to be working on April 1st, it's not me playing a prank. It's just the server melting down. Though hopefully that won't happen this year since I upgraded to a better server.

April Fool's Day is also a time when this site gets some media attention (because I don't think any other site on the web has as much info about April Fools). Big Gary told me he saw something about the site a few days ago in the Dallas Morning News (aka the Boring Snooze). I also did an interview with Andrew Jacobs of the NY Times this morning. His article should appear in the Times on Thursday or Friday. The Times of India is publishing a summary of the top 5 of my Top 100 April Fools. The Toledo Blade will have an article about the site (that includes a picture of me) on Friday. Family Circle Magazine was supposed to have something about the site in their April issue, but I haven't heard from them in a few months so I don't know what became of that (and I don't read Family Circle so maybe it is there and I don't know about it). Finally, I did a one-hour radio interview last night with Morgan White, Jr. on WBZ radio (out of Boston), and I'll be on BBC Radio on April 1st (4 pm London Time) being interviewed by Vanessa Feltz.

Oh, and then there's the off chance something might appear in USA Today, though I have no idea what (I'm very curious to see if they do print anything). That's all the stuff I know about, but sometimes papers print things about the site without telling me (like the Dallas Morning News did), so there may be more.
Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005.   Comments (19)

USA Today Photo Request — I just received this request from USA Today. I'm not sure how to respond to it. Any suggestions?

Hello,
We are doing a story on 10 great places that have fools in their name. Do
you have any handout photographs of the exterior or interior of the museum?
Thanks so much,
Life Picture Desk
USA TODAY

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005.   Comments (48)

Lie Detector — You may have read his posts here as Cranky Media Guy, but in real life he's also known as Bob Pagani, and he's going to be on TV in a few days. Here's the info, straight from the horse's mouth:

I just got information about when the TV show I taped back in November in L.A. will air. The show is Lie Detector and it will air on March 8th at 9 PM on the Pax network.

They put me through a lie detector test (as the show's name implies) and you'll see my reaction as I'm told the results of the test on the air. I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement so I can't tell you how the test comes out; you'll just have to watch to see, I guess.

It wasn't the first episode they taped but it's going to be the first one aired for this series. That's usually a sign that the producers think that it's a good show; they want to air one they think is strong first so that viewers will come back next week.


Congratulations, Bob. Unfortunately I don't seem to get Pax TV on my cable network here in San Diego. So you'll have to let me know what happened with the lie detector test after the show airs.
Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2005.   Comments (22)

Raising Money for the Foundation Fighting Blindness — image The following has nothing to do with hoaxes. It's a public service announcement:

UC San Diego grad student Jeff Butterworth and his girlfriend A.K. Basenberg are going to be bicycling across America this summer to help spread awareness of retinal diseases such as Retinitis Pigmentosa, Macular Degeneration, and Usher Syndrome. They'll be starting off in Yorktown, Virginia and ending up in Oregon, and they're hoping to use their journey to help raise $15,000 for the Foundation Fighting Blindness. So donate some money to help them reach their goal. All donations go directly to the FFB. Read more about the trip and what inspired it on Jeff's website (this is also where you'll find the link to donate). It's a good cause so I promised I would do whatever I could to help by plugging it here on my site (and I'll be putting a link to his site in a sidebar). Even if you don't feel like pledging any money, check out his site to learn a little bit about what the FFB does. The FFB also has a brief blurb about Jeff and A.K.'s upcoming trip on its site.
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005.   Comments (4)

Back Again… — Looks like the site is back... at last. I'm definitely not going to change servers again in a hurry. Uploading files, checking folder permissions, and trying to understand how to get a mysql database to do what I want it to do is not my idea of fun. Anyway, everything on the site seems to be functioning, except for the forum. Go figure. Something had to break during the move. The pages for each individual topic in the forum are working, but the main page for the forum itself won't load. I have no idea why not, and I'm too tired to worry about it right now.
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005.   Comments (9)

Museum of Hoaxes is Moving — The Museum of Hoaxes will soon be moving to a new home at a different web hosting company (pMachine hosting). This may cause a slight disruption in service (fewer posts) over the following week as I make the switch. At the very least it might mean that the site will temporarily be at a new url (one of those urls that are just a string of numbers) until the internet domain name servers reassign museumofhoaxes.com to the new web host.

The reason for the move is that over the past few days all of the server-intensive functions of the site (such as being able to post and edit entries) froze up, apparently because of increased traffic. I'm not sure what the cause of the traffic spike was. Looking at my referrer logs it seems that the vast majority of the traffic is coming from the google and yahoo search engines.

Anyway, the server couldn't handle the load... or rather my web host restricted the amount of server queries my site could make, so that my site wouldn't hog the server's cpu... which meant I suddenly was having trouble posting entries. It all gets a bit technical. The long and short of it is that the site has evidently outgrown the server it was on, so it's time to move to something a bit more robust.

I'll keep everyone posted about how the move is going.

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005.   Comments (10)

My Strangest Gift — Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it. I'm not at home this Christmas. Instead I'm in Phoenix, Arizona. So having now received (I think) almost all of my gifts, I'd have to say that the strangest one I got this year was Elephant Dung Paper from Malawi. It says on the info that comes with the paper that "The elephant dung is first collected from Liwonde National Park and then beaten and mixed with recycled waste paper to produce the pulp from which it is made." It actually looks like very high quality paper (in case you're wondering). Of course, I still have to go over to my Great Aunt's house (she's the one who's into all the alternative medicine stuff), so I may yet get a stranger gift. She has, in fact, already promised to channel my Reiki energy while I'm there.
Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2004.   Comments (12)

The Top Hoaxes of 2004 — I've created a year-end list of the top hoaxes of 2004. Actually, I've chosen ten hoaxes that I think might be worthy of making the list (my basic criteria was the hoaxes that received the most media and public attention), but I haven't ranked them yet. Instead, I'm opening it up to voting. I think that's a more democratic way of doing it. Check out the list and vote here.



Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004.   Comments (0)

Praise from the Guardian — There was a very nice blurb in today's issue of The Guardian about the Museum of Hoaxes. Does this mean I can now tell my mother that I'm famous?


Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004.   Comments (10)

UK Paperback Edition — image The UK publisher of the Museum of Hoaxes just sent me a picture of what the paperback edition of the book will look like when it comes out over there (click image for a larger version). It looks quite colorful and fun. But I'm especially proud of the fact that it has a picture of Hamster Viagra right at the top of it. Nothing says quality non-fiction quite like Hamster Viagra. As for why the UK edition says 'edited by Alex Boese' instead of just 'by Alex Boese,' I have no idea. I'm trying to find out why.
Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2004.   Comments (14)

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