Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

Helix High Hoax — Yesterday (Tuesday) there was a helicopter buzzing around in the sky outside my window for about half an hour. I was speculating what it might be: bank robbery, accident, men in black? No, turns out it was just a local, neighborhood hoax. (I live about 2 blocks from Helix High School in La Mesa, a San Diego suburb):


This is the same school that can boast that, within the past two years, four teachers have been accused of sexual misconduct with students. Let's hear it for the La Mesa educational system!

Scottish Urban Legends — Dani Garavelli, writing for Scotsman.com, examines the psychology of urban legends. The article doesn't offer any new insights into urban legends. There's the standard observation: urban legends "hold a mirror up to our culture, giving us an often unflattering reflection of our preoccupations and prejudices." But what I found interesting is that the article listed some urban legends specific to Scotland:

• For several days, [north-east Scotland] was gripped by a rumour that pop star and convicted paedophile Gary Glitter – who was recently deported from Vietnam – was staying at the Findhorn Foundation, a new age spiritual community. Suddenly, Glitter was being spotted across the North-east, from the Asda cafe in Elgin, where he was said to be tucking into egg and chips, to the streets of Forres. Sightings of the sex offender began to outnumber sightings of Elvis, until the authorities were forced to reassure the local community, he was not, in fact, in the area.
• Red Road flats are the highest in Europe.
• Deep-fried Mars Bar originated in Glasgow.
• The tale about the maths Higher which was so hard pupils all over Scotland staged a walk-out played on another major childhood fear: that of failure. Pupils and even teachers were said to have been reduced to tears by the very sight of the examination in 2000, although the SQA strenuously denied there had been any protest and the pass rate was said to be slightly up on the year before.
• The rumour that Jimmy Chung's restaurant in Dundee was serving seagull affected trade so adversely the restaurant was forced to issue a formal denial.
• One of the most common post-9/11 stories involved the shopper who, noticing a Muslim man dropping his wallet, picks it up and hands it back to him. "Thank you," the Muslim says. "And now I am going to return the favour. Do not go to Braehead/Silverburn/Princes Street in the week before Christmas." This anecdote gained such currency in Inverness in 2006, that Northern Constabulary Police had to reassure the public shopping arcades such as the Eastgate Centre were safe. [Same legend as we had here in America, but with different place names.]
• There are those... who are convinced traffic police play "speed snooker", targeting particular colours of car in a particular order, but interspersing each with a red one. This, they insist, explains why drivers of red cars are more likely to receive a fine or prosecution than others. [I doubt this is specific to Scotland.]

Las Vegas does not allow atheists to perform wedding ceremonies — Apparently in Las Vegas pretty much anyone can get a license to perform weddings -- Elvis impersonators, faux Liberaces, etc. -- except atheists. The rules are that in order to get a license you need to have ties to a congregation. The congregation can be as small as two people. But still, that's the rule. If you're not willing to lie and invent some kind of pseudo-religion that you're a member of, as atheist Michael Jacobson was unwilling to do, then you're barred from performing weddings.

Seems like a clear entanglement of church and state to me. Here in San Diego anyone is allowed to be registered to perform weddings for a day. No religious affiliation is required. So my sister was able to sign up as the "minister" and conduct the ceremony for me and my wife.

Link: Chicago Tribune

Fake Taj Mahal — A film director in Bangladesh has announced plans to build an exact replica of the Taj Mahal. He's going to use the same marble and stone as the original, but to save time he's using machinery (rather than thousands of peasant workers) to construct it. His reason for building it: "Everyone dreams about seeing the Taj Mahal but very few Bangladeshis can make the trip because it's too expensive for them."

All of this has upset officials in India who have threatened to sue for copyright infringement because "You can't just go and copy historical monuments."

Personally, I think I'd find the fake Taj Mahal more interesting than the real thing. Link: Times Online

Better translator needed — Respected academic journal wants to decorate its cover with elegant classical Chinese poetry. Journal editors -- who can't read Chinese -- don't realize they're actually placing an ad for a brothel on the cover. Embarrassment and retraction of cover follows.

The journal was the MaxPlanckForschung journal. The text apparently advertised "burlesque acts by pretty-as-jade housewives with hot bodies for the daytime visitor"... emphasizing their "enchanting and coquettish performance". The editors insist they did have a Chinese speaker check the text before they used it, but whomever they used either didn't speak Chinese that well or had a mischievous sense of humor.

Well, at least they didn't tattoo the text on their biceps.

World’s Largest Lamb Sculpture — Some guy named Bill Veall claims to have discovered the world's largest rock sculpture. It's somewhere in the Peruvian Andean mountains, and it's in the shape of a "sacred lamb". He says he found it by using satellite imaging techniques to search for ancient shapes and formations. I guess that rules out any possibility he's just seeing what he wants to see. (sarcasm)



From Sky News: "Mr Veall, who studies the relationships between astronomy and archaeological monuments, has faced a series of doubters who claim he doctored the images to create an elaborate hoax."

Big red flag indicating the skeptics may be right: Veall won't release the coordinates of the site. He says, "If I gave you the co-ordinates of the site, a million people would find it immediately... But we want to secure and preserve the site until we can get a scientific team to have a look at it."

Adobe on Facebook — Each week Adobe -- the creator of Photoshop -- will give you five images to test if you can differentiate between the real and the fake. I got them all right! WooHoo!

Black Dog Syndrome — Black Dog Syndrome is defined as "the propensity of dark-coated animals to be passed over for adoption [at animal shelters] in favor of their lighter counterparts."

Reasons why the syndrome may exist: the age-old association of light with good and dark with evil; "Black dogs often don't photograph well. Facial features disappear, and animals can appear less expressive"; "black dogs sometimes fade away into the kennel shadows".

And apparently black cats face the same problem as black dogs.

However, there's debate over whether this syndrome is real. Many shelter and rescue leaders insist it's real, but skeptics note that the statistics don't seem to back up this perception. The general manager of the LA Animal Services Department notes: "In the last 12 months... 27% of the 30,046 dogs taken in by his department were predominantly or all black. Of those that were adopted, 28% were predominantly or all black." Link: LA Times.

Is it healthy to pick your nose? — If you do a search on the web for information about rhinotillexis (aka nose picking) you'll soon run across references to Dr. Friedrich Bischinger, described as an Austrian lung specialist, who is quoted as saying that nose-picking combined with nasal mucus eating is a healthy habit:


Bischinger is referenced in the Wikipedia article about nose-picking as well as in a Damn Interesting article on the same subject.

The problem is that this quotation from Dr. Bischinger doesn't come from a medical journal article. Instead, it traces back to an Ananova article (never a good sign), and before that to a news wire article that did the rounds in March 2004.

I had to wonder, does Dr. Bischinger even exist, or was he the creation of a bored journalist?

Well, he does exist. I couldn't find any medical articles authored by him, but after some searching I did find his contact details listed at the arztverzeichnis website. He is an Austrian lung specialist. Based on a posting on the Improbable Research site, it looks like Bischinger was first interviewed by a German-language magazine, Tirol, and then the quotation was noticed and circulated by a news wire reporter.

To conclude: I don't know if nose-picking and booger-eating is good for you. All we can say is that in the opinion of one Austrian doctor it is healthy. However, Dr. Bischinger doesn't appear to have conducted an actual medical study of the habit.

Cranial Painting — In 1966, before becoming a regular on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and before launching his perennial campaign for the US Presidency, comedian Pat Paulsen got into newspapers by pretending to be a "cranial painter". From the March 6, 1966 Mansfield News Journal:


Another, slightly better quality of Paulsen cranial painting, is below.

How Man is Made Invisible — Hudson Pace sent this interesting clipping. He writes:




I assume the pictures were created via double exposure, in the same way spirit photographs are usually made. As for Herbert Winck, I can't find out anything more about him. But searching the google news archive for articles about invisibility machines, I did come across a March 3, 1937 article in the Chicago Tribune about an Italian inventor who supposedly created something that sounds very similar to Winck's machine. The article was syndicated. A similar version also ran in the Washington Post.

Pareidolia Roundup: December 2008 — It's been a while since I've done a pareidolia roundup, so a few of these are a couple months old.

Virgin Mary in Salsa Stain
"Elvia Alvarez was recently using her blender to make salsa in her kitchen. Some of the salsa splattered onto the wall, creating what Alvarez says is the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since this happened. Alvaraz says it's a sign that people need to be nicer to each other." Funny. I thought it was a sign she needs to be more careful when making salsa.

Jesus in Guitar
Employees at International Music and Sound in Ludington, Michigan are seeing the face of Jesus in the grain of a guitar. The guitar, which is made out of maple wood, is manufactured by the Washburn Company.

Jesus on Doggie Door
Roger Bowman was about to put his dogs down. But then he saw that the face of Jesus had formed on their doggie door, so he changed his mind. Now he's decided to sell the divine doggie door on eBay. Bidding is currently at $1185. No word on what will happen to the dogs once the door is gone.

Celestial Smiley Face
Astronomers have been abuzz about a rare alignment of Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon that creates a giant smiley face in the night sky. Is no one going to say it looks like Jesus?

Jesus Face in melted chocolate cookie
"Lois Preira, of Ullswater Road, was enjoying a cookie and a cup of tea when she noticed a face in the melted chocolate on the plate." Whose face could it be? Why Jesus, of course!

Obama on Toast
Some guy claimed that the face of Barack Obama "miraculously appeared" on a piece of wonder bread he was toasting, the day after Obama was elected president. Even more miraculous, he managed to sell the "Hope Toast" on eBay for $205.

Jesus or Shakespeare on Banana Peel
Theresa Smith writes: "I was at work getting ready to eat my banana... I peeled it and happened to look at it and noticed a face on the peel! But what I saw was just half the face.. once I put the peel back onto the banana I couldn't believe what I saw! It's Jesus on the banana! It could be Shakespeare too depending on your point of view."

Buddha in Wasp's Nest
Cambodian Buddhists in Rochester, Minnesota noticed that a wasp's nest built in the eaves of their temple looked like Buddha. One monk, Moeun Ngop, said that the wasps were trying to communicate Buddha's message. Would that message be, it's time to hire an exterminator?

Virgin Mary in Hospital Window
Back in September, crowds gathered outside Mercy Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts to see what looked like the image of the Virgin Mary in a second-story window. But one of the Sisters of Providence, who dropped by to check it out, was actually kinda skeptical. She said it might be nothing more than "the illusions which light and shadows can cause."

The Roofs of Cambridge — Pranksters at Cambridge University recently succeeded in placing a Santa hat on top of two seemingly inaccessible roof spires. Ten firemen and three fire engines spent an hour getting them down. From the Daily Mail:


I hadn't previously been aware of the Night Climbers book. Here's what Wikipedia says about it:


The book may be highly sought after, but if you do a search of used bookstores on abebooks.com, quite a few copies of it are available. Plus, the entire book (with pictures) can be read online.

The strongest man in the world — Here's an entertaining example of complete bs. An Arabic TV station interviews a man who claims to be the "Incredible Hulk" of Egypt. He says that he has the strength of 30,000 men! He never sleeps! He has sex 15 times a day with his four wives! And he's so strong that the government doesn't allow him to work, for fear that he might accidentally hurt someone.

But the only evidence of his strength that he offers is his ability to tear a coin in half. This, of course, is a well-known magic trick.

Time magazine lists its favorite “geek” pranks — Time magazine offers a roundup of what it describes as "the biggest pranks in geek history" -- limited to pranks perpetrated by MIT and Caltech students.

The usual suspects are there: the great rose bowl hoax, Caltech relettering the Hollywood sign, etc.

Except, uh, some of the items in the list clearly aren't pranks. For instance, creating a program that allows DVDs to play on any operating system may be a useful hack, but it's not what I would consider a prank. And I don't think MIT student Star Simpson intended to cause a security scare when she wore her "socket to me" sweatshirt to Logan Airport.

One more complaint: Time omits one of my favorite Caltech pranks -- the sweepstakes caper in which they hacked a McDonald's sweepstakes by creating a computer program to flood it with millions of entries.

The Pranks of Horace de Vere Cole — The Daily Mail offers a short biography of Horace de Vere Cole (1881-1936), a man who made pranks his life work. His most famous prank was the Dreadnought Hoax of 1910. Here are a few of his others:

• He "once stood in the street handing out free theatre tickets to a series of extremely bald passers-by with the result that, when viewed from the dress circle, the assembly of shiny bald heads in the carefully chosen seats clearly spelt out an expletive - complete with a dot over the 'i'."
• He used to "wander the streets with a cow's udder poking through his flies. At the moment of optimum outrage, he would then produce a pair of scissors and snip off the offending protrusion."
• "More adolescent pranks ranged from organising a large party where all the guests were called Ramsbottom or Winterbottom to driving around London in a taxi with a naked tailor's dummy. Whenever he saw a policeman, he would stop the cab, open the door and beat the dummy's head on the ground, shouting: 'Ungrateful hussy!'"

Odd fact: he was Neville Chamberlain's brother-in-law.

National Kick a Ginger Day — Apparently this started with a character on South Park who described redheads as "evil" and "soulless". This gave a fourteen-year-old boy the idea of starting a Facebook group dedicated to the idea of promoting November 20 as "National Kick a Ginger Day". The group soon had over 5000 members, and unfortunately some people decided to take the idea literally.

Redheaded students at schools throughout Canada reported being kicked and punched by other students on Nov. 20. One student, Aaron Mishkin (pictured), felt so traumatized that he skipped school the next day.

Things like this just confirm my most pessimistic feelings about the human race. Sometimes people really suck.

Forbes not being sold to the Russians — The business magazine Forbes "absolutely denies" a rumor that it's being bought by a Russian private equity firm, Onexim.

The irony here is that it was Forbes, back in 1991, which published a hoax claiming that the Russian government, desperate for foreign currency, was selling the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin to the highest bidder.

Times and fortunes have changed. It appears now the shoe is on the other foot.

Immigrants devise creative methods of hiding — Two cases of illegal immigrants finding unusual methods of sneaking into countries have recently been in the news:

Case #1: U.S. border police found 13 illegal immigrants inside a fake Budweiser beer van.

Case #2: British authorities found four illegal immigrants hiding inside a 32-foot-tall fake Christmas tree in the back of a truck. The tree was made of aluminum and nylon, and had been ordered for a town center display.