Hoax Museum Blog: Sports

World Record for Smoking — image True or False: Did Stefan Sigmond of Transylvania gain the world record for smoking by smoking 800 cigarettes in less than six minutes? If I hadn't seen the picture I wouldn't have believed it was possible, but apparently it is true, although I'm a bit wary about whether using this 'special wheel-like device' should really count. It doesn't seem like you would be fully smoking all the cigarettes. Anyway, I hate smoking, but I'd love to see someone whip out a device like this at a bar and start puffing away. (via RealityCarnival)
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005.   Comments (40)

Oversized Biceps — I wish these pictures were fake, but they appear to be real. They show bodybuilder Greg Valentine. He got his arms that big by injecting a combination of steroids directly into them. At the risk of being insensitive, I'd say the results look pretty gross. In fact, his biceps no longer look like real biceps at all. They look like strange tumors growing out of his arm. It's a wonder that his biceps are functional at all. (via ChrisDiClerico.com)
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Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005.   Comments (47)

Sky Tennis — image Here's a cool picture (click to enlarge) that's started going around. It looks totally fake, but it's real. It shows a tennis court that was laid out on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai last week. Playing on the court are Andre Agassi and Roger Federer. It was all just a publicity stunt. Regular guests aren't allowed to play on the helipad.
Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005.   Comments (16)

The Ancient Art of Yellow Bamboo — image Yellow Bamboo is a form of white magic/martial art developed in Bali. If you sign up to get the free Yellow Bamboo training video then "you can learn very powerful methods to protect yourself and others. If you watch the videos you will see that it is possible to knock down attackers without touching them. This is a very powerful form of personal development." Annoyed by these extravagant claims (particularly the one about being able to knock down opponents without touching them), some Jiu-Jitsu practitioners decided to challenge the local Yellow Bamboo masters to a test "to prove once and for all that no-touch or Chi knockouts are, and have always been, complete and utter bullshit." These were the guidelines for the test: "The YB practitioner assumes a stance on the sand and is given time to prepare his Chi in accordance with YB practices. The challenger then runs 20 feet across the sand and attacks the YB practitioner. As the challenger is making his run, the YB practitioner has to effectively disable or deflect him using his chi." Needless to say, the Yellow Bamboo people completely failed the test.

Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005.   Comments (80)


Cheerleader Toss — The cheerleader goes up, and comes down exactly through the basketball hoop. It seems like there has to be a trick to it somehow, though I can't figure out what the trick might be. As I watched the movie clip, I kept thinking 'what if her foot got caught in the net'. At the very least the net must be rigged so that it would rip away from the hoop if her foot were to catch it.
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004.   Comments (81)

The Leg Shocker — image The Leg Shocker is an add-on device for PlayStation 2, specifically for the games EA Sport's FIFA 2002 and FIFA World Cup 2002. Using this device allows you to feel the game, so to speak. It's a modified shin guard with a built-in hammer that bangs your shin if your virtual player on the screen gets tackled, tackles someone else, etc. There's a movie of the Leg Shocker in action. It's not clear to me if this is an actual working device, or just an art-project concept.
Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004.   Comments (8)

Cluster Ballooning — image Cluster Ballooning is air travel achieved by means of tying numerous helium balloons to yourself. I knew about Larry Walters' famous 1982 cluster balloon flight in which he took off from the LA area on a lawn chair tied to helium balloons, so I knew it was possible to do. But I didn't think that people did this regularly as a sport. Apparently they do. It actually looks like fun (the site has some great pictures).
Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004.   Comments (1)

Yale to Harvard: You Suck — image In a reworking of the Great Rose Bowl Hoax of 1961, Yale students, posing as members of the 'Harvard Pep Squad', managed to trick Harvard fans into holding up flip-cards reading 'WE SUCK' at the Harvard-Yale football game. I guess it's true that the great pranks never go out of style. (Thanks to Mormagli for giving me a heads up about this on the message board)

Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004.   Comments (5)

Cup Stacking — image I noticed this article about the sport of competitive Cup Stacking in today's issue of the San Diego Union Tribune. That would be plastic cups... stacked up... as a sport. All the internet research I've done indicates this isn't a hoax. The sport of Cup Stacking is real. For instance, here's the site of SpeedStacks.com, the leading manufacturer of cup stacking equipment. But still, I'm having a hard time getting my brain around the concept of it. Maybe it's the testimonials in the Union Trib article that are giving me a hard time. Check out what student Jason Counts says about cup stacking: "It changed my life. Before then, I was kind of going down the wrong path. Since I got into cup stacking, I've changed tremendously." Someone please tell me he's kidding.
Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004.   Comments (22)

Surf Rage — image Last week British journalists were all abuzz about the 'surf rage' phenomenon: vigilante Cornish surfers waging a kind of guerrilla war against out-of-town surfers. One group calling itself Locals Only! had a website in which it proclaimed it would use harassment and force to defend its surfing spots. But now a bunch of marketing and journalism students have declared that they invented the whole 'surf rage' concept to hoax the media (which, of course, willingly took the bait). The media is now backpedaling, admitting that the Locals Only! group may have been a hoax, but insisting that the surf rage phenomenon itself is real.
Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004.   Comments (2)

Man Lifts Planes, Elephants — Earlier this month 'spiritual teacher' Sri Chinmoy lifted a 5,322lb airplane off the ground. And the guy is 73 years old. I know there's got to be some trick here. How exactly did he lift that much weight? Was he using a lever of some kind? This weight-lifting success follows on the heels of a little 3,100 mile jog he and some of his followers did. Not a cross-country jog, mind you. No, they jogged around a city block in Jamaica, Queens. It took them seven weeks, running for 18 hours a day. The jogging I'm perfectly ready to believe. The weight-lifting, I'm not so sure about.
Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2004.   Comments (9)

Remote Control Hunting — image If you'd like to go hunting, but, for one reason or another, you don't want to get up from your computer, there's a new option available: remote control hunting. Live-shot.com is a site that allows its members to control, via the internet, a pan/tilt/zoom camera located on a ranch in Texas. The camera, in turn, is connected to a rifle. Aim your shot and fire away. Sounds a little odd, but I guess there's no reason a system like this couldn't be set up. But currently live-shot will only allow you to remotely fire a gun that's in a shooting range. But their site promises that in the near future they're going to allow members to remotely hunt animals such as sheep, antelope, and wild hogs. They'll even ship you the meat from your kill. I don't know quite how the remote control hunting will work (what if an animal never wanders within sight... will your gun somehow be mobile?), but the concept of it has the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission worried. They're considering a new regulation that would ban "hunting by remote control" (look at the second-to-last bullet point under 'white-tailed deer'). I think I'd support such a ban. The fusion of video games and real-life hunting seems a little disturbing.
Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004.   Comments (3)

Indecently Exposed Toothbrush — Jan Harold Brunvand calls it the "Indecent Exposure" urban legend. It involves a vacationing couple whose hotel room is broken into and robbed of everything save a toothbrush and a camera. When they get home and develop the film in the camera, they discover pictures of their toothbrush up the robber's rear end (to put it not so delicately). It appears that this urban legend has now served as the unfortunate inspiration for a prank that a New Zealand golfer played on his rival. As this article describes it:

The Dominion Post understands bad blood between teenagers Kauika and Aucklander Kevin Chun boiled over when a bare-bottomed Kauika misused Chun's toothbrush as a prop in a photograph allegedly snapped by Iles.

As punishment, Kauika and Brad were banned from representing New Zealand overseas until the end of the year.
Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004.   Comments (1)

Coffin Racing — image According to local legend in Manitou Springs, Colorado (legend that may or may not be true), a young woman named Emma Crawford was once buried at the top of nearby Red Mountain. But during a rain storm, her coffin came loose and raced down the side of the mountain. To commemorate this event, residents of the town now hold an annual coffin racing contest through the center of town. A few pictures from yesterday's race can be seen here. I'm not sure who won.
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004.   Comments (13)

Extreme Kidnapping — If you're searching for unusual thrills, why not try getting kidnapped? Extreme Kidnapping promises that it will allow you to "customize your own kidnapping!" Yup. For the right price, women in fishnet stockings will show up unannounced at your door, whisk you away, and keep you bound and gagged in their basement for a few days. As weird as this sounds, I actually think it's real, mainly because I've heard of this before. Back in 2002 a guy called Brock Enright was in the news for staging 'Designer Kidnappings'. Enright commented that even though all his abductions occurred in broad daylight, in front of witnesses, no one had ever intervened to help the faux victim. Everyone figured the abductions were fake because of the guy with a tv camera filming them (the faux victims like to have a video of their faux abduction). Which demonstrates the way to pull off a perfect crime in our society: just bring along a camera and no one will call the cops because they'll think you're filming a tv show.
Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004.   Comments (12)

Cow Manure Tossing — CNN reports that Oklahoma tourism officials have recalled about 200,000 brochures because they contain, among other things, "a photo of an event in which lumps of cow manure are thrown as a part of a contest in the town of Beaver, in western Oklahoma." The way the article described it, I wasn't sure if the cow-manure tossing was a joke that somehow made its way into the brochure, or if it was a serious event. But a quick google search reveals that it's real enough. Here are some photos of the event. I wonder if there's some kind of special trick involved in throwing a cow chip (does it fall apart easily?), or is it just like throwing a frisbee?
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004.   Comments (7)

Enormous Wave Video — image When I first saw this movie clip of a guy surfing a huge wave (windows media player file), I figured it had to be fake, especially since the wave just seems to get bigger and bigger as the camera pans out. But on second thought, I think it's real. Waves in Hawaii or Australia can get huge, and some of those surfers are insane enough to surf them. This clip seems to be footage from the surfing documentary Billabong Odyssey.
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004.   Comments (3)

The Perfect Moment — image Photographers strive to capture the perfect moment on film, and this comes about as close as any picture I've seen recently. The picture definitely looks real, though I don't know any details about it. When it was taken? Where? etc. (via J-Walk)
Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004.   Comments (15)

Seal-Hunting Tourism — Is Norway really going to start promoting seal-hunting tourism? Apparently it is, if this article in Aftenposten can be believed (and I don't see any reason not to believe it). Here in San Diego seals are treated pretty much like royalty, and seal-watching is a major tourist attraction, especially in La Jolla (advice for tourists: the seals at seal island are fun to watch, but they stink to high heaven). So the idea of shipping in tourists to hunt seals seems bizarre... a bit like organizing kitten-hunting expeditions (or raising kittens inside of glass jars). No word yet on whether Norwegians consider seal-hunting to be a religion, but I suppose that's next.
Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004.   Comments (33)

The Free Church of Country Sports — image The British government's decision to ban hunting is encountering stiff opposition from pro-hunting groups. While I was over there this issue was constantly on the news (especially when a group of hunting advocates managed to disrupt a session of the House of Commons). But now British hunting enthusiasts have adopted a novel defense of their pasttime. They've formed the Free Church of Country Sports, which is an ecumenical group that views hunting as a form of worship. Therefore, they claim, a ban on hunting would violate their religious rights. They're also arguing that a hunting ban would be racially discriminatory since, as this article puts it, "those who take part in country sports are sufficiently culturally different to be considered a social group with an ethnic identity." So far, the British government doesn't seem to be buying these arguments. But then, it was also slow to recognize Jedi-ism as a religion, wasn't it?
Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004.   Comments (3)

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