Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

MagicSHELF Update — So I've been in contact with Uncle Url of Linky Dinky, and as a consequence I've become a firm believer in the brilliance and ingenuity of the magicSHELF. Everyone needs to have one of these! Well, that may be, but the behind-the-scenes story is that Uncle Url and I have worked out a deal. He's sending me a magicSHELF (and an extra one which I can give away as a prize). I'm going to test it out and verify that it does indeed work as advertised. Then he'll be able to use me as an objective, third-party endorsement. In return, when he mentions my endorsement in his newsletter, he might also mention that I have a book coming out. So it's like a cross-promotional deal. The catch is that I can't actually spill the beans on how the magicSHELF works, in order to maintain the air of mystery about it. [It is a magic trick, after all, and it's not good form to reveal magic tricks.] So I can say that it works, but not how... though it's really not too hard to guess how it works, so I don't think I'm keeping a big secret. However, by mistake, I already spilled the beans. So I now have to "reclassify" that information. Everyone please forget what I posted two days ago. (Oh, and expect to see me soon on one of those late-night infomercials: It slices! It dices! It's the incredible magicSHELF!")

Update: Uh, yeah. Before anyone else accuses me of being "Bought for 4 pieces of aluminum" (ouch, that hurt), let me point out that this is a magicSHELF we're talking about. I really do think it's a fun, cute, novelty item. (I've always been a sucker for stuff like this. As a kid I was a huge fan of the clapper and chia pets.) It's not like I'm lending my name to promote Lifewave Energy Patches. The magicSHELF is real and really does work, despite being of mysterious workings. And sometimes it's better to let certain things (Santa Claus, jackalopes, magicshelves) maintain a bit of mystery, rather than ruthlessly exposing their inner workings. Plus, having linkydinky mention my book in their newsletter is an incredible opportunity to get the word out about it (I worked pretty hard on it, so I'd like to give it every chance to do well), and refusing this opportunity in order to uphold the principle that the secret of the magicshelf MUST BE EXPOSED just seems kind of idiotic to me.

Thames Whale Watering Can on eBay — This is just pathetic:

Opportunists have tried to capitalise on the hysteria surrounding the Thames whale by putting a bogus watering-can up for sale on eBay, with a starting price tag of £1,924. The unidentified owner insisted the item was used in the attempted rescue of the 19ft northern bottle-nosed female whale to keep her moist and comfortable. But the fake sale outraged the British Divers Marine Life Rescue, who spent 36 hours and £100,000 trying to save the sea mammal's life and who were selling their own watering-can online.

Here's the real watering can for sale. Bidding is currently up to £99,701.25. (I hope that's not because of fake bids.)

Insect Candy — Paul Farrington emailed me with a question about the HOTLIX Insect Candy Company: "The site looks real, the products look real, there are no obvious giveaways except the sheer unbelievable grotesqueness of the very concept! What’s your take?" Well, my take is that the insect candy is definitely real, though I've never ordered any of it and submitted it to an entomologist for confirmation. (Nor do I plan to.) But there's no reason to believe the candy wouldn't be real. After all, insects are eaten in many cultures. It's only Westerners who are squeamish about eating them. A recent article in the Smithsonian's Zoogoer magazine discusses insects as food, pointing out that honey is nothing more than "bee vomit," and even notes the existence of the HOTLIX Insect Candy Company:

Although people worldwide have been enjoying edible insects since ancient times, their value—in terms of both nutrition and conservation—is often overlooked by the modern Western world...
An estimated 2,000 insect species are consumed around the world, and people do not just eat insects, they relish them as delicacies. In Africa, caterpillars and winged termites are fried and eaten as roadside snacks (after wings, legs, and bristles are removed, of course), and often considered tastier than meat. Grasshoppers and bee larvae seasoned with soy sauce are favorites in Japan, where pricey canned insects are also available. Papua New Guinea is known for its nutty-flavored sago grubs (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus papuanus or R. bilineatus), beetle larvae that inhabit dead sago palm trees and are honored at annual festivals...
Specialty food shops in Europe have started to sell insects imported from Africa. Even a U.S. company, Hotlix, sells various lollipops with embedded insects, chocolate-covered cockroaches, grubs, slugs, and grasshoppers, and mealworms in barbeque, cheddar cheese, and Mexican flavors.

magicSHELF Mystery Solved — Greg Cason broke down and ordered one of those LinkyDinky magicSHELVES that I posted about last week (I was tempted to do the same), thereby learning the secret of how they work. It turns out it's not a photoshop trick, nor are the books glued to the wall. Actually, they work almost exactly as I theorized. [edited out... I can't give away the secret. That would be against the magician's creed: never give away the trick!]

Update: Uncle Url himself (of Linky Dinky) sent me an email in response to the Museum of Hoaxes's ongoing magicSHELF investigation. Here's how it begins:

Alex -- You spilled my beans!
Well, all I've got to say is that I'm glad you concluded the story by allowing that our MagicShelf is, in fact, a "real" product and that it does exactly what it says it does. However... don't think so fast that the parts can be had at any local hardware store for 3 or 4 dollars.

For the full email click here. (It was a bit too long to post in its entirety on the front page.) Well, I hope Uncle Url doesn't harbor any bad feelings towards me for revealing the secret of the magicSHELF. It would kind of suck to get on Linky Dinky's blacklist. (There are many people whose blacklist I would be proud to be on, but I actually like Linky Dinky. They did come up with the Lovenstein Institute, after all.) But what can I say? The mystery of the magicSHELF was too tempting a puzzle not to try and solve. Anyway, I'm sure there are many products that can be constructed by do-it-yourselfers for a fraction of the cost, but since most of us aren't do-it-yourselfers, I doubt the market for the magicSHELF will be threatened by people buying the parts at the hardware store and making their own. Actually, I'm still tempted to buy one, since it would be an interesting conversation piece to have in my office.

The Case of the Gary-lous Parrot — Remember that story about the British parrot that kept squawking the phrase "I love you, Gary", thereby revealing to its owner, Chris Taylor, that his girlfriend was having an affair with a guy named Gary? It was all over the news about a week ago. (Charybdis posted it in the forum.) Well, it's looking more and more like the story was bogus. The couple has been refusing offers of thousands of pounds to get their photo taken with the parrot. In fact, it's not clear that the couple even exists since the freelance reporters who produced the story are the only ones who have access to them. The New York Times has posted a correction to its original story about the parrot:

An article on Wednesday about infidelity exposed by a chatty parrot described the way the parrot, owned by a man living with his girlfriend in Leeds, England, kept screeching the name of the woman's secret lover. When the parrot said "I love you, Gary," in what sounded like the woman's voice, her boyfriend (whose name is not Gary) broke up with her. Although the article reported that the information had been obtained from reports in The Daily Telegraph and other British newspapers, The Times could not verify the former couple's accounts because the information was given to the British press by a freelance journalist who charged for the account. The Times does not pay for information. The Times should have disclosed fully to readers why we relied on other news reports. Or, perhaps it would have been prudent, given that condition, for The Times to have resisted parroting the episode at all.

The New York Daily News encountered similar difficulties when it tried to track down the couple, leading it to speculate that the entire thing was a case of an urban legend reported as news:

When The News' Adam Nichols investigated the tale, he found strikingly similar ones earlier in the year, in Israel and Germany. When contacted, freelancer Paul Hardaker, who wrote the original story, would not give up his sources. "You see the same stories about parrots over and over, going back hundreds of years," explained urban legend expert David Mikkelson, who runs the Web site www.snopes.com. "I really have a hard time believing that there are that many people who are caught by parrots blurting out their lovers' names."

Bloody Sundae — A Delaware woman alleges that the hot fudge sundae her son was served at a local McDonald's was topped with a special sauce: human blood. The restaurant owner disputes this, claiming the red stuff was simply strawberry syrup:

According to court documents, Jara bought food, including four hot fudge sundaes, at the restaurant's drive-thru window on Dec. 30, 2004.
Her son, now 13, dug into his sundae and "recognized the taste of blood and, upon careful inspection, noted a red substance on the side of the sundae cup as well as mixed into his ice cream," the lawsuit claims. Jara then went into the store and spoke to a swing manager [Joshua Ferrell], who confirmed that it was blood, according to the lawsuit... Michael Meoli, owner of the McDonald's franchise, said the claims are unfounded, and that strawberry syrup probably had clogged the sundae machine. Ferrell, who no longer works at the restaurant, should not have said the substance was blood, Meoli said. "What is he, a botanist? No, he's a 21-year-old assistant manager who saw her screaming in the lobby and said 'whatever you say lady.'"

A botanist? And how could the kid know it tasted like blood, if it was mixed in with ice cream? That sounds fishy to me. Anyway, the bloody sundae does not appear to have been saved, so it's a case of the woman's word against the restaurant owner's word. But the lawyers, I imagine, are extracting their usual pound of flesh from both sides. (via Hometown Tales)

First Review of Hippo Eats Dwarf — The first review of Hippo Eats Dwarf is in. Actually, it's not so much a full review as a descriptive blurb, but it's what the reviewer from Booklist wrote. (Booklist, from what I understand, is read mostly by librarians and bookstore owners.)

Boese, Alex. Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S. Apr. 2006. 288p. illus. Harcourt, paper, $14 (0-15-603083-7). 001.9. From the author of the entertaining Museum of Hoaxes (2002) comes an even more entertaining follow-up. The book is a reasonably thorough, not to mention playful, guide to fakery. Advertising posing as legitimate news stories, nonexistent movie reviewers, fraudulent sales pitches, reality television, imaginary Internet bloggers, phony celebrities—they're all here, and plenty more, too. The book also features a series of "reality rules" (#5.2: should a suitably dramatic picture of a major event not exist, one will be created) and several "case files" that use real stories to illustrate various kinds of fakery (like the professor who fell for the Nigerian bank scam). Boese, a self-described "hoaxpert," keeps us on our toes by slipping in real-but-improbable events among the fakes and challenging us to see if we can tell the difference. All too often it's impossible to know whether something he describes is bona fide or bogus, and that's Boese's point: we need to stay on our toes, if we want to avoid getting fooled. —David Pitt
YA: Is there a teenager who wouldn't be interested in a hippo eating a dwarf, even if it was fake? BO.

The comment at the end, I'm assuming, is a supplementary remark made by the young adult reviewer. My publisher tells me that Playboy has also indicated they're going to review Hippo Eats Dwarf in their May issue (on newsstands in April), which will give me an excuse to buy the magazine and tell my wife I'm only reading it for the review. Giant magazine, which I hadn't heard of before, has also indicated they'll review it. Anyway, if you have any inclination to buy the book, think about pre-ordering it. I won't pretend to understand the economics of the publishing industry, but I've heard that bookstores and publishers care a lot about pre-orders. (Probably because it makes them more confident that the book will sell well, and thus more willing to devote marketing dollars to it, in the case of publishers, or to stock it, in the case of bookstores.)

Cremain Printing — Two weeks ago a lot of people were linking to a story about books bound in human skin that can be found in many libraries, including the rare book libraries at Brown and Harvard. This is, apparently, quite true. Often the books are old medical works, with the skin coming from patients or paupers whose bodies were bought for research. The most gruesome book, owned by the Boston Athenaeum, is an 1837 copy of the memoirs of the highwayman George Walton, bound in his own skin.

Following on in this vein, Paul Collins has noted that Mark Gruenwald, a writer for Marvel Comics, had his cremated ashes mixed into the printing of a comic book, Squadron Supreme. This is absolutely true. A copy of this "cremain printing" is currently for sale on eBay. The seller notes: "The book is in good shape with a ding on the upper, left corner from falling off a table. I hate to part with Mark, but I'm real tired of telling him to get his ash off the table."

The only other way I can think of to incorporate a human body into a book would be to write it in blood, which I'm sure someone has done. Though maybe I'm not being imaginative enough. Perhaps one could make a book's spine out of human bone, the paper from hair and nails... the possibilities are endless.

Is Lip Balm Addictive? — There's an old urban legend that states that the makers of lip balm (Carmex, specifically), add ground-up fiberglass to their product. The glass irritates people's lips, causing them to feel like they need to apply the balm again and again. There's another urban legend that states that lip balm interferes with the moisture sensors in the lips, causing lips to become dry and requiring more lip balm to be applied. Neither of these urban legends is true. Carmex debunks the fiberglass myth on their website, and the moisture sensor one is false because there are no such thing as moisture sensors in the lips. (At least, not ones that regulate the moisture levels of the lips.)

However, an Associated Press article points out that many lip balms contain salicylic acid or other irritants, and that these additives could encourage repeated use, thereby lending some substance to the charge that lip balm is physically addictive:

Dr. Monte Meltzer is the chief of dermatology at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. He says lip balm often includes ingredients that cause a tingling, such as salicylic acid, phenol and menthol. Some of these are exfoliants that cause lips to peel. In turn, the lips become thinner and less able to protect against the elements. So people need to apply again, and the vicious cycle continues.

Carmex, in its defense, tries to make out as if salicylic acid is a mild, non-irritating chemical, pointing out that it's "closely related to aspirin." However, I don't see why its relationship to aspirin is relevant since salicylic acid obviously does dry out your skin (which is why it's used in acne medicine).

However, even if lip balm isn't physically addictive, I know that it's definitely psychologically addictive, because my wife is totally addicted to the stuff. (I try to tell her that if her lips feel dry, she should drink more water, but she doesn't listen.) For those who are hooked on the stuff, Lip Balm Anonymous can offer some help.

Circle of Gnomes Found in Forest — The Garden Gnome Liberation Army has been in the news recently:

Twelve garden gnomes kidnapped in western Sweden a month ago have been found in a snowy forest, standing in a ring beside a lighted bonfire and a small hut, Swedish news agency TT reported. "It looked very cozy," Bo Larsson, a police officer in the town of Kil, near Karlstad, told TT on Friday. The gnomes mysteriously vanished from their gardens just before Christmas. A letter from the "Garden Gnomes Liberation Army" later claimed responsibility for their disappearance, explaining that the dwarfish figures had pined for freedom.

The gnomes were returned to their former owners.

Flying Car on Google Earth — The Register has found what appears to be a flying car, captured by the satellite imagery of Google Earth. It's definitely either a flying car, a car parked alongside a dark-looking patch on the ground, a car-shaped object floating in the air... or maybe a UFO! The Register provides some screenshots of the object, but unfortunately no direct link. (Google Maps doesn't cover Australia, so you'll need the Google Earth program to see it). The mysterious object is located at Pt. Walter in Perth, Australia.

Inappropriate Cheer Photoshops — The USC cheerleader caught (supposedly) giving an inappropriate cheer during the Rose Bowl is now being photoshopped into everything. A whole bunch of the images can be seen here. I suppose this was inevitable, especially the pairing of her and Touristguy.

Saudi Bride — Here's an image going around, captioned "Saudi Bride." First of all, I think it's safe to assume that these two aren't really bride and groom. I don't think she's wearing traditional Saudi wedding attire. (Though maybe she really is a bride... perhaps an American one.) Also, the guy's face has obviously been photoshopped. For instance, the left ear has been reduced in size, while the right ear has been enlarged. In fact, I'd guess that his entire face has been pasted into the photo.

Fictitious Patients in Cancer Study — A Norwegian doctor, Jon Sudbo, who published an article in the Lancet last year suggesting that aspirin could reduce the risk of oral cancer, has been accused of making up the data in his study. Specifically, he invented almost all of the 900 patients in the study (or at least half of them, by other accounts). The director of the hospital where he worked said: "he faked everything: names, diagnosis, gender, weight, age, drug use." Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, said: "What I've been told is that he sat in front of his computer and made the whole dataset up and convinced his co-authors it was genuine... It's completely inexplicable." I guess that's one way to avoid having to get consent forms signed.

Other journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, are now finding evidence of fraud in articles they published by Sudbo.

90 Million People Flush Toilet During SuperBowl Half-Time — According to Scott Tissue, during the halftime of the SuperBowl (or the Big Game as they call it, to avoid infringing on the NFL's trademark) "more than 350 million gallons of water will flush through our toilets as an estimated 90 million people use their facilities. That amount of flushing equals seven minutes of water flowing over the Niagara Falls." Actually, they admit that this is a legend, but they've created a website to cash in on the legend: halftimeflush.com. However, I don't know how they arrive at the figure of 350 million gallons. (I assume they're just making up the figure of 90 million people flushing the toilet.) I thought that the average toilet uses about 2 gallons per flush. In which case, the volume of water used would be closer to 180 million gallons... and so equivalent to only about 3 1/2 minutes of water flowing over Niagara Falls.

But where are they getting their facts about the volume of water flowing over Niagara? According to this site, 150,000 gallons per second flows over the American Falls, whereas 600,000 per second flows over the Canadian falls. So, assuming that they're talking about the Canadian falls, 350 million gallons of water flushed down the toilet would be equivalent to almost ten minutes of water flowing over Niagara.

Pherotones — Pherotones are ringtones that will make you "irresistible to the opposite sex." They're basically like pheromones, but they work via sound rather than scent. They're also a hoax. According to NewsTrend.com, the website promoting them is part of a viral marketing campaign dreamed up by the McKinney-Silver ad agency. NewsTrend writes:

The first mentions of Pherotones began around December 30, on "Dr. Vanderhood's" Pherotones blog, where the good doctor began posting "an ongoing diary of the life of a scientist on the verge of a major breakthrough." The JoniMueller blog caught wind of the Pherotones blog and posted about it on January 16. The real story began to break on January 18th with an Oreilly interview with Vanderhood.

The strange thing is that no one knows what this stealth marketing campaign is for. It seems a bit useless to attract all this attention, and then blow it by not revealing what you're advertising. (Thanks to Thilo for the link.)

Whopper Hopper — It's good to see that people are still making whopper hopper photos. (via Daily Owned)

Dog Leaps From Overpass — Charles G. Jetchick was driving along, minding his own business, when suddenly a dog crashed through his window. It had fallen from an overpass. Police don't think it was thrown. Instead, they speculate the dog fell by accident while trying to avoid a car. The police officer commented: ""We've had rocks and other stuff like that fall off of overpasses. This would be the first dog we've had." The Anomalist, however, speculates that it might be another case of canine suicide... because like spontaneous human combustion, spontaneous canine suicide can strike at any time.

Campus Urban Legends — The Auburn Plainsman (student paper of Auburn University) has a short article about campus urban legends. The ones they list are:

Endowment from old lady bans sorority houses: This UL seems to exist on every college campus that doesn't have sorority houses. It states that some rich old woman left a large sum of money to the college on the condition that they ban sorority houses, because she considered them to be brothels. The more likely reality, among those schools that have sororities but no sorority houses, is that women used to be required to live on campus. Once that rule was lifted, it was cheaper for sorority members to live on campus in dorms, so the houses were never built.

If you get hit by a campus bus the school will give you free tuition: Unlikely, but if you're lucky, maybe an insurance payout would cover the cost of tuition.

Students whose roommates commit suicide receive automatic straight A’s: A guy in my college class committed suicide. His roommate didn't get automatic straight A's. I don't think anyone ever has.

"Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, in the clear": Repeated at every campus party, though it has no basis in fact. The corollary to this UL is that if you sip beer through a straw, you'll get drunk quicker. This one I'm not sure about.

And a few that they left out:

The Sinking library: every campus has a library that's supposedly sinking, because the engineer who designed it forgot to include the weight of the books.

The ten-minute rule: If the professor hasn't shown up in the classroom within ten minutes of the start of the class, everyone gets to leave. I don't think this is official policy anywhere.

Seven-Person Bicycle — Odd, but real. Hammacher Schlemmer is selling a seven-person bicycle. (Actually, bicycle is inaccurate. It's a tricycle.) The blurb about it says: "The frame has an ergonomic design making it easy to get on and off, and has seven sets of pedals that propel the trike forward via a patented transmission system. One person steers, while all seven riders are free to pedal, or not, as the bike moves along." You'd look real cool going down to the store to pick up a loaf of bread on this thing, especially if you then try to chain it up in the bike rack. (Thanks to Daniel Folk for the link.)