Hoax Museum Blog: Paranormal

Zombies Crash San Diego Wedding — Imagine this scenario. It's your wedding day. You've been planning for it for months. It's cost you thousands of dollars, but finally the big day has arrived and the entire wedding party is gathered in San Diego's beautiful Balboa Park -- the guests, the caterers, the photographer... and the zombies?

Balboa Park is an extremely popular spot for weddings. In fact, it's where Beverley and I got married five years ago, but it's also completely open to the public. Usually this is no problem. But it became an issue last month when Balboa Park served as the location for San Diego's first-ever zombie walk.

Hundreds of people dressed up as blood-spattered zombies lurched and staggered through the park. It was supposed to be a wacky, flash-mob type event. But the people having weddings there didn't think it was funny. Witness this angry letter-to-the-editor that Glenda Wiederkehr wrote in to the San Diego Union-Tribune: However, Jennifer Griffith, the organizer of the zombie walk, has denied that any zombies dragged themselves through the wedding. She writes: Personally, I would have loved it if zombies had shown up at my wedding, but then, not everyone shares my appreciation for the odd. I can understand that many people would not include zombies in their idea of a dream wedding.

Chinese man cooks fish with his bare hands, cures arthritis — I guess with over one billion people, it's inevitable that China would produce its share of kooks, quacks and crazies. This 71-year-old man who claims to let 220 volts flow through his body as a form of exercise and says he can cook fish in his bare hands in two minutes fits into at least two of those categories. Oh, he can cure arthritis, too. I just upped him to all three categories.

Chinese man cures arthritis with electricity

The Courthouse Light Blob — Last week a security camera at a New Mexico courthouse caught an image of a mysterious blob of light seeming to float around the parking lot. This has already been posted and discussed in the forum. And for those who haven't yet seen the video, here it is:



The new news about the blob is that Ben Radford of Skeptical Inquirer magazine visited the courthouse today (Wednesday) in an attempt to shed some light on the mystery. NewMexican.com reports: The last time I saw Ben was when I visited him at the offices of Skeptical Inquirer in Buffalo, New York. I'm quite jealous that he actually has a ghost-busting kit and is getting to do an on-site investigation of something hoaxy. Why can't these things ever happen in San Diego?

Anyway, Ben concluded that the strange floating light was probably "a piece of tree fluff or a spider or insect crawling across the camera lens." The insect explanation seems like the likeliest one to me.

Mayor Appears on Tree — Donald Stephens, Mayor of Rosemont in Illinois for fifty-one years, died on April 18. But now he's come back. On a tree. The Chicago Tribune reports that: I find it amazing that people think it's the late mayor and not Jesus. Though, according to the article, some observers did initially think it resembled Jesus. Apparently, to really see the resemblance, you need to stand inside the health club and look out at the tree through the glass doors. And probably having a couple shots of whisky doesn't hurt either. (Thanks, Joe)

Best of the Forum – 1st June 07 —
Botched Fax Prompts “Terrorism” Scare (MadCarlotta)
Police shut down a strip mall in Boston on Wednesday after a branch of Bank of America received a faulty fax. The fax, which had been sent out by the bank's corporate office, had left off some of the text, leaving some dubious clip art. The plaza was evacuated for around three hours.

Roswell Theme Park (Madmouse)
Roswell city officials plan a UFO-themed amusement park that could open as early as 2010. Local shopkeepers base a large proportion of their trade around the UFO craze, and believe that the theme park would give tourists more to do whilst visiting.

Dutch Reality Show: Win This Person’s Kidney! (Slender Loris)
Earlier this week, Dutch TV station BNN announced their latest reality show. The premise was that a woman who had been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour would choose which of three contestants to donate a kidney to before she died. The Big Donor Show immediately sparked international furore, with mixed attitudes towards the show's concept. Today, it was revealed that the show was a hoax. Whilst it still aired, the woman playing the potential donor was perfectly healthy and, although the three contestants were in need of replacement kidneys, they were fully aware of the show's real premise. The show was aired and advertised as it was to draw attention to the shortage of donor organs in the Netherlands. Judging from the international coverage, they succeeded.

Japanese Ghost Girl (Boo)
Youtube hosts yet another unconvincing 'ghost' video. Look for the point where the special effects kick in.

Car made of cake (Nettie)
Photos of a Skoda advertisement wherein they make a whole car from cake.

An intriguing and mysterious website (Beasjt's number is 669)
Can you decipher the code?

Psychic Photographer Takes Pictures of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson — Jon-Erik Beckjord has taken photographs that show images of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson, as well as OJ Simpson, he claims. The photos were taken at the scene of the murders, and Beckjord believes that the images are an accusation from beyond the grave. He says that the photographs show OJ's face alongside those he was acquitted of murdering, and his theory is that the spirits of Goldman and Simpson are making a statement.

Beckjord is a keen observer of the strange. "He acts as perhaps a psychic “lightening rod” for anomalies, since he has filmed Nessie, filmed UFOs at Area 51, photographed strange beings in crop circles and also has recently photographed a ten foot tall Bigfoot in the Sierras."

UPDATE: Chuck has noted that Beckjord is selling these images on ebay for a minimum bid of $100, 000. I can't see anyone paying that much for fuzzy images that can be barely be interpreted as faces at all, let alone any specific faces.

Quick Links: Liberated Gnomes, Robocalls, etc. —
Gnome Liberation Front Strikes Again
On Nov. 1 79 garden gnomes were liberated by the Garden Gnome Liberation Front in France. The gnomes were later found along the bank of a stream "in some underbrush with a banner that read, 'gnome mistreated, gnome liberated.'"

Fake Priests in Japan
The BBC has an article about the growing popularity of using fake priests at Japanese weddings: "The fake Western priests are employed at Western-style weddings to give a performance and add to the atmosphere. These are not legal ceremonies - the couples also have to make a trip to the local registrar." Apparently it's becoming quite a big business. I also wrote about this in Hippo Eats Dwarf, so it's not exactly new news.

New Kidney Turning Man into his Wife
Ian Gammons received a kidney transplant from his wife. Now he claims that the kidney is slowly causing him to adopt her personality traits: "Now the 51-year-old Briton is never happier than when baking scones or "wandering round the shops and looking for bargains", he says. He has even begun to share his wife's love of dogs, an animal he despised before receiving the kidney a year ago."

Uri Geller Claims Remote Viewing Helped US Find Hussein
Of course, we all know how credible Uri Geller is, so when he says something like this it immediately commands our respect. Remember his appearance on the Tonight Show?

New Political Dirty Trick: Robocalls
The GOP is being accused of making robocalls: tape-recorded phone messages that appear to be made by their Democratic rivals. The strategy is to make voters so disgusted by getting all these automated calls, often receiving them late at night, that they'll decide to switch their vote to the candidate not making those calls, i.e. the GOP.

Quick Links: Fake Bill Bills, Vampire Teeth, etc. —
Fake Bill
Man arrested for trying to pass a fake "Bill" bill: "The bill was unmistakably fake due to the fact that the ink was running on the bill, the president's face was missing and for the president's name, it had the name Clinton on it," said Deputy Nathan Stephens. About time a Clinton bill has surfaced. We've already seen too many of those phony Bush Bills.

Case of the Inhaled Vampire Tooth
Because of Halloween this news story has been going around. Back in 1995 Josh Anderson accidentally inhaled a fake vampire tooth. But doctors couldn't find anything. Sixteen years later "A bronchoscopy produced a mass of granulated tissue surrounding a perfectly intact vampire tooth, about as long as a thumbnail."

Pop Culture is Home of Hoaxes
The Sacramento Bee ran an article about hoaxes, in honor of Halloween, and called me up for a quick phone interview. The article requires registration, but here's the part where I'm featured: "Our attention span is small because there's such a mass of information available." Alex Boese, author of "Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes," agrees. "(Mass media) makes this a ripe time for getting fooled," Boese says, on the phone recently from San Diego. The good news? Mass media "also makes it easier for us to debunk (hoaxes)," he says.

Spooky Lens Aberration
From a Worth1000 thread: A friend of mine took this photo whilst walking through a wooded area in Scotland recently. No, there was no mist or smoke around. Anyone out there got any logical explanation for the misty visage in the bottom left? (Thanks, Kathy)

Freshman 15 is real
According to the legend of the Freshman 15, college students typically gain 15 pounds during their first year. Brown University researchers have now determined that this is almost true: "According to research presented last week, the "freshman 15" might be more real than previously thought -- although the actual weight gained by freshman is more likely to be between five and 10 pounds." By the time I graduated from college I had gained almost 30 pounds. I went from 170 to 200. But I lost the weight pretty quickly.

Quick Links: Chris De Burgh, etc. —
Chris De Burgh, Miracle Healer
Pop singer Chris De Burgh supposedly cures a woman's paralyzed arm by laying on his "healing hands." I had no idea who he even was when I first saw this. But I googled him and found out he's the guy who sings "Lady In Red." There's already a Church of Tom Jones. So why not a Church of Chris De Burgh?

Doll Experience Rooms
Apparently these are the hot new thing at Korean brothels. "A 'doll experience room' is a place punters rent for some W25,000(US$1=W958) an hour, a fee that includes a bed, a computer, and an inflatable sex doll."

$60 Champagne gets relabeled and sold for $300
Hoping to address a need in the hip-hop market for "bling" champagne, Cattier puts $60 "Antique Gold" in a flashier bottle and sells it for $300 as "Armand de Brignac" with the help of rapper Jay-Z. (Thanks, Joe)

Pelican Swallows Pigeon
Not a hoax. Just odd. What happened: "the bird got up and strolled along until it reached one of the pigeons, which it just grabbed in its beak. There was a bit of a struggle for about 20 minutes, with all these people watching. The pelican only opened its mouth a couple of times. Then it managed to get the pigeon to go head first down its throat. It was kicking and flapping the whole way down." This news story inspired blogger Faye Williams to create a list of the Top 10 I’ve Got Eyes Bigger Than My Belly stories.

RIP: Pink Flamingo, 1957-2006
Union Products of Leominster, Massachusetts, is scheduled to close its doors on November 1. It's apparently the only maker of pink flamingoes in America. It's being forced to close due to "increases in costs of electricity and plastic resin." Does this mean pink flamingoes will never again congregate on the front lawn of UW-Madison?

Quick Links: Bear Hunting, etc. —
Spanish King Shoots Drunk Bear
When the Spanish King visited Russia recently he was taken on a bear hunt. But apparently "hunt organizers, keen to make the King of Spain's chances of killing a bear easier, provided a tame one drunk on vodka." Sad. But the last paragraph of the story is even more pathetic: "Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had trouble with his aim in his later years. Some of the animals he liked to stalk were either tied to trees or plied with booze." (Thanks, Big Gary)

Ich Vergessen
Here's an urban legend I'd never heard before: "German immigrants arriving at Ellis Island were asked their names, and might respond 'Ich vergessen,' meaning 'I forgot,' if they couldn't understand English. The officials would then mark down that the name was 'Ferguson.'" This doesn't make any sense to me at all. The German and English words for 'name' are almost identical, so I think German immigrants in particular would be able to understand a request for their name. But even if they didn't, why would they respond 'I forget'?

Top 10 Best Ghost Photographs Ever
The Brown Lady of Raynham comes in at #10. (Thanks, Kathy)

Quick Links: Milk-Sipping Idols, etc. —
Milk-Sipping Stone Idols
Hindus in Uttar Pradesh have been enthusiastically pouring milk on stone idols, encouraged by a rumor that the idols were "sipping" the milk. Experts have dismissed the "milk-sipping" phenomenon as a hoax: "Lucknow University Geology professor M.P. Singh said: 'It is very natural for any stone idol to absorb any liquid - and the older the stone, the more it absorbs.' V.K. Singh of King George's Medical University here termed it as 'nothing other than capillary action'."

Women Strip Naked For Rain Gods
Nepal is desperate for rain, and so Nepali women are taking drastic rain. They're stripping naked and ploughing fields. They figure this should appease the gods and bring rain. Lubbock, Texas should take note.

Prayer Antenna
Need some help getting God to listen to your prayers? Try the prayer antenna, created by artist Paul Davies. Results, I assume, are not guaranteed. (via Cynical-C)


Haunting As Grounds For Divorce
Madam Tan of Singapore claims that her husband is causing evil spirits to haunt her in order to get her to divorce him. Lawyers say she may actually have a case against him: "Whether or not the flat is haunted, if Madam Tan can prove that her husband's actions relating to the occult are threatening and intended to cause her harassment, alarm or distress, she can sue him under Section 13A of the Miscellaneous Offences Act."

Black Eyed Kids (BEK) — Reports of BEK phenomena are becoming increasingly widespread on the net.
Stories about these creepy adolescents with entirely black eyes and a threatening manner have been cropping up in first-person reports ever more frequently since 1998, when journalist Brian Bethel first wrote about his experience with BEKs.

These accounts follow a regular pattern:
Seemingly, they repeatedly ask to be let in, and often mention that they must be invited. None of the reports I have found deal with what happens if someone is persuaded...

So who (or what) are they? Providing you believe the stories, current theories span everything from ghosts and vampires to aliens or pranksters.

The Baby Mind Reader — This week Channel Five in the UK will begin airing a documentary about Derek Ogilvie, a guy who claims to be a "Baby Mind Reader." That's right, he can read the minds of infants and tell desperate parents why their little darlings won't sleep, or why they're fussy about eating, or why they cry all the time, etc., etc. The Scotsman has a pretty sympathetic article about him, describing him as a "respected Scottish medium." The Sunday Times, however, rakes him over the coals much more, pointing out that: Ogilvie says that he understands people are skeptical of his claims, but that he's willing to submit himself to rigorous scientific scrutiny to prove his abilities. Yeah, I've heard that before. Psychics and other charlatans say this all the time, but if they ever actually submit themselves to any tests and then fail them (as they inevitably do) they're full of all kinds of excuses: "The negative energy of the researcher blocked my powers," etc.

BadPsychics.co.uk has examined some tapes of Ogilvie in action and concludes that he's simply cold reading (i.e. throwing out random guesses in the hope that some of them will strike gold). They write that: "It is bad enough to take advantage of grieving people for your own gain, but to take advantage of children and a Mothers love for her children, both dead and alive, is a whole new level of evil." (Thanks to Kathy for the heads up about Ogilvie.)

The Case of the Ghostly Pigeon — For the past month villagers in West Bengal have been terrorized by a ghost that took the form of a floating skull with fiery red eyes. A number of people have suffered scratch marks when attacked by this ghost. Now police have taken a suspect into custody, "A pigeon with a miniature plastic skull dangling around its neck and with glowing red bulbs in the eye sockets." The police don't know who outfitted the pigeon in this way, but suspect that their sole motive was to create a panic. In other words, it was a random prankster. However, the cause of the scratch marks remains undetermined. Also, demonstrating how unreliable eyewitnesses can be, police noted that "people had described the ghost variously as a man and a monkey." Which recalls the Winsted Wild Man panic in Connecticut over 100 years ago, in which witnesses swore they had seen a (nonexistent) wild man sporting tusks and as large as a gorilla.

George Lutz, RIP — George Lutz of Amityville Horror fame has given up the ghost. He died of a heart attack in Las Vegas on May 8. George and his family lived in the house in Amityville, New York for four weeks in 1975 before supposedly being driven out of it by repeated paranormal occurrences (weird sounds and voices, green slime dripping from the ceiling, etc.) They left the house in a hurry, but weren't so scared that they weren't able to return and hold a garage sale. Personally I think the Amityville Horror story is complete baloney, but reportedly George Lutz always swore what happened was real. But then, he had so much invested in the tale (both emotionally and financially) that he would swear it was real. (Thanks to Joe for the link.)

Ann Arbor Fairy Doors — Fairy Doors are popping up around Ann Arbor, Michigan. No one knows who's building them. They just mysteriously appear. The Washington Post reports:

The entryways are Thumbelina small and are so subtle and incongruent that they're easy to overlook -- or dismiss. At first glance, you might mistake one of the eight doors for an electric socket or a mismatched brick. But look closely and you'll see evidence that, yes indeed, something very little could live in there.

One Ann Arbor resident speculates that the fairies are moving into Ann Arbor because they're being displaced from their rural homes by urban sprawl: "Searching for a new domicile, the winged ones -- who count among their relations the Tooth Fairy and Tinkerbell-- ventured into Ann Arbor... Wright surmised that, liking what they saw, they decided to uproot to specific addresses amenable to fairies." So how long before we get photographs of the Ann Arbor fairies?

Portable Ghost Detector — A Japanese company is selling a portable ghost detector that fits on a keychain. I can't really understand the machine-translated text, but it looks like the detector glows red in the presence of a ghost, and glows blue otherwise. It costs 2,079 Yen, which is about $18. Not too bad. Compare this to the ghost detectors sold by Abate Electronics which start at $93 (and they don't even fit on your keychain!). It goes without saying that I'm sure these things have been rigorously tested to conform to the highest scientific standards. (via OhGizmo)

Global Spell Casting Day — An organization named witchschool.com has announced that on May 5th, 2006 an experiment in global spell casting will take place:

Hundreds of participants around the world will focus their energy to manifest love, peace, prosperity and hope for the world. With this unified act of will, they anticipate that magic energy will fill people with personal power and create events that will lead to a better world. "We need no longer wait to see if magic is real or not", according to Ed Hubbard, CEO of Witch School, "We can test it through such global experiments, but instead of looking for data, I am looking forward to hearing the experiences people will have through this day of divine manifestation. I believe it will move the way we think about the world and how it works."

I am sure that this will have about as much effect as Not One Damn Dime Day or World Jump Day.

Ghosts at Roadblocks — I've come across two different videos on Youtube that show night scenes of roadblocks in Singapore. I don't have that much information about either video, but stylistically and thematically they're very similar (and very low quality). People are clowning around at a roadblock in the middle of the night, when suddenly (at the end of each video) they see a ghostly white figure. Screaming ensues. (Warning, in case you're watching these at work: The one on the right contains some cursing.)

The caption on the first video (on the left) identifies the ghost as the "pontianak". Wikipedia defines the pontianak as: a type of vampire in Malay folklore. The pontianak is usually a woman who died during childbirth and becomes undead, seeking revenge and terrorizing villages. She often appears as a beautiful woman, usually accompanied by the strong scent of frangipani. Men who are not wary will be killed when she morphs into a hideous vampire, she will also eat babies and harm pregnant women.

Wikipedia also links to a paper (which downloads as a word document) by Timothy White of the Dept. of Literature at the National University of Singapore that puts these kinds of movies in context. White notes that during the 1950s and 60s Singapore had a thriving film industry that churned out many horror films featuring the pontianak. However, these films "are all, by today’s standards, woefully unrealistic, especially in terms of the way they look." Evidently these short Singaporean ghost videos popping up on the internet must be inspired (even if unknowingly so) by that country's tradition of cheap horror flicks. The obvious fakeness of them is just part of the cinematic tradition.

Related posts:
Sep. 19, 2003: Indian Ghost Hoax
Sep. 21, 2003: Indian Ghost Hoax, Part II

Clairvoyant Gets Message From Woman Buried Alive — The Leicester Mercury has printed a spooky story that sounds very much like an urban legend. (Though I know some people say that true urban legends don't involve the supernatural, so I guess it would be a ghost legend.) Since I don't believe in ghosts, I'm assuming that the story is mostly b.s. But I'm curious if any parts of it are true.

The story goes like this: In 1950 Dr Guiseppi Stoppolino of Camerino University was testing an Italian clairvoyant named Mario Bocca to see if his powers were real. During the test Bocca picked up a message from a dead woman calling herself Rosa Spadoni, who claimed that she had been buried alive back in 1939. Stoppolino and Bocca searched for the grave of Rosa Spadoni, but couldn't find it until they realized that her tombstone bore her married name, Menichelli. They convinced a court to exhume Rosa Menichelli's coffin, and, sure enough, discovered evidence that she had been buried alive. As the Leicester Mercury tells it, "There was little more than a skeleton left in the coffin, but the spine was arched in an attempt to lift the lid, and the fingers still clawed at the woodwork."

A version of the story can also be found on the World of the Strange website, where they add this ending:

"The outraged public reaction that followed rocked Italy and even threatened to bring down the government. Within months, Dr. Stoppolini succeeded in his crusade for mandatory embalming of the dead. As the story spread to other European countries, burial practices were also hastily changed."

You would think that an event like this that supposedly changed burial practices in Europe would be easy to confirm, but a google search brings up almost nothing. Just about the only part of the story I can confirm is that there really is a Camerino University in Italy. I can't confirm the existence of Dr. Guiseppi Stoppolino, Mario Bocca, or Rosa Spadoni. However, a post (in Italian) on Google Groups revealed that the Spadoni story was told in The World's Greatest Ghosts, which came out in 1984, written by Nigel Blundell and Roger Boar. I'm wondering if Blundell and Boar's account is the first published account of the story. And, if so, did they simply make it up?