Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

New Cardiff Giant Book — It's probably not going to be received by the book-buying public with as much enthusiasm as the latest John Grisham thriller, but this is the kind of book that gets me excited. It's a new (and what looks to be very well researched) history of the Cardiff Giant hoax titled A Colossal Hoax: The Giant From Cardiff That Fooled America by Scott Tribble. It's due out at the end of November. A bit pricey, but that's often the case with non-mass-market books. From its blurb:

Satirical Candidates — I just finished writing a list of the Top 20 Satirical Candidates of All Time, which I've now added to the site. It seemed an appropriate time for it. I chose "Nobody" as the #1 satirical candidate. I thought it was an obvious choice. After all, how can Anyone top Nobody?

But also on the list are the foot powder that won an election, Pat Paulsen, Stephen Colbert, Vermin Supreme, etc.

What the list doesn't cover is mock political parties. The focus is entirely on candidates.

A Year Without Lying — Cathal Morrow is embarking on an experiment to live for a year without lying. When he's done, he'll report the results in a book to be titled The Complete Kant. (The title refers to Immanuel Kant, who said that lying is always morally wrong.)

Morrow doesn't seem to have a publisher yet for the book, though according to the Guardian, he does have a private equity company financing him for the year in exchange for half the profits of the book. (The book better be a bestseller if they expect to make a return on their investment.)

I don't believe it's possible to go a year without telling some kind of lie, unless you stop communicating altogether.

If, at the end of the year, Morrow claims to have done it, I won't believe him.

Piper Palin gives one-finger salute — A picture (top) has been doing the rounds showing Piper Palin, Gov. Palin's six-year-old daughter, apparently giving a boy the finger. Yes, it's a hoax. In the original (bottom), which can be found on the Alaska state website, it's clear that Piper has two fingers raised.

Iranian Interior Minister Admits Fake Degree — Iranian Interior Minister Ali Kordan has announced that he is shocked, shocked to learn that his honorary degree from Oxford University is fake. The dodgy circumstances by which he obtained it eight years ago (via "an agency in Tehran for English-language affairs that represents Oxford University") never raised any red flags with him. Nor did any of the spelling and grammatical mistakes in the document (misplaced commas, the word "entitle" is misspelled, etc.)

Kordan is, appropriately, in charge of guarding against fraud and forgery in Iran's upcoming election. Link: LA Times



Coincidentally, the United Arab Emirates announced today that it will "impose a life ban on the employment of those found to be using fake certificates in order to secure jobs in the country."

The Museum of Fakes — The BBC reports that a 60-year-old Korean man has been arrested for running "a private museum stuffed with fakes." He bought cheap artifacts from flea markets and then displayed them as ancient treasures. He claimed one of his fakes was a "Koryo Dynasty celadon." All in all, he managed to earn $443,000 from this scam through ticket sales.

Two things occur to me:

1) So people are assuming that most museums aren't full of fakes? The dirty little secret of the worlds of art and archaeology is that they're awash in fakes. And even when a museum owns the genuine artifact, it might not display the real thing for security reasons.

2) To play devil's advocate, what difference does it make if people see the real thing or a fake? The vast majority of audience members are unable to tell the difference. My theory is that when people visit museums to gawk at artifacts they don't understand, they're actually engaging in a form relic worship. And the power of the relic lies not in its authenticity, but in the belief in its authenticity.

Pareidolia Roundup: September 2008 — Coffee Stain Christ
Four years ago Sam Marinos had a cup of coffee with his wife. When he was done he turned the cup upside down to allow the grounds to run down the side of the cup -- which is some kind of tradition in his family. He was then "stunned" to see that the grounds had formed what looked to him like the face of Jesus. He's now considering selling the Jesus cup on eBay.

Drywall Jesus
Omar Craddock was doing some work in a client's kitchen when he spotted the image of a face in the drywall mud on an unfinished wall. He immediately thought: Jesus! His brother-in-law, who was with him, is remaining more skeptical, refusing to put a name to the image. But both agree that "For drywall finishing this was a pretty exciting day."

Virgin Mary Grape
Becky Ginn was about to throw away some rotten grapes, but before she did she turned one over and thought, "oh that looks like the Virgin Mary." The grape is now preserved in her freezer. She insists that she has no intention of trivializing the experience. I assume this means she won't be selling it on eBay.

Oyster Shell Jesus
An Orlando woman, while walking down the beach, found an oyster shell that appears to show the face of Jesus. She also found a shell showing the Virgin Mary. "The woman claimed she has had nothing but good luck since finding the shells." I'm not sure if the thumbnail shows the Jesus or Virgin Mary shell, because I can't make out anything in it.

Water Stain Jesus
Seen at a One Stop Body Shoppe in Arkansas City, Kansas. According to the manager: "A client was laying here looking up and told me, Michelle, you have Jesus on your ceiling. I just kind of looked at her, and she said you do, Jesus on the ceiling." The water-stained ceiling tile may soon be headed to eBay.

Thanks to Cranky Media Guy and Stannous Flouride!

Will the sun rise for 36 hours on October 17, 2008? — A very strange astronomical rumor is circulating:


This rumor appears to have come from India, so it means to say that the sun will rise for 36 hours over India, and the Americas will be dark for the same amount of time. Not that this makes the rumor any less nonsensical. The only way for this rumor to come true would be if the earth stopped rotating. Let's all hope that doesn't happen.

David Emery has already debunked this. He found that, "During a one-month period from mid-August to mid-September 2008, over 15,000 postings containing the phrase 'the sun will rise continuously for 36 hours' appeared on the Internet." He also theorizes that "the perpetrator(s) of the hoax put a great deal of effort into disseminating it."

Is Bank of America cancelling the majority of its customers’ credit cards? — This rumor is going around:


The news is sourced to iReport.com. If true, it would be another sign of the deepening financial crisis on Wall Street, but Bank of America doesn't have any info about this on their website, so my guess is that the rumor is false.

McCain wins debate that hasn’t happened yet — Apparently John McCain's campaign has access to the same time machine used by the Chinese journalists at Xinhua News who reported the launch of the Shenzhou VII spacecraft (including the astronaut's dialogue) hours before it happened. (See previous post.)

McCain's campaign has been running an ad in the Wall Street Journal's online edition declaring that "McCain Wins Debate," which is a bold assertion considering that the debate will only happen tonight.

Link: Washington Post

Fake reporting of Shenzhou VII launch — China recently launched its third manned mission to space. Oddly, the Xinhua news agency reported the launch hours before it occurred. This would be understandable -- news agencies routinely prepare copy about major stories in advance of the event itself -- but the article included detailed dialogue between the astronauts:


Xinhua explained that the story had been posted early "due to a technical problem." Must be a glitch in their time travel machine. Link: news.com.au

Students told aliens have landed — Strange "educational" stunts perpetrated by school authorities appear to be a growing trend. We had:

1) The Fake Attack at an Elementary School. (Students were told there was a gunman loose in the area in order to teach them how to respond in case a gunman ever really was loose in the area.)

2) Your classmate has died -- but not really. (Students were told that one of their classmates had died in a drunk-driving accident in order to teach them about the evils of drunk driving.)

But a stunt recently played on kids at Edgware school goes to the top of the list for weirdness. The Harrow Observer reports:

Writers are skeptical of $250,000 prize — An article in SFGate.com describes how the owners of FieldReport.com devised what they thought was a sure-fire way to generate interest in their literary site. They decided to offer a "$250,000 prize for whichever short nonfiction piece received the highest ranking from the site's users by Jan. 1, 2009. A series of $1,000 qualifying prizes would be awarded in the months leading up to the quarter-million-dollar payout."

Problem is, no one believed them.


Personally, I still wouldn't believe this offer is real -- not until the cash is placed in someone's hands.

Adventures in Astroturf — Margriet Oostveen describes in Salon.com how she composed phony letters-to-the-editor on behalf of the McCain campaign:


This is called "astroturf" (i.e. an artificial grassroots campaign). It's a popular campaign strategy. Basically a variation on the fake testimonial technique in advertising.

Some notable moments in the history of Astroturf:

• In 2003 democrats noticed similar letters in support of President Bush's economic policies appearing in papers such as the Boston Globe, the Cincinnati Post, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The letters all began with the line: "When it comes to the economy, President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership." The letter was traced back to a Republican website, gopteamleader.com, that had posted it and was encouraging readers to print it out and send it to local papers.

• In 1997, when the Justice Department was suing Microsoft for violating antitrust laws, Utah's attorney general noticed he was receiving numerous pro-Microsoft letters peppered with similar phrases such as "strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry." Upon closer investigation, he discovered that some of the letters came from people who were dead. It turned out Microsoft was composing the letters and then sending them to individuals who had expressed positive sentiments about Microsoft in phone polls. The individuals were instructed to sign the letters and forward them to their attorney general. But unfortunately for Microsoft, some of the individuals had died in between being polled and receiving the letter. Their family members, thinking the letter was some kind of official document, had signed the letter and forwarded it on with a note explaining the situation, thereby exposing the whole scheme.

(Thanks, Bob and Joe!)

Eye of Sauron Prank — Pranksters at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign recently added the Eye of Sauron to the McFarland Memorial Bell Tower. The tower looks like it was designed to host it. The Daily Illini reports that those responsible for placing the Eye on the tower remain unknown.

Phony 9/11 Photos — Recently the Delray Beach Public Library arranged an exhibition of photographs taken by 71-year-old Milt Goldstein. The pictures were taken immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and showed rescue workers searching for victims. Goldstein told anyone willing to listen how he had gained access to ground zero by buying an NYPD hat and jacket from a vendor on Canal Street. Goldstein was offering to sell individual pictures for prices ranging from $200 to $350.

But it turned out that the pictures hadn't been taken by Goldstein. He had simply collected them together from sources such as the Associated Press, the military, and other government agencies. When Goldstein's hoax was exposed, the library cancelled the exhibition.

But it seems the news didn't reach Atlantic Ave magazine in time, which features an article by Milt Goldstein in its current issue. (pdf link to the magazine.) In the article, Goldstein writes:


What he should have said was, "it is only recently that I downloaded the pictures from the internet..."

The thumbnail shows Goldstein posing with "his" pictures.

Fake caterpillar fungus — Chinese food inspectors have issued a warning to those planning to buy caterpillar fungus: Many samples of caterpillar fungus have been replaced by fakes. These fakes "not only miss their medicinal function, but could even be poisonous."

According to Wikipedia, caterpillar fungus is one of the most prized ingredients in traditional Chinese and Tibetan medicine:


So my guess is that the "real" stuff does basically nothing.

McElhone in movie about James Barry — The Guardian reports that Natasha McElhone is slated to play Dr. James Barry in an upcoming film to be titled Heaven and Earth. Barry was the nineteenth-century British woman who disguised herself as a man in order to become a doctor. (See my post from earlier this year.)

The film is apparently focusing on the rumored romance between Barry and Lord Somerset:


(Thanks, Joe!)

Weird Fragrances — I stumbled across this site, weirdfragrances.com (I'm not linking directly to them, so I won't boost their google rank), that promises to send you a free sample of cologne. In return you simply provide them with your email and mailing address, and promise to later answer a few questions about the fragrance. You can choose from a variety of offbeat scents such as Grease Monkey, Burning Rubber, or Ash Tray.

Is it a legit offer? I would guess not.

First, it strikes me as odd that the site is registered anonymously through domains by proxy. Why would a legitimate company be trying to hide their identity?

Second, a quick google search reveals people posting on forums about how they submitted their info but never received anything except spam. So it appears to be a spam trap.

Heart’s Letter to John McCain — The following cease-and-desist letter, supposedly written by Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart to John McCain, has started doing the rounds. Warning: NSFW language!



Is it real? Well, the Wilsons did email out a statement asking the Republican campaign not to use their music, and in a phone interview, after the Republicans used their music anyway, Nancy Wilson said, "I feel completely f--ed over."

However, the article above seems to be satire. It comes from Seattle's The Stranger newspaper and ran as their "New Column" feature, which usually is a spoof piece. (Thanks, Big Gary!)