Hoax Museum Blog Posts -- September 2014

Hoax Museum Blog Posts: September 2014

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014. Comments (3)

Seeking Yeti — Sir David Attenborough is feeling the lure of the yeti. He says he wouldn't mind searching for it as his next project. If he does take off after it, I definitely hope he finds it.

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014. Comments (1)

Naan Pareidolia

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014. Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: September 6

September 6, 1994: The End of the World?
In his book 1994? (published in 1992), preacher Harold Camping predicted that there was a strong likelihood that the Second Coming of Christ would occur on September 6, 1994. When that didn't happen, Camping conceded he may have made a mathematical error in his calculations. Over the following years, he revised his prophecy multiple times until he finally arrived at the date of May 21, 2011, which turned out to be wrong also. [rationalwiki]

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014. Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: September 5

September 5, 1896: Sympsychography
The September 1896 issue of The Popular Science Monthly contained an article by David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University, about the invention of a form of mental photography called Sympsychography. The process allowed people to create an image on a photographic plate merely by concentrating their minds on what they would like to appear. Jordan intended it as a joke, and it was identified as such the next day in the Chicago Tribune. Nevertheless, many other papers took it seriously. More…

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014. Comments (0)

Selfie With a Shark

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014. Comments (0)

No, the EU is not banning kettles

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014. Comments (1)

Jesus or Devil Moth?

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014. Comments (0)

Was artificial banana flavor based on the Gros Michel banana?

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014. Comments (1)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: September 4

September 4, 1967: The Great British UFO Invasion
The discovery of six saucer-shaped objects giving off "bleep-bleep" signals caused panic in southern England. There was real fear of a UFO invasion, although the Ministry of Defense also suspected the mysterious saucers might be some kind of Soviet weapon. But at the end of the day, two trainee aircraft engineers confessed the saucers were their creation. They explained, "We believe that flying saucers could land one day, so we landed our own to give the authorities some practice." [Daily Mail]

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014. Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: September 3

September 3, 1934: Paul Klenovsky Exposed
For five years, British conductor Sir Henry Wood had attributed an orchestration of Bach's Organ Toccata and Fugue in D minor to an otherwise unknown young Russian man named Paul Klenovsky. The orchestration was highly praised. But finally, on this day, Wood admitted he himself was Klenovsky. He perpetrated the ruse, he said, to demonstrate the lavish praise bestowed by critics on anyone with a high-sounding foreign name. "Klen" was the Russian word for a maple tree (i.e. a type of wood).

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014. Comments (1)

Ginger Discount Card

Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014. Comments (1)

Walmart will not run Williston PD

Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014. Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: September 2

September 2, 2002: Simonya Popova
Sports Illustrated ran an article about Simonya Popova, a 17-year-old rising tennis star from Uzbekistan. The magazine said that the Women's Tennis Association was eagerly anticipating her rise to stardom because she was "strikingly attractive" and could bring some ratings-boosting sex appeal into the league. However, Simonya Popova didn't exist. She was the fictional creation of writer Jon Wertheim. The WTA denounced the article, saying it was shocked by the suggestion that the physical attractiveness of female players had anything to do with the popularity of women's tennis. [BBC Sport]

Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014. Comments (1)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: September 1

September 1, 1972: Frank Searle's Nessie Photo
On this day in 1972, the Daily Mail ran a photo of the Loch Ness Monster taken by Frank Searle, thereby giving him instant fame as a monster hunter. But ultimately he became known as the most prolific producer of Nessie hoaxes. He initially took photos of floating logs, which he claimed to be Nessie, but progressed to cutting-and-pasting drawings of dinosaurs into Loch Ness scenes, at which point even the most die-hard Nessie believers stopped taking him seriously. Searle was the inspiration for the monster-hunter character in the 1995 film Loch Ness starring Ted Danson. [Cryptomundo]

Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014. Comments (0)

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