Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

Pope Chicken Breast — The latest 'face seen in food' on eBay is the Pope Chicken Breast. The seller even has their own website devoted to it already. The real question is how much Golden Palace is going to pay for this thing. Here's the description of the item:

As I was about to dig into my usual lunch of my dorms "baked chicken," I quickly stopped in my tracks as my eyes met this wonderful relic. I have the utmost respect for Pope John Paul II and I could not believe the resemblance I saw between my piece of chicken breast and him. I am deeply touched that I was chosen to receive this possible visit from the Holy Father. I would now like to share this beautiful likeness of Pope John Paul II with you. And unlike all the unoriginal grilled cheese and Pope hat chips, this is the Only celebrity chicken breast on eBay at the time of listing.

No Pretty In Pink Sequel — There's a rumor going around that a sequel to the '80s movie Pretty In Pink will come out next year, starring all the original cast: Molly Ringwald, John Cryer, and Andrew McCarthy. It will supposedly revisit the characters from the original movie twenty years later, to find out where they are now. I know the rumor must have spread pretty far because I heard it from my wife last week, and she thinks she heard it on the radio, or somewhere like that. However, the rumor is just a hoax. There is no sequel. The source of the rumor was an April Fool's Day hoax perpetrated by ComingSoon.net. From there it got picked up by the British press, who failed to realize that it was a joke, despite some obvious clues (such as the sources for the story leading to pages that said 'April Fools Day'). The No True Bill blog has the full details.

Fake Sports Reporter — As a representative of Westchester Cable Services, Mark Sabia has been allowed into press boxes at sports games for years. The one problem is that Westchester Cable Services doesn't exist. The teams finally figured out he didn't belong there (but it was a good scam while it lasted):

Sabia, who lives in Ossining, was arrested Monday when he showed up to cover Opening Day at Shea and was charged with scamming season passes for almost all of New York's professional teams, as well as for several World Series and League Championship Series dating to 1998. He was charged with five felony counts of falsifying business records and 16 misdemeanor counts ranging from petit larceny to criminal impersonation.

Gnome Defense — Big Gary sent me this story, knowing that it would be a suitable contribution to the fast-growing Garden Gnome Wing of the museum (one of these days I'll actually get around to creating a gnome category):

LONDON - A grandmother stopped an intruder from entering her home by lobbing a heavy garden gnome at him, police said Friday. Jean Collop was woken early on Tuesday morning by the sound of an intruder on the roof of her home in Wadebridge, southwest England.
"I grabbed the first thing that came to hand — one of my garden gnomes — and hurled it at him, and hit him," she recalled.
"He lay there and I began to scream. I went back into the kitchen and found a rolling pin in case he came down. I didn't want to break another gnome."
A neighbor alerted police who arrived shortly afterward and arrested the intruder.

Upgrade My Wife — What is it with this thing about begging for money to pay for plastic surgery? It's become the new online phenomenon, as if the most deserving people in the world are those who need a tummy tuck or boob job. As it happens the guy who created Upgrade My Wife is hoping to get both those surgeries for his wife. And he wants internet surfers to pay for them. He writes:

I created this web site because my wife has been considering a tummy tuck and breast augmentation for quite a few years, but neither of us knew how much it would cost. She made the appointment to see her doctor and went through the consultation. Her surgery quote from the doctor is only good for 30 days and is a whopping. $12,750. All I need to do now is pay for it!

Unlike Caias Ward, this guy isn't even willing to do anything to earn the money. Plus, as is always the case with such things, there's no guarantee the money will go towards the stated purpose. The likelihood is that he'll never raise $12,750, so after a few months he'll probably take whatever money he's raised and spend it on something else.

Fake Smiles and Women’s Intuition — A study conducted by Professor Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire and the Edinburgh International Science Festival has found that women may not be as intuitive as they think they are. In fact, men may be more intuitive than women. Study participants "were asked to look at ten pairs of photographs showing smiling faces. One of the smiles in each pair was genuine and the other was fake, and people had to spot the genuine smile." You can take this fake-smile test yourself and see how intuitive you are. I only scored 5 out of 10, so I must not be intuitive at all. However, I have a few doubts about the study. First of all, how do they judge the difference between a fake smile and a real smile? In all the sets of photos the people are obviously posing, so what makes one posed smile real and another posed smile fake? Also, I'm not sure how much you can tell about intuition by looking at pictures, because body language, which isn't conveyed in these still images, has a lot to do with intuition.

Keep Your City Clean — Big Gary pointed out this AP photo to me. I don't doubt the photo is real, but the caption explains the irony of the scene:

A car bomb explodes, detonated by U.S. troops after it was discovered at the scene of the double car bombing in Baghdad, Iraq Thursday, April 14, 2005. The initial attack killed 18 and wounded three dozen, but no one was injured in this controlled explosion. The sign at left reads 'Keep Your City Clean' in Arabic.(AP Photo/Samir Mizban)

Automatic Paper Generator — A group of MIT students wrote a computer program capable of creating "random Computer Science research papers, including graphs, figures, and citations." They then used this program to create a paper that they submitted to an academic conference: the World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, which sounds like a thrill a minute. The paper was accepted, which isn't really surprising since as the students point out conferences such as this are really 'fake' conferences "with no quality standards, which exist only to make money." The students hope to travel down to the conference (if they're still allowed to attend) and deliver a "completely randomly-generated talk."

Book Millionaire — Want to be a best-selling author making millions of dollars? Then sign up to be on Book Millionaire and your dreams could become reality!

Here's your chance to finally become America's next Best Selling Author and Reality Show TV Celebrity!  We are scouting for the next group of candidates for America's hottest new reality show. Act now. Picture yourself featured on national television sharing your story, writing, book-to-be or book with millions of people showing you have what it takes to be America's next Best Selling Author and Book Millionaire.

John Ordover brought this to my attention, noting that it looks like a scam, and I have to agree with him. On Book Millionaire's website they claim to be producing a new reality show, but nowhere can I find what studio or network they're working with, or where they're getting their funding from. Plus, they don't even require contestants to be published authors. You only have to have an idea for a book. But how can you become a bestselling author without a book? Maybe they'll help you sell your idea to get a huge advance. Could happen, so it's not impossible that it's legitimate. And maybe they don't list any partners because they haven't sold the idea to any networks yet. I don't know. But right now it looks kind of shady.

Naked But Wearing Clothes — More pictures from my inbox. The pictures themselves aren't fake. I'm pretty sure of that. But they show a hoax of a kind. This is the caption that accompanies them:

This woman is actually walking down the street with no "real" clothes -- only those painted on her. The passersby didn't give her a second look because the paint looked so much like clothing. YES, she is naked!

I'll give links to the photos, not thumbnails, so that I can continue to claim this site is only 'R' rated. The pictures probably aren't safe for work since the woman is naked (except for her shoes), though she does look like she's wearing clothes, which is the entire point. I was trying to figure out what city she's in, but nothing looks familiar.
naked1.jpg | naked2.jpg | naked3.jpg | naked4.jpg

BIOPRO EMF Harmonization Chips — Cranky Media Guy sent me a link to this interesting product: BIOPRO Chips. BIOPRO describes itself as a leader in the field of EMF harmonization devices. You see, you may not have realized it but, as BIOPRO tells you on their website, virtually all electronic devices emit dangerous electromagnetic frequency (EMF). Phones, microwaves, computers... You name it. So what's a person to do? Simple. Get some BIOPRO Chips. These amazing chips are designed to defend against EMF. Apply some of them to your electronic devices, and EMF emissions will be 'harmonized', thereby rendered harmless. It took me a while before I figured out exactly what these 'chips' were. But then I figured it out. 'Chips' is a euphemism for 'stickers'. BIOPRO is selling little stickers that are supposed to protect people against 'electro-pollution'. Of course, the website contains no explanation of how or why these stickers would work. Obviously that's because these stickers won't do anything but lighten your wallet by a substantial amount.

M’azing Commercials — The TV commercials for a new chocolate bar called M'azing show people doing amazing things in order to earn a bar of M'azing chocolate. In one commercial a guy balances a washing machine on his jaw. In another one a girl twists her legs all the way around her body in a way that really doesn't look possible. You can see all the ads here (quicktime and wmv format). Someone wrote in to Stuart Elliott's advertising column in the NY Times asking if the movie with the girl doing the thing with her legs was real. Elliott says it is. This is his exact response:

Stuart Elliott: The gymnast in the commercial is really performing what you see on screen, according to the Masterfoods division of Mars in Hackettstown, N.J., which markets the new M'azing line of candy. The spot, called "Mystic Pixie," is indicative of the direction of the campaign, which is to celebrate people whose talents enable them to perform feats that are truly amazing. The performers are, of course, meant to personify the amazing taste of M'azing. The campaign is created by the flagship New York office of BBDO Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group.

Octopus Camouflages Itself — Luc emailed me a link to this clip of an octopus camouflaging itself, wondering if the footage is real. The camera approaches what looks like an underwater bush, and then out of nowhere this octopus appears, squirts ink, and races away across the ocean floor. I actually remember this clip doing the rounds a year or two ago, and although the octopus's camouflage seems to be some kind of Hollywood special effect, I believe that it's real. According to a version of the clip that can be found on efootage.com, the footage was taken by biologist Roger Hammer (I think I'm hearing that last name correctly, but the sound on the efootage clip is awful). I have no idea who Roger Hammer is, but it might be the same Roger Hammer who works at the Miami-Dade Parks Department and is a specialist on Florida plants (author of Everglades Wildflowers). I'm trying to find a picture of the Miami-Dade Roger Hammer to compare him with the guy in the news clip.

Caltech Vs. MIT — A group of Caltech students heads to MIT to throw down the prank gauntlet. They spend the weekend handing out t-shirts to prefrosh that read "MIT" on the front and "because not everybody can go to Caltech" on the back. During the night they spell out the letters C-A-L-T-E-C-H on an MIT building using a low-power laser. They also hang a banner on the MIT dome, changing its name from 'Massachusetts Institute of Technology' to 'That Other Institute of Technology.' They now await MIT's response. (make sure to check out the page of pictures of the pranks).

Politics and Photoshop — A Tory candidate, Ed Matts, in Dorset South (Great Britain) is being criticized for doctoring a photo. In the original photo he's shown attending a rally trying to prevent the deportation of an asylum-seeker. But in the version of the photo he placed on his website the sign he's holding has changed to apparently support a different (anti-immigration) position. The crowd has also disappeared. Seems like a strange attempt to rewrite history (and one's stance on an issue) by photoshop--though, of course, Matts says that the two views he's expressing are entirely reconcilable. (Thanks to Andrew for the link)

Mt. St. Helens at Sunrise — I got this picture in my email, sent by Edna who's wondering if it's real. It looks real to me. The picture is accompanied by the following text, which also sounds accurate to me (as a non-meteorologist):

MT. St. Helens, which sits about 30 miles from Vancouver, as the crow flies, continues to spew ash, while it is forming a lava dome in the crater and still having minor tremors. In this sunrise shot, she appears to be blowing smoke rings (and anything so benign is welcomed, given recent history.) What forms the "smoke rings" is the air flowing over the mountain getting pushed up higher as it goes up and over the top. The moisture content and initial temperature are just right so that the moisture condenses from a vapor to small particles at the higher altitude. When the moving air moves past the peak and comes down again, the particles evaporate back to an invisible vapor. The two "pancakes" describe that there are two layers of air for which this is happening, thus making this awesome picture possible.

Update:
And here's another photo of a 'pancake cloud' (also sent by Edna). I don't know where this one was taken.

Wife For Sale — Another internet entrepreneur hoping to strike it rich. But he would probably get more takers if his wife had a birthmark that looked like the Virgin Mary, or something like that. From the site:

Well I think much people are wondering what this site is all about. I've got a very interesting offer for you all. I've been married 23 years with my wife Petra. Our relationship isn't anymore what it's used to be. She starts complaining when I look at younger girls or if I come home drunk. I've been using the internet since a few weeks ago now. I've seen much interesting things on the internet, especially the sites like E-bay. Selling and buying while staying home is one of the most interested things I've seen in a long time. After a short time I got a great idea. The idea to sell my wife, but E-bay banned me from using their site for some reason. That's why I've made this site, to sell my wife.

Man Arrested For Paying With Two-Dollar Bill — The Baltimore Sun reports on the case of Mike Bolesta, who was recently arrested for the crime of paying a bill with $2 bills. This seems to be an example of an urban legend come to life--the urban legend being the one about a clerk in a store who doesn't realize that $2 bills are legal money and reports a customer who uses them to the police. In the case of Mike Bolesta, he did use A LOT of $2 bills, 57 of them in all, to pay a bill at Best Buy. But still, there doesn't appear to have been any good reason for the store to have him hauled away to the police station for this. (via Slashdot)

Holy Father’s Last Rites Declaration — An email is going around that contains what is said to be John Paul II's "last rites declaration" made on April 2, 2005. Here's what he supposedly said:

"The unforgiveable sins this earth must confront and overcome are Nationalism, capitalism, and hoarding. The idea of every nation should be forgot, price should be struck from the commons, and princes should be seen for the devils they are. The sins include our church, secret societies, and other religions which make of the spirit of God a divide."

That would be a pretty remarkable statement for the Pope to make since it seems to promote a form of socialism. It certainly wouldn't square too comfortably with the economic policies of the Bush administration. And what's that part about 'the sins include our church' supposed to mean? The question is: did the Pope actually say it? Variations of the email state that this last rites declaration can be found on the Vatican website. However, I've been searching their website, and I can't find it anywhere. If anyone can find it, let me know. Otherwise, I'm assuming that this quotation is a hoax.

Photo Fiction — Photo Fiction is a site that shows you various photos and lets you vote on whether they're real or fake. In other words, it's basically like a hoax photo test, only it never tells you the right answer. You only get to see the voting results, which is a bit frustrating. Most of the images I recognized (a number of them obviously come from my site). But there were a few I had never seen before, such as this one of the ship on its side. I voted that it was fake.