Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

School For Ambidexterity — According to an article in NewKerala.com, the Veena Vadini school in Singrauli, India teaches its students to write with both hands, at the same time. And that's not all:

All these students are able to write simultaneously with both their hands. Trained from the early days at their school, these 72 young students are today at comfort with this rare art. They are also fluent in a number of languages.
Virangat Sharma, the principal of the school said that all his students are proficient in this art, which was started as an experiment. “The children are taught six languages Hindi, Urdu, English, Roman, Sanskrit and Arabic,” says Sharma. “I read somewhere that India's first President Dr. Rajendra Prasad used to write in two languages I also preferred to experiment developing such a skill among my students. All the children here can do this and also know the world's capital cities and their tables up to hundred. They can write on two different subjects and in two different languages at the same time,” says Sharma. Not just that these children can write with both their hands but they can also write in two different languages on two different subjects at the same time, tells Sharma.

Wow. And I thought my ability to write backwards in ancient Greek while doing a one-arm handstand and juggling two balls with my feet was impressive. Needless to say, I'm highly suspicious of the principal's claims. (Assuming that he exists and wasn't misquoted by a reporter.) The same story is also reported by ananova, adding to its credibility (note: sarcasm). I did a search for "Veena Vadini School" to see if they have a website, but only found links to this article about their instruction in ambidexterity. (Thanks to Kathy for sending me the clipping.)

Update:
SicTim (posting in the comments) remembered that Ripleys had once featured some cases of amazing ambidexterity. Checking the Best of Ripleys volume on my bookshelf, I found these examples. On the left, Lena Deeter of Conway, Arkansas, who "could write with both hands simultaneously — backwards, forwards, upside-down, even upside-down backwards! She could write in a different direction with each hand simultanously." (She appeared in a Ripleys cartoon on April 1, 1942... I assume she wasn't an April Fool's joke.) On the right is "a 1936 Dallas Odditorium performer [who] could draw three different cartoons simultaneously — with both hands and a foot!"

These cases indicate that it might be possible for someone to write in two different languages at the same time, but I'm still doubtful that an entire school could be trained to do it.

 

Massage Milk Censored — Here's news of a hoax from China. (There seems to be more of them coming from there lately.) Massage Milk (great name!) is one of the most popular blogs in China. It was featured in a Newsweek article last month about Chinese bloggers. But a few days ago its site went blank, and the assumption was that it had been forced offline by the Chinese government. At least, this is what news organizations such as the BBC assumed. Turns out everyone was wrong. The disappearing-blog-act was just a hoax. Wang Xiaofeng, the author of Massage Milk, faxed a statement to the Interfax news agency explaining that:

I just wanted to make fun of Western journalists? [content] doesn't need to be serious on the Internet. I don't like it that Western media take a distorted view of China, though China does have problems. I thought that if I closed my blog, it would stir their imagination and then they would begin blah blah. It really is as expected. So let's they have an April Fool's day in advance."

The question is: Is Wang Xiaofeng now telling the truth? Was his site's closure really an early April Fool's Day prank, or did the Chinese government actually have a hand in what happened? Some people think the latter is the case. If it was a prank, it does seem kind of pointless (after all, why shouldn't people have believed the Chinese state would have done something like that? It's not like China is known for its open internet policy), which lends credence to the government-censorship theory.

Update: The Wall Street Journal has posted an article about the Massage Milk hoax. (And I should note that a second Chinese blog, Milk Pig, also participated in the self-shutdown hoax.) The WSJ notes that: "Beijing-based journalist Wang Xiaofeng of Massage Milk says he shut his blog down to make a point about freedom of speech -- just one directed at the West instead of at Beijing. He calls the Western press "irresponsible" and says that the hoax was designed "to give foreign media a lesson that Chinese affairs are not always the way you think." Quite frankly, I don't get it. Is shutting his own blog down supposed to prove to everyone in the West that China actually allows more freedom of speech than journalists over here supposed?

Fur-Bearing Crab — Dethcheez saw the picture of the fur-bearing lobster, and emailed me these pictures of a fur-bearing crab. I assume it's fake, with the fur glued on, though I could be wrong. (I would have thought the picture of the furry lobster was fake also, if the creature wasn't written up in a scientific journal.) As Dethcheez points out, the furry crab looks a lot like one of those troll figurines with the wild Don King hair. Whether real or fake, I'd like to get my hands on one. It would look cool sitting in my office. I'd also like to buy a mounted fur-bearing trout. I've been searching for one for ages, but haven't been able to find any for sale.

JT Leroy: The Movie — Variety reports that the JT Leroy hoax is already heading to the big screen. The Weinstein Company has committed to making a film about Laura Albert's elaborate deception. (Laura Albert was the woman who invented the JT Leroy character.) The time between the hoax being exposed and a movie deal about it being inked seems to have occurred incredibly fast. What is it... a month or two since the hoax was confirmed? The dust has barely settled.

I hope the movie is good. In its favor is that hoaxes seem to translate pretty well to the big screen. Shattered Glass (about the journalistic deceptions of Stephen Glass) was a great movie. And Princess Caraboo, starring Phoebe Cates, (about the Princess Caraboo hoax, obviously) was decent, as a kid's movie. I've read that a movie called The Hoax, starring Richard Gere, about Clifford Irving's fake autobiography of Howard Hughes, is coming out soon. That also sounds good.

In other JT Leroy news, a movie version of one of his (her?) books, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, is about to debut. The movie was made under the assumption that the story it told was true. Now that story has been exposed as a lie, prompting a rapid switch in how the movie is marketed. My guess is that most people still have never heard of JT Leroy, so the hoax shouldn't have much impact on the movie.

Related Posts:
October 10, 2005: Is JT Leroy A Hoax?
January 9, 2006: JT Leroy: An Update
February 6, 2006: Knoop Confesses JT Leroy Was a Hoax

The Fur-Bearing Lobster — Science has long recognized the existence of the fur-bearing trout, which lives in the rivers and lakes of North America. Now its Pacific cousin has been found: the fur-bearing lobster (scientific name Kiwa hirsuta). According to the BBC, "A US-led team found the animal last year in waters 2,300m (7,540ft) deep at a site 1,500km (900 miles) south of Easter Island, an expert has claimed. Details appear in the journal of Paris' National Museum of Natural History."

So what is the purpose of the fur? Scientists speculate that "the 'hairy' pincers contained lots of filamentous bacteria... The bacteria detoxify poisonous minerals from the water, allowing K. hirsuta to survive around the vents."

An interesting theory, but it seems to me more logical to assume that its luxuriant coat developed to protect it from the cold waters of the depths, as is the case with the fur-bearing trout.

[Note: Despite what the above text might imply, fur-bearing trout are a tall-tale. Furry lobsters are real.]

(Thanks to Kathy for the link)

Hippo Eats Dwarf Book Review Contest — Amazon.com has started shipping copies of Hippo Eats Dwarf. So anyone who pre-ordered it should be receiving it soon. This also means that people can now post customer reviews of it on Amazon. Obviously there are no reviews of it yet, and the book looks kind of lonely without any. This has given me an idea for a contest.

I point out in Hippo Eats Dwarf that a significant number of the customer reviews on Amazon are fake (glowing reviews posted by friends of the author, or by the authors themselves). I also point out that it's quite common for reviewers to never read the books they're reviewing. As the Scottish reverend Sidney Smith once said, "I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so."

Given this (my general skepticism about Amazon reviews), I'd like to have some fun with the reviews of Hippo Eats Dwarf. Here's my idea. I'll send a signed copy of the book to whomever posts the most creative customer review of it on Amazon by the end of this month. (This may produce some interesting stuff, or it may not. We'll see how it goes.) You'll need to acknowledge your review here in the comments section if you want to win the prize (unless your Amazon screen name is the same as your Museum of Hoaxes screen name... or I believe it's also possible to send reviewers email through Amazon). You'll also need to have an Amazon account (which, I believe, requires a credit card I was wrong about the need for a credit card. You can create an Amazon account with an email address alone... and Amazon doesn't verify the address).

Just to clarify: I'm not looking for phony glowing reviews. Instead, I'm looking for imaginative reviews in the spirit of great Amazon reviewers such as Henry Raddick. Post a review that accurately describes what the book is about. Or imagine what a book called Hippo Eats Dwarf might be about (ignore the subtitle), and write a review of that. Write your review as a limerick, or a haiku. Whatever you want. Just make it interesting. Points definitely go for humor. Hopefully I won't get in trouble with Amazon for this.

MIT Dome Wins Gold Medal — Pranksters at MIT struck again last week. On Tuesday morning school officials discovered a massive Olympic gold medal hanging from the MIT dome. News reports state:

MIT officials said the medal was likely a prank, but they did not know how it was done or who did it. The school also said it never gave permission for the building to become a gold medal winner. The school has not said how long the medal will stay.

The MIT dome, of course, has been the focus of many, many pranks over the years. The first dome decoration dates back to 1961 when a giant Happy Birthday banner was hung from it. In 1962 it was made to look like a grinning jack-o-lantern. In 1979 it became a giant breast with a large nipple protruding from the top of it. Also in 1979, a fiberglass cow was placed on top of it. In 1986 a prefabricated house appeared atop it. In 1998 it grew a pair of giant Mickey Mouse ears. And in 2003, the Wright brothers plane mysteriously landed on top of it.

Free Breast Implants With Credit Card — The Plastic Assets credit card company is making an attractive offer: free breast implants if you sign up for their card. They promise that "With a low APR and bigger breasts, you will be ready for anything!" And you also get free lip injections for every friend you refer.

The site is well designed — well enough designed to plausibly pass for an actual credit card company site. But it's a hoax. The site is part of the Huffington Post Contagious Festival (as you can find out if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of it), which is a contest to create a high-traffic site. There have been contests like this before. Remember the Contagious Media Festival, which produced Forget-Me-Not Panties (panties with a built-in GPS device so that jealous lovers could track the whereabouts of their wearer)? (Thanks to David for the link.)

Related Posts:
May 5, 2004: Invest In My Breast

85-year-old Woman To Climb Everest — Mary Woodbridge, from Greenfield, Great Britain, plans to climb Mount Everest, and she's taking her dachsund, Daisy, with her. Some might think her age will prove an obstacle (she's 85), but Mary is very confident in herself and has set herself some real challenges. She writes:

I'm not really into this whole camping thing. So Daisy and I will choose a direct route from the Base Camp to the Top... We have decided to go without Sherpas. Poor guys! I can certainly carry my own food (I have prepared a solid Irish Stew and Power Crunchies!) and the few cans of dog food for Daisy. Since we are training very hard, we don't expect to need additional oxygen on our ascent. (There are no oxygen masks for Daisy anyway!)

Yes, Mary's Everest expedition is just a joke. Her site was created by Mammut, a seller of mountain sports gear. However, EverestNews.com reports that a 74-year-old Japanese woman really is planning to climb Everest. And they swear it's not a hoax.

Nessie Was an Elephant — Accipiter beat me to this story, posting it in the forum earlier today, but it's worth reposting here for the benefit of those who read the site via RSS (or those who don't check out the forum). Scottish paleontologist Neil Clark has come up with a new theory about Nessie's true identity. He suggests that Loch Ness's most famous resident is (or rather was) an elephant.

His theory goes like this: A number of circuses visited the Loch Ness area in the early 1930s (when Nessie mania began, as I note on my Loch Ness hoaxes page). The circuses let their elephants swim in the Loch. So perhaps some people saw these swimming elephants and mistook them for sea serpents.

It's an interesting theory, and plausible. Though it still seems a bit more likely that the rise in Nessie sightings during the 1930s had more to do with the completion of the road along the loch's north shore, and consequent rise in tourism to the area.

And let's not forget the rival theory that sea serpents are really whale penises. (Although the whale-penis theory can't explain Nessie, unless a whale got loose in the loch.)

The Kitten Killer of Hangzhou — A series of pictures showing a woman crushing a kitten to death with her stiletto heels is causing an uproar over in China. The pictures first appeared on the internet and have recently been published by some Chinese newspapers. The woman in the photos has been dubbed the Kitten Killer of Hangzhou, because the background scene has been identified as Hangzhou. I've been able to locate four of the pictures in the series, but I think there are a few more (far more graphic) ones. Here are the ones I found (I don't have larger versions):

Image 3 (possibly disturbing)	Image 4 (possibly disturbing)

The big question is: Who is this woman? One theory is that the images come from a Japanese shoe advertisement. Another theory identifies the kitten killer as a "37-year-old woman from Hubei province with the internet identity 'Gainmas.'" The London Telegraph elaborates:

She had registered a website in Hangzhou and - the ultimate evidence - had bought a pair of stilettoes on eBay last year. She was also registered with QQ, a popular Chinese message service, where she wrote of herself: "I furiously crush everything to do with you and me." Before her QQ address went dead, its owner had several conversations. In one, she is coy, saying "So what?" when asked if the pictures are of her, and then, when asked again, replying: "In theory." When confronted by a reporter, she became defensive, saying: "Suddenly hundreds of people are on my QQ and cursing me. What's the problem if I crush cats? It's a type of experience. You wouldn't understand."

The Telegraph goes on to note:

No one seems to have suggested the serious possibility that the photographs could be a hoax - created by picture-altering computer software. But in the face of tight control of self-expression, young Chinese are seeking wildly different forms of sensation or satire on the state of society.

Without having seen all the pictures (and better quality ones), it's hard to judge whether or not they're real. But it certainly seems like this has already become the Chinese version of Bonsai Kitten (with the added twist that it may be real... in which case it's definitely disgusting).

Update: A "Crush" video is circulating around (you can find links to it in the comments, if you're interested) that makes it pretty clear the woman really did step on a kitten. Also, an article in the Shanghai Daily reports that the lady, and the guy who produced the video, have been identified. The producer, who is a camera operator at a TV station, has apologized. However, the woman, who works as a nurse at a hospital, has disappeared, leading to concerns that kitten commandoes may have abducted her (or something along those lines).

Pet Moose — Thanks to Adam Downs for forwarding me these images that are doing the rounds. I haven't been able to find out any information about them (such as who the woman is, or when the pictures were taken), but they're accompanied by this caption:

This lady, who lives just on the outskirts of Thunder Bay, Ontario, has a friendly Bull Moose who has become her friend. He likes to stick his head into her house and is very friendly.
Pictures taken at her home last week. He wants in. Helping himself to a drink. Come on in and have a snack.
Also she took a picture of a Buck [male deer] in her Backyard by the apple trees in the morning at her house. For anyone who thinks living in a big dirty city is the best.. "THINK AGAIN SHE SAYS".

I don't see any reason to doubt that the information in the caption is correct.

A Meditation on the Speed Limit — In order to demonstrate the stupidity of the 55 mph speed limit, four Atlanta students pulled a dangerous stunt: they all drove exactly 55 mph on the highway, in a line, thereby blocking the flow of traffic and creating an enormous traffic jam. Check out the video of it. I realize the students thought they were doing something clever, but as I watched the video I found myself getting more and more angry at them. It was like experiencing road rage while sitting behind a computer. I kept imagining the people in the blocked traffic who probably had to get to work, or wanted to get home, and who were instead being held up by these idiots and their road block.

Anyway, their argument — that their experiment proves the absurdity of the 55 mph law — is flawed. It didn't prove that at all. All it proved is that if you form a rolling blockade, it's going to create a traffic jam. It would have had the same effect at 65 mph. Plus, it's definitely against the law to form a blockade like they did. Only the police are allowed to do that. So they weren't actually obeying the law.

I realize that pranks are supposed to be obnoxious and annoy some people. But delaying innocent commuters, and creating a situation in which people could easily have gotten hurt as anger escalated, just doesn't seem quite right to me. Though this is probably the angry driver inside of me feeling that way. (One more thing: at the beginning of the video they misspell the word obedience.)

Update: Some quick googling, and I found the section of Georgia law (code 40-6-40, section D) that applies to what they did:

No two vehicles shall impede the normal flow of traffic by traveling side by side at the same time while in adjacent lanes, provided that this Code section shall not be construed to prevent vehicles traveling side by side in adjacent lanes because of congested traffic conditions.

So it was illegal, and they made a video of themselves doing it. Not too smart.

Update 2: David Spear, a spokesman for the Atlanta Police Department, has been quoted as saying that what the students did was legal:

David Spear, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said if the students weren't blocking emergency vehicles and were going the speed limit, "they didn't do a thing wrong." Spear added that the speed limit was lowered to 55 because it saves lives. "In Atlanta, the actual effect of it is we expect the people going 75 to move over so the people going 95 can have the right of way," he said.

So I guess I was wrong. Though I'm still having a hard time understanding how it can be legal, when the code referenced above seems to state that it's not legal.

Ann Arbor Public School Site — The website of the Ann Arbor Public School system can be found at http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/. A parody version of it (created by an unknown author) is at http://annarborpublicschools.org/. Apparently the school district doesn't find the parody amusing, because they're sending its domain host a cease-and-desist letter claiming infringement of their intellectual property. The two sites do look very similar, but I don't think their case would hold up in court. After all, parody relies upon copying elements of whatever it's making fun of, and parody has always been a "fair use" exception to copyright that the courts have strongly defended. However, the question will be whether the case ever gets to a court. Often domain hosts see a cease-and-desist letter and immediately take down the material in question rather than risk any kind of legal action. We'll have to wait and see what happens here. But I took a screen shot of the parody site, just in case it does disappear.

Video iPod — In the past two weeks there have been a flurry of rumors, accompanied by pictures, about new products from Apple. We've seen this version of a new video iPod:


It turned out to be a hoax created by "Bud62". A picture of an Apple iPhone has also been floating around:


This iPhone is a fantasy product designed by Isamu Sanada (who's just a guy who likes to design fictitious Apple products). And finally, we have another video iPod:


Yet another hoax. Whoever created it has placed a video online showing the entire process they went through to photoshop the image. It's a pretty interesting (and amusing) video. You get to watch a hoaxer at work.

The Disappearing Blonde Gene — Peter Frost has an article in the current issue of Evolution and Human Behavior in which he argues that the trait for blonde hair evolved 10,000 years ago in northern Europe because men found blonde women to be attractive--and because there were more women than men, the women had to compete for the men. (I'm simplifying his argument a lot.) But I'm not bringing this up to make a point about Frost's article. Instead, I'm bringing it up because the London Times discusses his article and concludes with this observation:

Film star blondes such as Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sharon Stone and Scarlett Johansson are held up as ideals of feminine allure. However, the future of the blonde is uncertain. A study by the World Health Organisation found that natural blonds are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene. According to the WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.

They're referring, of course, to the story of the WHO Blonde Report, which was revealed to be a hoax back in 2002. The gene for blonde hair is not actually disappearing, nor did the WHO ever sponsor such a study. Did the Times not realize it was a hoax, or did the reporter slip this in as a joke?

Ancient Buddha Figurines Found in California River — A resident of the town of Colfax (northern California) claims to have found hundreds of ancient Buddha figurines buried in the American River:

Herman Henry says he found about 400 of the Buddha carvings in a washed out sandbar along the River more than a month ago. The thumb-sized, white carvings may be hundreds of years old. And now federal and state investigators are looking into the discovery and are looking for Mr. Henry.

He found them in a state park. It's illegal to remove historical artifacts from a state park, so that's why the police want to talk to him. Of course, there's also the question of how these artifacts can possibly be genuine. There were people from China in northern California hundreds of years ago, but these artifacts seem suspiciously well preserved. State Park Ranger Donna Turner notes, "It's hard for me to believe that there were just 500 of them laying in the middle of the river in the condition that they are in." My hunch is that Henry came up with a wild story to increase the value of some worthless figurines he was trying to get rid of.

Turkish Wrist Walkers — I've received quite a few emails about the following story, presumably because it seems like something lifted from Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks. A family in Turkey contains five siblings who have apparently never learned how to walk on their feet. They still walk on all fours, with the weight of their upper bodies supported by their wrists (wrist walking, as opposed to knuckle walking, which is what apes do). You can check out a video of one of these wrist walkers on the website of Turkish researcher Uner Tan.



The case of these wrist walkers is far too widely reported to be a hoax. Apparently there's even a BBC documentary about them in the works. Scientific interest in them stems from the light they might shed on a long-standing debate about how humans evolved the ability to walk upright. Were humans knuckle walkers (like other primates) or wrist walkers before they started walking on two feet?

There's also debate about whether these Turkish siblings are merely suffering from a form of brain damage and never learned how to walk upright (this theory is argued by a team of British researchers... their paper is at the top of the list of articles), or are the siblings a case of reverse evolution (the Turkish researcher Uner Tan is arguing this). Whatever the case may be, none of it seems to be a hoax.

World Science has a couple of informative articles about the controversy (article 1, article 2).

The Tongue Map — One of the many catalogs I receive is the Wine Enthusiast. On the inside cover of the catalog I received last week is a description of Symphony Stemware wine glasses which are supposedly "designed and shaped to enhance the best characteristics of every wine." Accompanying this claim is a map of the tongue with the following caption:

"The specially designed shape of each glass directs the flow of wine to the proper areas of your palate, emphasizing a wine's best qualities and creating a balanced taste for maximum enjoyment."

Symphony isn't the only company to use a tongue map to promote their glasses. Riedel uses the same gimmick in their marketing. The thing is, from what I understand, the tongue map is a completely bogus idea. The tongue is not divided into taste regions. And even if it were, no glass is going to be able to direct flavors to one specific area of the tongue.

An article from the August 2004 issue of Gourmet magazine ("Shattered Myths" by Daniel Zwerdling... I can't find a link to it), tackled the tongue-map myth at some length and thoroughly debunked it:

"The tongue map? That old saw?" scoffs Linda Bartoshuk when I reach her at her laboratory at the Yale Univerity School of Medicine. Bartoshuk has done landmark studies on how people taste. "No, no. There isn't any 'tongue map.'"
Wait a minute: When you sip Pinot Noir from the correct Riedel glass, won't it maximize the fruit flavors by rushing the wine to the "sweet" zone on the tip of your tongue? When you serve a Chardonnay with too much fruit, won't the correct glass balance the flavors by directing the wine to the "acid" spots near the middle? "Nope," Bartoshuk laughs. "It's wrong." She and other scientists have proved that you can taste salty, sweet, and bitter everywhere on the tongue where there are taste buds. "Your brain doesn't care where taste is coming from in your mouth," Bartoshuk says. "And researchers have known this for thirty years."

The Wikipedia article on taste buds also debunks the idea of the tongue map: "Contrary to popular understanding, taste is not experienced on different parts of the tongue. The 'tongue map myth' was based on a mistranslation of a German paper that was written in 1901 by a Harvard psychologist. Though there are small differences in sensation, which can be measured with highly specific instruments, all taste buds can respond to all types of taste."

Overpopulated Mouse Colony Perishes — Henry Rosenbaum emailed me with the following description of a hoax, followed by a question:

For 30 years, from the mid-1960's, I lived in central Michigan, about a four hour drive from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where my wife and I often visited for weekends. I well recall an exhibit at one of the major museums that featured an enclosed cage/environment with a number of mice and a descriptive explanation to the effect: The mice were limited in the amount of space they were afforded, yet they were provided all the food and water their colony required, regardless of its numbers. The display stated they had at first healthily thrived and multiplied but as their supported numbers greatly increased without any increase in territory, the members became first combative and then homosexual, with the ultimate dying out of the colony despite the unlimited physical resources. Of course this was to illustrate what (perhaps as Malthus had predicted?) would ultimately happen to man if population growth was not checked.

I believed it was shortly after I left Michigan (mid-1990s) that I read in a West Coast newspaper that the museum had acknowledged the exhibit was a hoax made up in the minds of its (two, as I recall) researchers. I neglected then to clip the article and have for the last couple of years been unsuccessfully trying to re-locate the information of the hoax and its details. I had hoped it might be mentioned in your book and then attempted to research your web site under both mice and rats with variations as well as under several subject matters, all without success. I would appreciate if you could point me in the right direction.

I had never heard of this experiment/museum exhibit before (which is why it's neither in my book or on the site). Does it ring a bell with anyone?