Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

The Shadwell Shams
Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: August 28

August 28, 1972: Clifford Irving Goes to Prison
On this day in 1972, Clifford Irving began serving a 2½-year sentence for conspiracy and fraud on account of selling publisher McGraw-Hill a fake autobiography of billionaire Howard Hughes, for which he was paid $750,000. By the time he went to prison, he had returned $500,000 of that money. He was released early after serving 16 months. More…
Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014.   Comments (0)

Happy Meal Ouija Board
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014.   Comments (0)

An interview with a fake news site
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014.   Comments (1)
Gnome sighting in Pennsylvania —
Author Keith Sniadach set up a camera in the woods behind his summer cabin in western Pennsylvania, programming the camera to take photos when it detected heat or motion. And recently he found something unusual in the photos it took — a creature that appears to be a "gnome, troll or brownie of some sort."

When I first saw the headline for this story on Cryptozoology News I thought it was meant to be a joke. But no. I think Sniadach genuinely wants people to believe that he photographed a gnome. As in, not a garden gnome statue that you might buy from a garden supply store, but a living, breathing gnome. He's provided more details about his gnome photos to Linda Howe of earthfiles.com.

Could it be that someone (perhaps Sniadach himself) simply put a gnome statue where it would be photographed by the camera? For whatever it's worth, Sniadach says, "I believe this creature is a real one and not a hoax."

Sniadach also says that he frequently hears Bigfoots screaming in the woods behind his cabin. So that place seems to be quite a hotspot for paranormal activity.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014.   Comments (7)

Pregnancy Hoax
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: August 27

August 27, 2003: Mars as big as the Moon
The news that on this day in 2003 the Earth and Mars would be closer than they had been in 60,000 years (only 56 million km apart) inspired a viral email claiming that on the night of the 27th Mars would "look as large as the full moon" in the sky, and that "No one alive today will ever see this again." Since 2003, this viral email has resurfaced every year as August 27 approaches, despite attempts by NASA (and many others) to debunk it. [NASA]
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2014.   Comments (0)

Fake News Hoax: Zimmerman Arrested in Ferguson
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2014.   Comments (0)

Ebola Rumors
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2014.   Comments (0)

Nessie Explanations
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2014.   Comments (1)

Yellowstone Rumor Control
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: August 26

August 26, 1966: Trained the Wrong Side
The press described it as "one of the war's most confused episodes" when Sgt. Bernd M. Huber confessed that while stationed in Vietnam he had mistakenly given an entire battalion of enemy soldiers specialized training in weapons and demolition, for two months. A day before their graduation, the enemy soldiers disappeared, leaving behind a note, "Thank you for the training. We're Ho Chi Minh's boys." But several days later, on this day in 1966, Huber confessed that the incident never happened. It was a war story he had heard from another soldier. In other words, it was an urban legend.
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: August 25

August 25, 1835: The Great Moon Hoax
The New York Sun announced that the British astronomer Sir John Herschel had discovered life on the moon by means of a new telescope "of vast dimensions and an entirely new principle." Later updates revealed the existence of creatures such as lunar bison, fire-wielding biped beavers, and winged "man-bats." The report caused an enormous sensation. To this day it's remembered as one of the most significant media hoaxes of all time. In fact, it's sometimes credited with being the hoax that launched modern journalism because it helped to establish sensationalism as the model for commercial success. More…
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2014.   Comments (0)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: August 23

August 23, 1895: The Winsted Wild Man
On this day in 1895, several New York City newspapers reported that passengers on a stagecoach near Winsted, Connecticut had seen a naked "wild man" jumping out from behind some bushes. More wild man sightings followed, until soon the residents of Winsted were gripped by panic. A posse of over 100 armed men set out to hunt down the creature, but had no success. Eventually the truth emerged. The original report had been the invention of a young local reporter, Lou Stone. After that, group psychology had done the rest. More…
Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014.   Comments (0)

Hoaxes.org

Welcome to hoaxes.org, the museum's new domain name.

As far as I can tell, the museum appears to have survived its move in one piece. It seems that the old URLs are being successfully redirected to the new domain. However, I haven't yet tested if things such as RSS or member logins all work correctly.

I have to say, the transition, just to get to this point, wasn't easy. I spent the last two days banging my head against my desk, trying to master the byzantine complexities of apache, .htaccess pages, and so-called 'regular expressions' (i.e. apache server code gobbledygook), in order to get the redirect to work correctly.

The biggest problem was that I'm an absolute beginner at apache server code. But also, the blogging software I use and the way it was initially installed (in a subfolder) created some challenging special circumstances that I needed to figure out how to code around.

Unfortunately, the coding challenge isn't entirely over yet. Right now, the old server is sending all requests for museumofhoaxes URLs over to the new hoaxes.org server. But soon I need to have the museumofhoaxes domain name point directly at the new server, and this will require slightly different code in order have the redirect work. If this doesn't make any sense to you, don't worry. It wouldn't have made any sense to me either a few days ago.

I'm thinking of trying to find a programming student at UCSD who I can pay a few bucks to help me with this next step of the coding. Because I'm not sure I can figure it out on my own. Or rather, I don't really want to spend the time figuring it out, when someone who knows what they're doing could code it in seconds.

But if anyone out there knows apache and would be willing to give some free advice, let me know. I'd be forever grateful!

Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2014.   Comments (2)

The Museum of Hoaxes is Moving!

We're moving to a new server, because our old webhost is shutting down.

And I decided to use this opportunity to also change the URL of the site, from museumofhoaxes.com to hoaxes.org. Why? Just because it's shorter and easier to spell. (Over the years I've seen 'museum' misspelled in just about every bizarre way imaginable.)

Of course, all the old museumofhoaxes URLs will continue to work (fingers crossed). People will just be redirected automatically to the corresponding URL on hoaxes.org.

I was going to change the URL to hoaxes.com, which is available for purchase, but the guy who currently owns it wanted a ridiculously large amount of money for it, which put an end to that plan. Hoaxes.org, by contrast, was quite affordable. Plus, I figure that the museum is legitimately an organization, not a business. So it makes sense for it to have a .org suffix.

The migration process from the old to the new server has already begun — which means that anything posted here from now on has MISSED THE MIGRATION! It'll be deleted when I delete these old server files and hit the "automatic redirect" switch. So don't post any comments or forum posts until the site is live at the new URL, which should be in two or three days (because it takes some time for URLs to get processed through name servers, etc.). Or post them, but realize that they'll soon disappear.

See you all at the new server and new URL.

-Alex
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014.   Comments (2)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: August 19

August 19, 1961: $20,000 Award a Hoax
For years, Inez Miller of Pasadena, CA had worked behind a desk as a receptionist. But her receipt of the French Academy of Arts Victor Hugo Award, valued at $20,000, revealed she had a secret life as a celebrated painter and had been using all the money from the sale of her work to aid orphans and young artists, while supporting herself only on her income as a receptionist. She received the prize in honor of her philanthropic work, and news of her award made national headlines. But two days later, on this day in 1961, Miller admitted it was all a lie. There was no Victor Hugo Award, nor was she a painter. She was just a receptionist. [Spokesman-Review]
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014.   Comments (0)

My Trip to Willow Creek, Bigfoot Capital of the World
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014.   Comments (0)
Facebook debuts satire tag — Facebook is debuting a "satire" tag to identify articles that are intended as parody. Although the tag currently only appears in lists of "Related Articles". So articles from The Onion will now get flagged as satire, as well as articles from some other fake news sites (though Facebook isn't revealing exactly which sites it tags and which it doesn't). Seems like a good idea. Actually, they should have done this a long time ago. Because although one might argue that people should be able to recognize satire on their own, in practice a lot of them don't. [ajc.com]
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014.   Comments (2)

This Day in the History of Hoaxes: August 18

August 18, 1999: Criswell Predicts the End of the World
In his book Criswell Predicts From Now to the Year 2000 (published 1968), the American psychic Criswell predicted that the end of the world would occur on August 18, 1999. The end would come by means of a "black rainbow" that would remove the oxygen from the earth's atmosphere "through some mysterious force beyond our comprehension." The only survivors would be the handful of colonists living in space stations. Criswell was known for his "wildly inaccurate predictions" (as wikipedia puts it).
Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014.   Comments (2)
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