Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

The Extreme Cuisine of Chef Kaz Yamamoto — Todd emailed me a link to this Phoenix New Times article about rogue chef "Kaz" Yamamoto, whose specialty is creating dishes from "meat, game and vegetation that's considered off limits, immoral or even illegal." We're talking about dishes such as Tenderloin of Bichon Frise, monkey brain stew, Arizona saguaro cactus salad, Yosemite brown bear, rhino genitals, giraffe tongue, Sea World sea lion (supposedly obtained by bribing a Sea World employee), etc. Yamamoto even claims to serve human flesh, obtained by paying Mexican immigrants a handsome sum for their kidney, arm, or leg. These delicacies are all served to a rich and powerful clientele who have a taste for forbidden food.


As Todd points out, this sounds a bit farfetched (and very reminiscent of the plot of The Freshman), but then again the Phoenix New Times is a real, credible paper. So why would they be making all this up? The answer is that the Phoenix New Times occasionally likes to print hoax stories. Back in 2004 I posted about their article on human taxidermy, which described a company that offered freeze-drying of corpses as an alternative to burial or cremation. (You could stand freeze-dried Grandma in the corner of your living room.) Human taxidermy was a hoax, and so is the extreme cuisine of Kaz Yamamoto. Clues (besides the outlandish nature of the article itself) are the photoshopped pictures (such as the one of Yamamoto cutting down a protected saguaro cactus) and the "Details" box which reads "Special Reports: As If. . .".

Wild Goose Chase — I'm not quite sure what's going on in this story, but it's not often that a wild goose chase literally happens, so I thought it was worth posting. Chris Kaye reports for KSL local news in Utah: So did the dispatcher send Sergeant Spencer to pull over the car with the goose as a joke? Or had some people really stolen a goose from the Utah Botanical Gardens? And if so, why?

SmackBook — A video on YouTube shows a MacBook Pro that has supposedly been hacked to rapidly change applications whenever it's smacked on the side. (Thanks to Kathy for sending the link.) I have to admit that when I first saw it, I thought it was fake. I figured the guy was probably pushing a button to make the applications change. However, after reading Erling Ellingsen's description on Medallia blog of how the SmackBook was created, I'm now pretty sure it's real. He writes: More importantly, he also provides the code so that anyone else can hack the Mac's built-in motion sensor and create a SmackBook, if they desire. And a few people have reported successfully replicating the SmackBook. It's a cool little trick, but I don't see it having that many practical applications.

Giant Jellyfish — Peter Wenker sent along this picture of a giant jellyfish. He doesn't think it's real, and I'd agree. I know that giant jellyfish do exist, such as the ones that recently appeared off the coast of Japan, but those were about the size of a washing machine, not the size of a truck. I've never heard of a jellyfish this big. So is this picture another product of Worth1000?

Update: Accipiter found a version of this same photo minus the diver, which would seem to indicate that the version with the diver has been photoshopped. (Unless it was the diver who was photoshopped out, but that seems very unlikely to me... [Wait a second, on a closer look it does seem that something might have been removed from the version without the diver. This will require more investigation.] ) The page he linked to also had some interesting jellyfish trivia, such as "The largest jellyfish ever found was a lion’s mane, with a bell 2m (7ft) across, and tentacles extending more than 35m" and "A collection of jellyfish is known as a smack."

Sheep Thinks She’s A Dog — It's not quite as dramatic as the cases of humans raised with wolves, but it's interesting nevertheless. Rolo the Sheep was raised with collies, and now seems to believe that she's a dog. The BBC reports: I'm not sure what my cat thinks she is. She definitely considers herself better than other cats, but also better than us humans. She probably considers herself a deity.

Real Body Found At Fake Crime Scene — Here's the scene: a high school criminology class on a field trip to the local park. Their teacher has created fake bodies for them to find. But wait a second. One of those bodies looks awfully real. The AP reports: Reality has a strange way of doing that, intruding on our make-believe games. But I predict that it's only a matter of time before this particular event gets refictionalized as part of the storyline of a TV crime drama (probably CSI).

Prince Philip Worshipped As A God — Poor Prince Philip never seems to get that much attention, overshadowed as he is by his famous wife, the Queen. But he can console himself with the knowledge that the residents of Tanna, a volcanic island in the Pacific, worship him as a god. UPI reports: It's the line about wrinkle removal that gets me. Are the Yaohahnen especially concerned about their wrinkles? And why would they think Prince Philip would be able to remove them, given that he's not exactly the smoothest-faced person in the world?

On the subject of cargo cults, Smithsonian Magazine ran an interesting article a few months back about them, specifically a group of South Pacific islanders who worship an American named John Frum.

7.9% of Japanese Men Over 40 Are Virgins — Apparently the movie 40 Year-Old Virgin should have been set in Japan, if the new study ("Male and Female Life and Awareness") by the Japan Family Planning Association is to be believed. It found that "7.9% of the men in the 40-45 age segment claimed they have yet to experience sex." That seems like an awfully high figure, and without knowing any details about the study (how were the questions phrased, how many people were questioned, etc.) it's difficult to know whether to take it seriously. Kunio Kitamura, director of the JFPA, blames this figure on poor male-female communication in Japan and widespread performance anxiety among Japanese men: "Their concerns, over things like being unable to achieve erection, or enabling their partner to reach orgasm, became so oppressive they decided to avoid sex altogether." I've searched, but I can't find any more details about this study other than this lone article. (My lack of knowledge of Japanese obviously hindered my search.) But my gut feeling is that this study probably isn't too reliable.

Fake Happy Families Sell Homes — California realtors have devised a new way to sell homes. They're hiring actors to play "happy families" during open houses: My wife and I often go to open houses in our neighborhood, partially because we like seeing what other people have done with their homes and partially because we're thinking of moving. Just last week we went to one in which the homeowners were there with their kid. They seemed like nice people, but now I'm wondering if it was all fake. Maybe they were just actors.

My favorite part of the article is this line: "A second show day at the development, which features three to five-bedroom homes from $500,000 (£280,000) to $610,000, is planned for Saturday. The cast will be the same except for Miss Chen, who has a previous engagement and will be "changed out" for a new mum." This immediately brought to mind Lucy Clifford's short story "The New Mother", in which misbehaving kids learn that their poor suffering mother is going to be changed out for a new mother (a mechanical one with a rat's tail). So I'm thinking that parents who visit the Centex open houses can now warn their kids that if they misbehave they'll be sent to live with one of these fake happy families. That would scare me if I were a kid. (via J-Walk)

Huichol Labor Pain Relief Custom — An anonymous contributor sent me a link to this image depicting an ancient Huichol Indian labor pain relief technique. The text reads:

Do the Huichol Indians really have such a custom? I assumed it was a joke, but after googling for a bit I came across a scholarly article that mentions this practice and also provides a source to back up the claim. The birthing tradition is mentioned at the very end of the article (I don't know who the author is): So, given that the scrotum-tied-husband custom is apparently mentioned in Kathleen Berrin's Art of the Huichol Indians, I'm inclined to believe that the custom is real. Though, of course, the Huichol woman who created the yarn painting may have intended it as a joke. I'll need to do more research to get to the bottom of this.

Jaleel White Commits Suicide — The latest false celebrity death rumor going around concerns Jaleel White (best known for playing Urkel on Family Matters). Supposedly he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. This rumor is old. It was first posted on my site over half a year ago (in the comments to my post titled 'Is this Jaleel White?'). It's no truer now than it was then. I have no idea why it's begun circulating again, but here are the main highlights from the hoax AP report: Like I said, this was all posted on my site over half a year ago. Which means that when people did a Google search for info about Jaleel White committing suicide, my site was one of the first they found. Because of this, my page about Jaleel White started to receive huge amounts of traffic. So much traffic that it was not only slowing the entire site down, but was also slowing other sites that were located on the same server at my web host. Nevin, the technical guy at my web host, has been exchanging emails with me about it all day. What we've done to try to ease the strain on the server is to automatically route people visiting the comments for that old Jaleel White thread to my page about false celebrity death rumors (which is a static page and therefore uses less of the cpu).

Victorian Rock Music — Most people think rock music got its start as an identifiable genre in the 1950s with artists such as Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Elvis Presley. Not so. As Paul Collins points out in the current issue of The Believer, there was a thriving tradition of rock music during the nineteenth century. In fact, rock music was invented in 1785 by a retired sailor named Peter Crosthwaite in the Lake District village of Keswick. Of course, the nineteenth-century version of rock music was a bit more low-key than its twentieth-century successor, since it involved music played with rocks, as opposed to guitars and drums.

When I first saw Collins's article, I thought he had to be joking. But no, a little research confirmed that Victorian rock music was quite real. I found an article in the Galphin Society Journal (Aug, 1989) about the "Till Family Rock Band," a group that toured quite widely during the 1880s, written by a modern-day member of the family, A.M. Till. He writes: Below is a picture of the Till Family Rock Band, posing with their rocks. They look like rockers to me.

Potato Used As Silencer — The Miami Herald reports the case of a man who threatened to shoot the mother of his child with a gun silenced by a potato. He never fired the gun, but did explain to her how the potato would silence the shot, insuring that no one would hear what happened. The police had this to say about the man's knowledge of acoustics: Another favorite, often seen in movies and on TV, is to tape an empty plastic soda bottle onto the muzzle of the gun. I don't think this works any better than the potato technique. The Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics Page points out that movies, in general, tend to grossly misrepresent the effectiveness of silencers. In real life they don't silence guns as much as they do in movies. (I should note that I've never handled a gun, so I'm relying entirely on the word of other sources here.): (via David Emery)

Giant Ball Crashed Into Building — Here's a picture that's going around, just in time for the upcoming World Cup. Apparently this was created a couple of years ago for a Nike campaign in Mexico. However, the image is just a concept piece created by the JWT agency (i.e. it's photoshopped). This was never done in real life. Pity. It would be a pretty cool piece of urban art if it were real. (via Coolzor)

Alan Abel Videos — I just discovered a whole stash of clips of Alan Abel hoaxes on YouTube (uploaded, I assume, by his daughter, Jenny). There's Omar's School for Beggars, the fake lottery winner, Ban Breast Feeding, the mass fainting on Donahue, and many more. It's a good twenty minutes worth of entertainment. Enjoy.

Stock Performance Tied To Ease Of Pronouncing Company’s Name — There's nothing hoaxy about this story. It's just another example of how non-rational people can be... especially investors in the stock market. Two Princeton researchers, Adam Alter and Danny Oppenheimer, have discovered that the ease with which a company's name and its ticker symbol can be pronounced has a strong short-term effect on the performance of its stock. In other words, "a stock with the symbol BAL should outperform one with the symbol BDL in the first few days of trading." In Hippo Eats Dwarf I noted a similar effect: that when investors think they've found the next big thing (be it railways, airlines, biotech, dot.coms, or nanotechnology) all stocks whose names seem to have something to do with those fields benefit, whether or not they actually do have something to do with those fields. Thus, in the recent nanotechnology crazy, Nanometrics (ticker symbol: NANO) shot up, even though it makes semiconductor tools and has nothing to do with nanotechnology.

BioPerformance Goes to Court — Thanks to Joe for sending along some links about the ongoing downfall of BioPerformance, Inc. (discussed in the hoax forum in this thread about fuel additives). To summarize briefly: BioPerformance seems to be a classic case of a pyramid scheme. The people at the top of the pyramid were convincing suckers to pay for the privilege of selling little green pills that supposedly, when placed in a car's gas tank, yielded "vast improvements in mileage, performance and emissions". What BioPerformance wasn't telling anyone was that the pills were simply mothballs that didn't improve mileage and could actually ruin a car's engine. (Though oddly enough, according to the Dallas Observer article, mothballs can, under certain conditions, boost octane levels, which can help engine performance... but only when used in very carefully controlled amounts and in high-performance engines.) Sadly, in a classic example of cognitive dissonance, many of the BioPerformance faithful are refusing to admit they've been scammed. But thats always the way it is with con-artists and their victims.

Vatican Warns on Fake Papal Organist — This is over a week old, but it struck me as odd enough to be worth posting anyway: So I'm really curious about what this guy's story is. Has he resorted to deception to get a leg-up in the cut-throat world of organ playing? Or is he using this as a line to pick up girls? "Hey baby, I play the Pope's organ."

Pet Food Salesman Ships Gallows to Libya — Early last month a number of British papers ran pieces about a Norfolk farmer selling execution equipment to dictatorships. For instance, this is from the Scotsman (May 12): Now we learn that Mr. Lucas's gallows trade is nothing more than a hoax. At least, so says his business partner. UPI reports: I suppose this is an example of gallows humor.

BushFish — Do you believe God belongs in government? Do you believe President Bush is doing The Lord's Work? If so, then step up and buy a BushFish car magnet. There's been speculation that this is some kind of parody, along the lines of BushIsLord.com. It does seem a little over the top. But I'm guessing that the creator of these things doesn't care whether people interpret them as a parody, or as a serious statement, as long as they buy plenty of them. (And yes, as far as I can tell, purchases really can be made via the site... though I wasn't about to actually buy one to make sure.)

On Daily Kos there's been speculation that BushFish is a satire based on the fact that some of the photos of BushFish on car bumpers seem to have been photoshopped. I'm not seeing this. In fact, it seems to me that it would be more work to photoshop a BushFish onto a bumper than it would be to simply slap one onto a bumper in real life and take a picture of it.

Personally I think that if anyone feels a burning need to buy a Bush Fish, they should buy one of the aquatic kind instead.