Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

Coalition for Traditional Values — Laura Bush has been getting rave reviews for her comedy routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but not everyone was pleased. The Coalition for Traditional Values issued a press release (pdf file) denouncing her performance.

We saw our President undermined, mocked and emasculated by his own wife on the most public of stages, and at a time when his manliness is already under attack. We saw the leader of the free world seemingly unable to lead his own family. Mr. President, as God's elected represented here on earth, you owe it to every American to live your life as an example to us. And that example extends to the behavior of your wife, Mrs Bush, as well.

But actually, there is no 'Coalition for Traditional Values'. The name is a parody of the Traditional Values Coalition, who has now denounced the satirical press release. The fake news release was created by the Swift Report.
Posted: Tue May 03, 2005.   Comments (15)
Finger in Frozen Custard — In the wake of the Wendy's Finger Chili, we now have reports of a finger found in a pint of Kohl's Frozen Custard. But this incident appears to be real. The store that sold the custard admits it had an employee who lost a finger. That's the problem with hoaxes. You hear enough of them and you start to think everything is fake. Now this poor guy who found a finger in his custard has to convince everyone that he didn't make it up. (thanks to Heidi for the link).
Posted: Tue May 03, 2005.   Comments (8)
Cochran’s Tombstone — This photo of Johnnie Cochran's tombstone has been making the rounds:
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One big clue that it's fake is that it misspells Cochran's first name. Another clue that it's fake is that it's obviously a joke. But here's a photo taken by the Mars Spirit lander that I swear is absolutely real. No joke:
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2005.   Comments (8)
Battery Charger — imageHere's a cool idea for a battery charger. What makes it great is that it's totally portable! Finally a cord-free charger.

Posted: Tue May 03, 2005.   Comments (10)
Photos of the Museum of Hoaxes — Some of you have asked about the images of the Museum that appeared in the piece on CNN. They were created by Eric Schucard of Carlsbad, CA about a month ago (he was hoping I could get USA Today to run them, but no such luck). I've uploaded them so everyone can check them out. At some point (when I'm done with the book) I'll redesign my 'About the Museum' page to incorporate them.
image image image

Posted: Tue May 03, 2005.   Comments (5)
Paula Zahn Tonight — If you watch the Paula Zahn Show on CNN tonight (monday, May 2) you'll see an interesting guest: Me! They wanted someone who could blab on about hoaxes for a couple of minutes, so I fit the part. I didn't get to speak to Paula herself. In fact, I was actually looking at the wall during the entire interview while speaking to a reporter on speakerphone. It airs 8-9pm Eastern time, and 5-6pm Pacific. I think they're going to have a segment about 2 minutes long in which they're interviewing me.
Posted: Mon May 02, 2005.   Comments (30)
Medieval Beer Test — The British Association for the Advancement of Science describes a test that medieval brewers supposedly used to measure how much alcohol was in beer:

To test a fermentation mixture in a brewery, pour onto a wooden seat. Sit in this puddle wearing leather breeches, while drinking more beer. Try to stand up. If breeches stick to seat, the beer will be strong. This method was used by 13th century Ale Conners, mediaeval Customs and Excise Inspectors. The stickier the mixture, the more sugar. This will produce more alcohol, so more duty is payable. Modern methods are more sophisticated, but less fun!

I suppose this would work. But whether or not medieval brewers actually did this, I don't know.
Posted: Sun May 01, 2005.   Comments (42)
Time Traveler Convention — The first ever time traveler convention is being hosted at MIT on May 7, 2005. Time travellers from all eras are invited to attend, if they haven't already. This will also be the last time travelers convention ever, since obviously only one is needed. The coordinates for this event will be: 42:21:36.025°N, 71:05:16.332°W. (via Boing Boing)
Posted: Sun May 01, 2005.   Comments (17)
Liger On Display — image I know that Ligers are Napoleon Dynamite's favorite animal, but I didn't think they were real. Apparently they are. One of them is on display at a Siberian zoo. Its father was a lion. Its mother was a tiger:

"This was not the result of a scientific experiment," RIA Novosti quoted zoo director Rostislav Shilo as saying at the time. "It's just that the lion and the tiger live in neighboring caves in the Novosibirsk zoo, and got used to each other. It's practically impossible in the wild."
Posted: Sun May 01, 2005.   Comments (32)
Outbreak of Zombie Virus — A fake BBC news page has been doing the rounds that describes an outbreak of 'zombism' in a small town in Cambodia:

After death, this virus is able to restart the heart of it’s victim for up to two hours after the initial demise of the person where the individual behaves in extremely violent ways from what is believe to be a combination of brain damage and a chemical released into blood during “resurrection.”

It's a pretty decent looking fake news page, although the url is a dead giveaway (pun intended), as is the awful grammar. The image of the ugly-looking creature comes from a photograph by artist Charlie White that was discussed in the forum last year. (thanks to Chris for the link)
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005.   Comments (61)
Wal-Mart Cracks Down on Parody — Wal-Mart has threatened to sue a student who designed a parody web page that used some images from the Wal-Mart Foundation's website. The student has taken the images off his page. He's just 20 years old. What is he going to do to fight off Wal-Mart? However, I don't think he should have removed the images. He's in the right. The law gives very specific protections to parody, since parody inevitably depends upon borrowing elements of the original. I think the guy should put the images back up and counter-sue Wal-Mart for fraudulent claim of copyright. Well, he probably wouldn't get away with that. But put the back images up, at least. By removing them he's giving up his rights without a battle. And if Wal-Mart did go through with some kind of litigation, I'm sure he could find someone to represent him.
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005.   Comments (5)
Popemobile on eBay — image A 'popemobile' is up for sale on eBay (in Germany). It's a used car that once belonged to someone named 'Josef Kardinal Ratzinger'. The new pope hasn't lived in Germany for over twenty years, and doesn't need to drive himself around. So it's unlikely that the car was his. Nevertheless, bidding has already reached some obscene amount. But all the bids are probably hoaxes. (thanks to Casey for the link)
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005.   Comments (8)
The Zonkey — image I believe that I may have a new creature to add to my tall-tale creature gallery: The Zonkey. It's a cross between a zebra and a donkey. Except it's real, so therefore it doesn't actually qualify for entry into the gallery. The zonkey's name is Alex, and he was born on Barbados. And exactly how did he get sired? Well, apparently there were only two zebras on this farm in Barbados, a male and a female. The male got sick, so the female "became friendly with a donkey". The result was Alex, the zonkey. They just had to name him Alex, didn't they. (thanks to Teddy for the link)
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005.   Comments (16)
Does Email Cause IQ Loss? — A widely reported story last week stated that a study conducted by Hewlett Packard found that "Workers distracted by email and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers." Sounded like bad news for people like myself who are constantly checking email. But Mind Hacks has examined the study a little more closely and found its results aren't all they're cracked up to be. What the test actually found is that people do worse on IQ tests if they're simultaneously trying to answer email and phone calls. Which isn't surprising. But this 'IQ loss' only lasts for as long as the distractions last. In other words, you're not really losing any intelligence. Reading email simply stopped people from focusing on the test.
Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005.   Comments (6)
Tale of a Clueless Hacker — A story is going around about a clueless hacker who gets mad with a chat-room moderator and tries to take revenge. He asks the moderator what his IP address is. The moderator tells him it's 127.0.0.1. The hacker apparently doesn't realize this number is geek-speak for home. It's the IP address of whatever computer you're currently using. Try to connect to it and you'll simply connect to your own computer. So the hacker plugs 127.0.0.1 into his hack-tool and then begins to gloat as he sees the hard-drive of the computer he's connected to disappear. He doesn't realize that he's erasing his own computer:

"I can see your E: drive disappearing, he gloated, "D: is down 45 percent!" he cried, before disappearing into the ether."

Hard to say if the story is true or not. The original version of it is in German. Slashdot has a lot of discussion about it.
Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005.   Comments (26)
Oscar Meyer Weiner Hearse — image Apparently this is not a hoax. The Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile led the funeral procession for George Molchan, a former spokesman for the company who died earlier this month. He often drove it, so it seemed fitting to include it in the ceremony (thanks to Eric for the link):

Molchan was laid to rest to the accompaniment of solemn prayers delivered in Slovenian by clergy from St. Michael Byzantine Catholic Church. But not before the 50 or so people at the Calumet Park Cemetery grave site broke into a chorus of the company theme song, "I'd love to a be an Oscar Mayer wiener," followed by a few quick blasts on miniature, hot-dog shaped whistles handed out to the crowd.
Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005.   Comments (11)
Give Me Whatever’s In The Bag — This comes via News of the Weird. The incident occurred in San Diego, but somehow I missed hearing about it on the local news:

Urban Legend Come to Life: A San Diego Union Tribune report of a March 28 attempted robbery seems accurate, though reminiscent of reports that have been hoaxes (including one, from The Dallas Morning News, that News of the Weird fell for in 2002). A 32-year-old woman reported that a robber accosted her and her dog in an upscale San Diego neighborhood that night, demanded her money, grabbed a bag she was holding but quickly threw it down, and in frustration, tried to shoot the dog (but the gun failed to fire). He finally fled. His frustration was because she was carrying no money, and the bag contained nothing but the results of cleaning up after the dog. [San Diego Union Tribune, 3-30-05]
Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005.   Comments (3)
Twinkies Don’t Last Forever — This month, as I'm sure everyone is aware, is the 75th anniversary of the creation of Hostess Twinkies. To mark that anniversary it's worth linking to this article in which a Hostess marketing person tries to debunk that urban legend about how Twinkies last forever. He claims they only last 25 days. Yeah, right:

"We hear that they can survive a nuclear winter. Of course, it’s all urban legend," says Hostess marketing manager Kevin Kaul. But in fact, Interstate Brands Co., Hostess’ parent company, designates a 25-day shelf life for its most famous product. Interstate has 17 bakeries nationwide; they crank out 500 million Twinkies a year.
Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005.   Comments (30)
Mating Animal Crackers — image Unfortunately bidding has already ended on the UNBELIEVABLE Mating Animal Crackers on eBay. And they went for only $12.00. I would have paid more than that for them. Seriously. I think they would have been a great mascot for the Museum of Hoaxes. After all, I assume they were Barnum Animal Crackers, and Barnum is like the patron saint of this site. So it would have fit. But my guess is that they've already been eaten by now. (The best part about buying them would have been that I could have listed 'Mating Animal Crackers' as a deduction on my taxes for this year).
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005.   Comments (23)
BigBoy Graveyard — image Detroit Funk offers photographic evidence of the existence of a BigBoy Graveyard, which is kind of like the legendary Elephant Graveyard, except for BigBoys:

People all heard of it, but nobody had actually seen it with their own eyes. Well then my brotherinlaw Dave discovers the actual location - it was not an urban legend ! The BigBoy Graveyard actually existed...And its one of the saddest places in the DetroMetro area (if not the world) , its damn hard not to shed a tear there for all the fallen Boys.
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005.   Comments (39)
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