This Day in the History of Hoaxes

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 26

July 26, 2011: Internet Explorer Users Are Dumb
On this day, AptiQuant Psychometric Consulting Co. released a study revealing that Internet Explorer users scored lower on IQ tests than users of other web browsers and were therefore "dumb". This result was duly reported as fact by numerous news outlets. However, not only was the study fake, but also AptiQuant wasn't a real company. The graphics on its site had been copied from the site of a legitimate French firm. The hoax was the work of Tarandeep Gill, a Canadian web developer, who later said he had hoped to "create awareness about the incompatibilities of IE6." [wikipedia]
Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 25

July 25, 1990: Operation Blackbird Hoaxed
On this day, the high-tech Operation Blackbird, whose mission was to record the creation of a crop circle by a UFO, appeared to meet with success. The monitoring equipment recorded flashing orange lights in a field, and the next morning two large circles had formed. But the hopes of the researchers were dashed when they found a horoscope chart and wooden crucifix in the middle of the circles — evidently the calling card of a hoaxer. The flashing lights on their equipment, the researchers admitted, had probably been the heat signature of humans running around. More…
Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 24

July 24, 1907: The Old Librarian's Almanack
On this day, Edmund Leaster Pearson first mentioned the existence of the Old Librarian's Almanack in his column in the Boston Evening Transcript. It was, he said, a small almanac from 1773 that contained the "opinion and counsel" of a rather curmudgeonly librarian whose ideas were strikingly non-modern. For instance, the Old Librarian felt it was the duty of all librarians to "cast out and destroy" any book that was "merely frivolous." Pearson later arranged for the reprinting of this 18thC curiosity. Very few people realized that he himself had written it as a joke. [Internet Archive]
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 23

July 23, 1943: The Death of Ern Malley
The unknown Australian poet Ern Malley was said to have died of Graves' disease on this day, prompting his sister to send the poems she found among his possessions to Max Harris, editor of the Angry Penguins poetry journal, who then decided to dedicate a special issue to Malley's strange poems. But upon publication, Harris discovered Malley wasn't real. He was the satirical creation of two Australian poets hostile to modern poetry. Ern Malley remains Australia's most famous literary hoax. [wikipedia]
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 22

July 22, 1931: Mr. A.A. declared man with shortest name
On this day, Mr. A.A. (first name Aaron) was declared to be the man with the shortest name in the United States, following the death of H.P. Re. But within a month he was revealed to be a fraud after he was charged with forgery and a judge issued a warrant for his real name, Earl Gerske. Mr. A.A. was merely an alias, Gerske explained, adopted on account of a deal with a laundry company so that "they could advertise that the phone number of their laundry was the first one listed in the directory."
Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 21

July 21, 1959: Jacqueline Gay Hart Disappears
Hart, a 21-year-old heiress, disappeared from Newark airport and was the subject of a nationwide search for two days until she turned up in Chicago's Grant Park, claiming she had been abducted by two men who drove her, bound and gagged, to Chicago. But within a day she admitted her story was false, explaining that she had "sort of exploded" because of tension over her approaching wedding and had fled, wandering around New York and Chicago for two days before deciding to return.
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014.   Comments (1)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 20

July 20, 1971: The National Review Hoax
The conservative National Review magazine released a set of documents that it claimed were secret government papers dealing with the war in Vietnam. A day later it admitted the papers were a hoax, designed as a response to the Pentagon Papers published by the New York Times the previous month. William F. Buckley, editor of the National Review, claimed his magazine's hoax demonstrated that "forged documents would be widely accepted as genuine provided their content was inherently plausible." [Lewiston Daily Sun]
Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 19

July 19, 2002: The Case of a Phony 9/11 Survivor
On this day, the Tahoe Daily Tribune reported the inspirational story of Daniel McCarthy, who had just been wed in Lake Tahoe. McCarthy, the paper said, was a Brooklyn police officer who had survived after being buried for 79 hours in the rubble of the World Trade Center. However, the national attention brought by the article quickly exposed McCarthy's elaborate tale of heroics as a complete fraud. McCarthy was neither a cop nor a 9/11 survivor. In reality, he had a long criminal record, and, on top of everything else, was already married. So his new marriage made him a bigamist. [Editor & Publisher]
Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 18

July 18, 1938: Wrong Way Corrigan
On this day, Douglas Corrigan landed at Baldonnel Aerodrome in Ireland after a solo, 28-hour flight across the Atlantic. The FAA had denied him permission for the flight because of the poor condition of his plane, but Corrigan claimed that he had intended to fly to California from Long Island but accidentally went the wrong way because of a broken compass. The explanation earned him the nickname "Wrong Way" Corrigan. His error was viewed by almost everyone as intentional, though he never admitted to this. [wikipedia]
Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 17

July 17, 1842: The Feejee Mermaid
Inspired by the arrival in the city of a "Dr. J. Griffin" who claimed to have the body of a mermaid in his possession, New York City papers all ran mermaid pictures (supplied to them by PT Barnum), showing the creatures as seductive ocean maidens. But when Dr. Griffin got around to exhibiting his mermaid a week later to sell-out crowds, it proved to be, in the words of Barnum who had engineered the entire scheme, "an ugly, dried-up, black-looking, and diminutive specimen." Nor, of course, was it a real mermaid. More…
Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 16

July 16, 1866: The Calaveras Skull
At the July 16, 1866 meeting of the California Academy of Science, Josiah Whitney announced the recent discovery of a skull that he believed to be evidence that humans had been in North America for millions of years. It had been found my miners 130 feet below the surface and beneath a stratum of lava. The authenticity of the skull was immediately questioned, though Whitney did not waver in his belief. However, subsequent analysis has shown that the skull was no more than 1000 years old. It was probably planted by miners playing a practical joke. More…
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 15

July 15, 2002: New Elements Faked
A team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory published a short statement in the journal Physical Review Letters retracting its earlier announcement that it had successfully created two new elements, ununoctium and livermorium (Nos. 118 and 116). Officials at the lab later concluded that physicist Victor Ninov had fabricated data to make it appear as if these elements had been created, whereas, in fact, there had never been any evidence for the elements. Ninov strongly denied the accusation, but was nevertheless fired from the lab. [Atomic Lies (pdf)]
Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 14

July 14, 1992: Portofess
Father Anthony Joseph showed up at the Democratic National Convention in New York City with his portable confessional booth ("Portofess"), mounted on the back of a large tricycle. He explained that he aimed to provide "Religion on the move for people on the go," and also that, "The Church must go where the sinners are." Portofess made national news. But Father Joseph was really veteran hoaxer Joey Skaggs in disguise. Many of the journalists who interviewed "Father Joseph" had interviewed Skaggs before, but didn't recognize him. [joeyskaggs.com]
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 13

July 13, 1855: The Silver Lake Sea Serpent
Two boys and five men fishing on Silver Lake in New York reported seeing a "horrid and repulsive looking monster" swimming in the water. Other sightings soon followed, triggering an influx of visitors to the region hoping to see the creature. Several years later, a local hotel owner, Artemus Walker, was credited with having created the monster as a way to drum up business. He supposedly made it out of a 60-foot canvas inflated by bellows. However, skeptics note that his elaborate creation seems as implausible as the lake serpent itself. [csicop.org]
Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 12

July 12, 1945: Van Meegeren Confesses
Han van Meegeren, on trial in the Netherlands for selling to the Nazis a painting by Johannes Vermeer (considered a national treasure), defended himself by confessing that the painting wasn't actually by Vermeer. He had painted it himself. In fact, he had been churning out fake Vermeers for years, amassing a small fortune in the process. He was convicted of forgery, but died of a heart attack before serving any time. More…
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 11

July 11, 1947: Twin Falls UFO Hoax
The FBI, Army Intelligence, and police all responded to a report of the discovery of a "flying saucer" in the yard of Mrs. T.H. Thompson of Twin Falls, Idaho. The saucer was discovered by her neighbor who heard a "thudding noise" at about 2:30 am, ran outside, and found a large metallic disk on the lawn. The authorities spent a day trying to figure out what the object was, as townsfolk worried whether they were being invaded by extraterrestrials, before four teenage boys admitted they had made it as a prank. It had taken them several days to make the saucer which was replete with "a plexiglass dome, radio tubes, burned wires, and glistening sides of silver and gold."
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 10

July 10, 1969: Donald Crowhurst's boat found
Crowhurst was a competitor in a round-the-world, non-stop, solo sailing race. But as he lagged further behind the other competitors, he devised a scheme to fake his way into the lead by remaining in the Atlantic while the other boats circumnavigated the globe, so that upon their return it would appear as if he was in the lead. But apparently realizing that he was doomed to be found out, and possibly having succumbed to insanity, he jumped overboard instead, leaving his boat empty. [wikipedia]
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 9

July 9, 1986: Cruise Control as Autopilot Legend
On this day in 1986, the Wall Street Journal reported what it described as a strange insurance claim paid off by Allstate. A woman, it said, had been cruising along a highway in the Washington DC area in her new van when her baby started crying from the back. So she turned cruise control on, believing this would allow the van to "drive itself," and left the wheel to check her baby. A multiple car-crash ensued. Allstate later clarified that it had never actually paid such a claim, though it conceded that the story of this supposed incident was frequently shared among its claims managers.
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2014.   Comments (1)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 8

July 8, 1953: The Great Monkey Hoax
Three young men reported running over a space alien on a rural Georgia highway. What made this case unusual is that the body of the alien was lying on the highway to prove their tale. The incident quickly made national headlines. But when scientists from Emory University examined the 'alien,' they determined it was actually a Capuchin monkey with its tail cut off and fur removed with depilatory cream. The boys confessed they had created it as a prank. More…
Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: July 7

July 7, 1948: Crash of Tomato Man
During the late 1970s, a photo began to circulate within the UFO community that purported to show the remains of a large-headed alien whose craft had supposedly crashed near Laredo, Texas on July 7, 1948. The photo was offered as proof that alien crafts have crashed on Earth. The "alien" figure began to be referred to as "Tomato Man" because of its large, round head. But investigation revealed that the crash scene contained objects that were definitely man-made, suggesting that the photo actually shows the crash of a small plane that occurred more recently than 1948. [ufoevidence.org]
Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2014.   Comments (0)
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