Hoax Museum Blog: Photos

Fake Mandela Corpse Photo — On Thursday, an image purporting to be a death photo of Nelson Mandela began circulating online.


The photo — a greenish-tinged shot of Mandela with his eyes closed — was originally posted on twitter by someone with the username @nQOW_bee.

IOL news reported: "In between tweets about the sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial at FNB Stadium on Tuesday, which is her sexiest body part, and how she can’t stick to a healthy diet, she posted a picture of Mandela with the words 'He is resting'."

The image was soon retweeted, but in response to a massive negative response, the twitter user subsequently claimed that she hadn't taken the picture: "urgh suka! I did not take the pic"... it was "some Indian guy".

Subsequently @nQOW_bee's account was deleted.

By the end of the day, the "death photo" was revealed to be a falsely captioned image of Mandela closing his eyes during an ANC conference in Durban in July 1991. The original photo had been taken by photographer Trevor Samson for Agence France-Presse. The AFP posted the fake death photo and the original side-by-side for comparison.


Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2013.   Comments (0)

Cat Drinks From Bottle —

There's not a lot of info on where this photo comes from. It's listed on the website of the French National Library as having been created in 1911 by the "Agence Rol." photo agency. For 1911, it's a pretty good example of photo fakery.

Also included in the same series is "Cat peers through binoculars" and "cat looks through a telescope."




Found these over at retronaut.com.
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013.   Comments (0)

Soviet Pilot Flies Under Bridge, 1965 —

This image shows Soviet pilot Valentin Privalov flying a MiG-17 under the central span of the Communal Bridge over the River Ob in Novosibirsk on June 4, 1965.

The story goes (as much as I can piece it together) that Privalov did this on his own initiative, as a stunt. The shore of the river was filled with vacationers, among whom were officers from the district headquarters, when suddenly the MiG came roaring out of the sky. Afterwards the crowd spontaneously started to applaud, but Privalov's superiors weren't happy, and they suspended him. He was threatened with disciplinary action, but Secretary of Defense Marshal Malinovsky (perhaps swayed by positive public reaction to the stunt) allowed him to return to service.

The photo found its way onto the internet fairly recently. It first appeared on various Russian-language forums, and then on sites such as Reddit. Unfortunately, I can't find any site that provides an original source for the image. I'm guessing that it must have run in a Russian newspaper or magazine, sometime circa 1965.

The photo is obviously fake. The plane wouldn't have created such a huge plume of water. And how likely is it that someone would have managed to capture a picture of the scene at exactly the right moment? And if you look closely, you can see several people in the lower-right corner who have their backs turned to the bridge. In real life, the noise of the jet would have caused everyone to look in that direction.

But I'm guessing this image was never presented to the public as a real photo. It was a photographer's recreation of the event, and nothing more.

The better question is, did this stunt really happen? As far as I can tell, it did. The story is referenced on the Russian-language wikipedia page about the Communal Bridge in Novosibirsk. (It says that the event happened on June 3, not June 4, so there seems to be some disagreement about the dates.)

Also, I found a reference to the stunt in an American news-wire article dated Aug 29, 1965, which discusses a recent spate of hooliganism in Novosibirsk, including "a drunk who stole a streetcar," "an aircraft mechanic who went on a joyride up and down runways in an Ilyushin 4 transport," and "a stunt flier who flew under bridges."


Albuquerque Journal - Aug 29, 1965

I haven't been able to find any definitive info about Privalov's subsequent career. But I did come across a reference to a Valentin Privalov in the Feb 21, 1993 issue of Stars and Stripes. He was described as being "deputy head of Russia's civil aviation air traffic control center in Moscow." So it could well have been the same guy.
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013.   Comments (3)

World’s Largest Tortoise — The International Business Times reports that a "fake image" purporting to show the "world's largest tortoise" being transported on a flatbed truck has recently been circulating online.


I think it's been circulating for at least half a year, but it's not correct to call it a fake image. It's a still from Gamera The Brave (a 2006 Japanese monster movie) that has been falsely captioned. Here's another picture of the "world's largest tortoise" in action:


The question that popped into my head is whether the creature in the image is a tortoise or a turtle. The distinction between the two has always been a bit hazy in my mind.

According to diffen.com, tortoises live on land while turtles live in the water. But wikipedia notes that in North America it's common to use 'turtle' as a generic term for all reptiles of the chelonian order (i.e. turtles and tortoises get lumped together).

Gamera is commonly referred to as both a turtle and a tortoise. But since he walks on his back legs, flies, and breathes fire, it doesn't really seem important to get fussy about what kind of reptile he's classified as.
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013.   Comments (1)


Tornado Photo Fakery — When tornadoes struck the Midwest last week, some unusual photo fakes managed to get past the media fact-checkers who try to catch these things before publishing or broadcasting them.

The WTHR website posted a photo (submitted by an "iwitness contributor") that showed downtown Lafayette being threatened by both a fake tornado and a UFO. [jimromenesko.com]


The fake — with red arrow added by reporter Eric Weddle to show the UFO


The original

And Chicago CBS affiliate WBBM ran a tornado photo that included a small man-cow love sign photoshopped into the bottom-left corner. The photo itself actually showed a tornado in Oklahoma several months earlier. [deadspin]




Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013.   Comments (0)

Squirrel Rides Fawn —

This unusual photo ran in numerous papers in September 1963. I can't find a linkable example in the Google News Archive, but here it is in the Binghamton Press [PDF]. (A lot of examples of it come up in a search on newspaperarchive.com, but that's a paid archive, so I can't link to any of the results.)

The caption read:
All the animals are pretty tame at the Percy Pangborn Ranch above Lake Wenatchee in the foothills of Washington State's Cascade Mountains, Sept 14. 1963. A golden mantled ground squirrel chomps away on a nut as it rides around on the neck of a fawn.

The photo looks a little suspect to me. However, none of the papers it ran in raised any doubts about its veracity.

Back in the 60s, photo editors would often darken the outlines of figures in photos so that you could see them better when they ran in newspapers. To modern eyes, this can make "real" photos look manipulated. That might be the case with this photo. Perhaps the outline of the squirrel was darkened, which makes the squirrel look like it was pasted into the shot. But given the subject matter — a squirrel riding a fawn while eating a nut — I'm still suspicious.
Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2013.   Comments (0)

An Igorot With A Tail, 1925 — Here's a case of a fake "viral" image that made its way into the scientific literature back in 1925, demonstrating that the phenomenon of strange, doctored images circulating around existed long before the internet, although the internet certainly boosted the phenomenon to new levels.

The 1925 case:

In the fourth edition of his book I Believe in God and in Evolution, published in 1925, William Keen included a short account of "Human Beings With Tails":

Human Beings With Tails
The literature as to tails in human beings is extensive. Cases have been reported from every continent, and, including the United States, from almost every important nation in the world.

Virchow and Sir Arthur Keith, the distinguished Curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London, than whom there can be no better authorities, and other well known writers, refer to cases of genuine tails. Some of them contain no bones, but others have rudimentary vertebrae, with complete joints between them. The microscope also shows in some cases sufficient muscular fibers to have made the tails capable of movement.

These tails are continuations of the lowest vertebrae. The 'coccyx,' the usual termination of the spine, is the representative in man of these occasionally well developed tails. All of us have potential tails. In early embryonic life of man there is a well developed tail which, however, soon shrivels, leaving only the coccyx.

It is a very significant fact that the anthropoid apes, gorilla, chimpanzee, etc., like man, have also lost their tails. The monkeys, much more distant from man have retained their tails.

Keen then provided a photograph that showed a person with a tail.


A caption offered this explanation:

Photograph of an Igorot in the Bontoc Province of the Philippine Islands. It was taken early in 1925 by Mr. John Freeman, (Dr. Keen's grandson), whose guide and interpreter persuaded the man to be photographed. The tail is about five inches long. It also shows in the shadow.

But soon after publication, Keen sent a rather embarrassed "Correction" to the Journal Science (Apr 2, 1926). After noting that he still believed there were cases of humans with tails, he wrote:

The correction I wish to make is as follows: In my book "I Believe in God and in Evolution," I have included in the fourth edition a photograph of an Igorot with a tail, which I vouched for as I understood that it had been photographed by my own grandson, Mr. John Freeman.

A few days ago within a few hours of each other, I received letters from Dr. Ales Hrdlieka, of the division of physical anthropology of the National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, and Mrs. Ella F. Grove, who a year ago had been doing some work in the Philippines for the National Research Council. Both of these correspondents stated that the Bureau of Science in Manila had shown them the original of this photograph which showed that it was a fake photograph, the tail having been added to the original by a photographer, I suppose as a joke.

On communicating with my grandson I find that I misinterpreted his letter and that he did not photograph this Igorot.

My argument that human tails (of which I have shown there are very many undoubted instances) prove our animal ancestry is not in the least disproved by my having unfortunately used a photograph which further investigation has shown to be a fraud, for there are plenty of genuine tails.

My whole object is to state the truth, and when any statement I have made is proved to be wrong, I wish to be the very first person to disclose the error.

Dr. Hrdlieka adds "As to the occurrence of tails of course I am with you in every particular."

Apparently the Igorot people have long suffered from discrimination in the Philippines, which has included the claim that Igorots have tails. This photograph must have been one photographer's attempt to forge some evidence to back up this popular racist belief.
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2013.   Comments (2)

Giants Visit Old Lady —

The city government of Ningguo in eastern China's Anhui province has admitted that, yes, this photo, which was recently posted to its website, was digitally manipulated. It's supposed to show four officials paying a friendly visit to 103-year-old Cheng Yanchun. But now it's become the subject of widespread mockery, once people noticed the unusual size mismatch between the woman and the officials. (That small object in the lower left right of the photo is the woman.) Also, one of the officials appears to have lost his legs. The official explanation is that there was no room in the woman's apartment for everyone to pose together. So a staffer created this photo oddity. [Want China Times]
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013.   Comments (2)

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2013.   Comments (1)

A Brief History of Triple-Decker Buses — The first motorized double-decker buses were introduced in 1923, and it was only three years later, in 1926, that the first triple-decker bus went into operation, providing transportation to Berlin's Stettiner railway station.


The next significant date in multi-level buses came in 1954, with the introduction of the double-decker Routemaster bus, which, painted red, became an iconic sight in London. And, inevitably, triple-decker versions soon followed.


Nowadays triple-decker buses are becoming an increasingly common sight on highways and city streets, because they offer an efficient way to transport large numbers of people. And sightseers love them! For instance, in 2012, Intercity Coachlines introduced the first fleet of triple deckers in New Zealand. Many will also remember the modern-looking triple-deckers that eased traffic problems during the 2012 Olympics in London.








And let's not forget the gargantua of the bus world, the quadruple-decker. Rare, but occasionally seen!


The Reality
Okay, the truth is that all the pictures above (and the one video) are fake. The idea of triple-decker buses has long been a popular theme in photo fakery, but in real life such monsters would face serious instability problems, and be at risk of hitting trees and bridges. But that's not to say that there have never been real-life triple deckers. There have been. Just not many.

The first real triple-decker bus went into service in 1932, shuttling up to 88 passengers at a time between Rome and Tivoli. But as the picture of it below shows (from Popular Mechanics, 1932), the third level was only a small section at the rear of the bus.


In the 1950s, the General American Aerocoach Corporation sold a three-level bus [staleycoach.com]. Again, the third level was only a small section at the back.


The only real-life triple-decker bus that has looked anything like the photoshopped ones was the "Knight Bus" that appeared on screen in the 2004 movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It was created by special effects supervisor John Richardson and his team, who cut up two Routemaster buses and put them back together to create one bus with three decks. Although made for a movie, it was a real, working bus. It even went on tour. However, it didn't possess magical powers like the one in the movie. [Watford Observer]


(Image sources other than the ones already linked to: lunatictravel.com, worth1000, flickr)
Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2013.   Comments (0)

Red Rocks Amphitheatre Is Not Flooded — The flooding in Colorado has caused a lot of damage. However, the Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver is not one of the things underwater, despite what a picture that's been circulating online appears to show. [reverb.com]


This is just another example of how if a suitably dramatic picture of a natural disaster doesn't exist, people will invent one. Here's what Red Rocks looks like in its normal, unflooded condition:


Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2013.   Comments (0)

Sloth Family Portrait — Gapers Block offers the full story behind the famous "Sloth Family Portrait" revealing that yes, of course, the photo was intentionally staged. And no, it wasn't photoshopped in any way. And the sloth in the foreground was stuffed, not alive.

The story, summarized, is that the couple in the photo are Jim and Debbie Gallo, owners of Shangri-La Vintage, a Chicago vintage clothes store. They found the stuffed sloth at an estate sale in the early 1990s, bought it, and then thought it would be funny to dress up in tacky clothes and wigs and get their picture taken with it at the local K-Mart. The Sloth Family Portrait, and later internet fame, was the result.


Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013.   Comments (0)

The Beast of Trowbridge — A 71-year-old pensioner recently claimed to have caught a photo of the "Beast of Trowbridge" — a large black panther that supposedly roams wild in Wiltshire. The photo was genuine, but it wasn't taken in Wiltshire. Nor was the pensioner the photographer. Turns out it was actually taken in Lapeer County, Michigan and posted online six years ago. [mirror.co.uk]



Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2013.   Comments (1)

The Very Tall Bride —

The above picture has been doing the rounds in recent months, often with the caption "Very Tall Bride."

The bride in the photo is Allyssa DeHaan, a collegiate basketball player at Michigan State University from 2006 to 2010. In real life DeHaan is very tall — 6 ft 9in. So could this photo be real?

Well, no. When I first saw it, I thought perhaps she was standing on a box, perhaps for a gag photo. But some more investigation revealed her height in the photo is a result of good, old-fashioned photoshopping. The manipulation was done by a DeviantArt member going by the username lowerrider, who enjoys creating fantasy photos of giant women.

I found the original, unaltered photo of DeHaan at her wedding (below) over at Flickr.



Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013.   Comments (1)

Aliens among us? — File this under Low Threshold of Belief. Several Southeast Asian news sites have recently published photos that supposedly document the presence of "extra terrestrial beings" here on Earth. For instance, the Visayan Daily Star ran a picture (below) of "Emily Santodelsis" posing with a small alien. Strangely, she insisted that she hadn't noticed the alien while the picture was being taken. She only spotted it later, when she looked at the photo.


And back in January, the Bangkok Post ran a picture of an alien supposedly spotted on a beach in Thailand.


The Open Minds UFO investigation site explains that the appearance of these alien photos coincides with the addition of new special effects to the Camera360 app for Android phones. These special effects allow the easy addition of UFOs, extraterrestrials, or lightning to photos taken with the Android phone.
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013.   Comments (2)

The Ref Vanishes — Washington Post photographer Tracy Woodward won an Award of Excellence for his image "State Champion" that he entered in the 2013 White House News Photographers Association ‘Eyes of History’ stills photo contest in the Sports Feature/Reaction category. But Woodward's editors at the Post noticed that the image had been altered since the time when it had first appeared in the paper. Specifically, Woodward had deleted the referee standing in the background. (Although you can still faintly see the outline of his pants.) It is a better picture without the ref, but such a major alteration violated the rules of the contest. So Woodward's award was rescinded. [deadspin]

Check out the Hoax Photo Archive for other examples of photos with deleted details.


Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013.   Comments (3)

Watch For Falling Rocks! — Found on Facebook (via Not An Exact Science Show). The fact that there wouldn't be an English-language sign in a Russian-speaking area gives it away that it's fake, but it's a clever idea!


Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013.   Comments (2)

Bill Gates Money Giveaway — Below is a picture of Bill Gates that's been circulating on Facebook. Can anyone really believe they'll get $5000 if they share the photo? Or is it being shared as a joke? Since I'm feeling charitable, I'll believe the latter.


The picture is a doctored version of a picture posted by Gates during a recent AMA on reddit. Note that in addition to changing the sign he's holding, the reddit toy on the desk behind him has been replaced by what looks like a sex toy. (via David Emery)


Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013.   Comments (4)

Iran’s new stealth fighter flies (with help from photoshop) — The Iranian news website Khouz News recently posted a picture of Iran's new stealth fighter, the Qaher F313.


But The Atlantic Wire points out that the photo is actually a composite. The background is a photo of Mount Damavand from a stock-image site. The jet fighter was cut-and-pasted from a photo of what is apparently a plastic jet fighter (because it seems to lack exterior bolts or rivets) on display indoors.


In Iran's defense, the photo could have been intended as a kind of mock-up of what the plane would look like while flying. But given the Iranian military's past history of photoshopping, no one is cutting them much slack.

The Guardian suggests that the purpose of the photo was not to fool skeptical westerners, but rather to pull the wool over the eyes of the Iranian people by leading them to believe that their country is more technologically advanced than it really is.
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013.   Comments (1)

No smoking, drinking, skateboarding, dogs at mall —

Ipswich City councillor Andrew Antoniolli posted on facebook that this would be the new sign at the Ipswich Mall — warning people, in a visually economical way, of all the things they couldn't do there. A local radio station believed him, but it was actually just a joke image downloaded from the internet. No idea what the original source of the image was.
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013.   Comments (0)

Page 2 of 25 pages  < 1 2 3 4 >  Last ›