Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

Chickens From the Sky — Residents of Newcastle in New South Wales are experiencing a very unusual problem. Plucked chickens are falling from the sky and crashing onto their houses. Mr. Warrick Slee had one smash through his roof. Mr. Slee observes that "I think you know there's something unusual going on... birds or chickens or whatever it is, they don't just fall from the sky and put holes in people's roofs." Very true. I figure the freefalling chickens could be the work of pranksters with a catapult. Or maybe they're falling from a plane. Or maybe extraterrestrials have given up on sending messages via crop circles and have now moved on to plucked chickens.

The Lincoln Fry — The Lincoln Fry Blog is supposed to be a journal kept by a couple, Mike and Liz, detailing their experiences after finding a french fry at McDonalds that looks a lot like Abe Lincoln. But none of it is real (not even the comments on the blog). The site is actually part of McDonald's latest ad campaign that was launched during the Superbowl, which focuses on this fictitious Lincoln Fry. The whole thing is supposed to be a parody of the Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich mania. This marks the second time I've posted about an Abraham Lincoln-shaped potato. The first time occurred back in May 2004 when I linked to a Lincoln spud that was part of an advertising campaign for Anchor O'Reillys Potato Chips. Maybe the Lincoln Fry and the Lincoln Potato Chip should get together. That would be interesting.

Wanted: Girl Who Knits — Speaking of truth in advertising (see post below), I'm not sure that it pays to be as truthful as this personal ad on Craigslist is:

Will marry girl who knits
Reply to: [email protected]
Date: Wed Jan 05 07:25:22 2005
I will buy you a ring and propose to you if you can make one of these for me. I want to look silly during the winter.

But then again, he may just find the girl of his dreams.

Truth in Real Estate Advertising — My wife and I are recreational open house attendees, so I'm very familiar with all those euphemisms real-estate agents use to describe really bad homes: 'fixer upper', 'needs work', 'starter home'. Here's an amusing case of a guy who managed to get an offer on his apartment by using the opposite technique: brutally honest advertising. He advertised his place as a "Gruesome two-room apartment with balcony... a very worn-out apartment." (Thanks, Gary)

Fetal Educator Strap — To you and me it may look like two tape players attached to a belt, but according to Dahlman Industries it's actually a 'Fetal Educator Strap', and they've managed to get it patented as such. What the patent doesn't mention is the type of sounds you should be using to educate the fetus. I'm curious if this will ever get made and if anyone will actually use it. (via Patently Silly, via J-Walk)

Pigeon Religion — Pigeon Religion extolls the divine virtues of the oft-maligned pigeon. It's hard to tell if this is meant to be taken seriously. The text seems serious enough. Maybe. But the picture of a pigeon on the cross seems a bit over the top. However, I ran the phone number at the bottom of the page through a reverse phone directory and discovered that it was the number of the Companion Bird Club of Manhattan. Therefore, I'm concluding that Pigeon Religion is quite serious. (via Bifurcated Rivets)

Nothing For Sale — A guy selling nothing on eBay is promoting it as the dumbest eBay auction ever. Since the idea isn't new (nothing has been sold on eBay before, as even he admits), it may just live up to the claim. The seller writes:

Rather than put up some arbitrary item that's worthless and intangible, I figured I'd just put up something of equivalent value: nothing. You are bidding on absolutely nothing. I won't send you anything if you win the auction. Shipping on this particular item is free. I will send you exactly what is described here, including no item and no packaging.

What gets me is that he then becomes all fussy and uptight about possible hoax bids. As if he would actually have something to lose if a hoax bidder won the auction.

Sleep Messaging — Richard Griffiths has a problem. He sends text messages in his sleep. The messages seem to be inspired by whatever he's dreaming about. I'm actually perfectly willing to believe this case is real. I'm pretty sure I could type in my sleep, if I were the sleep-walking/sleep-talking type, which I'm not. However, I still refuse to believe that the sleep-sex woman was for real.

Atlanta Nights — A group of science fiction writers accused book publisher PublishAmerica of being a vanity press in disguise (i.e. a publisher that would print anything, for a fee). PublishAmerica fired back by calling the writers a bunch of 'literary parasites'. This inspired the writers to exact revenge. They pooled their talent and jointly authored a truly awful book that they called Atlanta Nights. The authors (each of whom penned a different chapter) had instructions to write as badly as they could. In addition one chapter was left blank, another was repeated verbatim, and a final one was pure gibberish. The writers then submitted this book to PublishAmerica to see if the publisher would indeed accept anything. Predictably, the manuscript was happily accepted. Although PublishAmerica will no longer be publishing Atlanta Nights, having caught wind of the hoax, the full text of Atlanta Nights can be downloaded as a pdf file here.

Atlanta Nights joins a long tradition of tricking-people-into-praising-bad-work type hoaxes. A famous literary precedent was Naked Came the Stranger, a trashy sex novel penned by a group of Newsday columnists during the 1960s in order to test how low America's reading standards had sunk (predictably America failed the test because the book became a bestseller).

An amusing variation on this type of hoax occurred in 2000 when a French magazine, Voici, concocted an experiment to test whether the recent novel of a well-known newswoman, Claire Chazal, had been published because of its literary merit or because of her celebrity status. Voici changed the first two sentences of her novel, gave it a new title, altered the name of the main character, and (most importantly) claimed it was the work of an obscure amateur. Then the magazine sent the manuscript around to publishing houses. All of them rejected it, including the actual publisher of the book, who not only didn't recognize it, but sent a letter back advising the author that she should have enclosed a stamped self-addressed envelope if she wanted the manuscript back.

Catfish Licking, Part Two — About a week ago I linked to an article that discussed how Gulf Coast teenagers have been going around licking catfish, in the hope that it'll make them high. Now a follow-up article reveals the source of this strange behavior. It all started out as an April Fool's Day joke published in Sport Fishing magazine five years ago:

OK, listen up catfish lickers.
You've been punked. There's no hallucinogen in the slime.
A Florida magazine editor said he made the story up five years ago for an annual April Fool's special - and somehow it just kept on going...

He [Doug Olander, editor-in-chief of Sport Fishing magazine] claimed the catfish goop was popular among college kids, who called themselves "slimers" and paid as much as $200 for a fresh catch.
The slime was supposed to produce a "whisker-lickin' good" trip that would give users the sensation of being under water.
He attributed the information to University of Florida scientist Dr. Benjamin Joon.
As in "Benny & Joon," the romantic comedy with Johnny Depp.

American Fascist Movement — I'm having a hard time deciding whether or not the website of the American Fascist Movement is meant to be a joke. If it is real, then it presents an incredibly watered-down, warm-and-fuzzy version of fascism. But since the site mainly consists of old (untranslated) speeches by Franco, as well as samples of really bad marching band music from the '30s, I'm suspecting that it's all some kind of joke. The site is registered to 'Danny Duce', which must be a play on 'Il Duce'. If it is real, then I guess we can be thankful that it's probably not going to inspire many people to convert to fascism.

How Much is a Corpse Worth? — Here's an email I received today. I don't think that what it describes is a hoax in any way, but it seemed weird enough to be worth posting. I blurred out the names on the attached picture (click to enlarge) at the request of the emailer.

I so love your website, that I sometimes think that I shall send you more stuff. Let me explain : I work in the head office of a psychiatric hospital, I am the personal assistant to the director which means I am the one opening all the mail. Few weeks ago I got this bill.
So I know this is in Franch, but I will translate it for you, you might find it interesting to know what will ahppen toyou if you give your body to science and how much you cost when you are dead.
As the description you can read "tronc huain non bisexué" which in english would translate to the top part of a human body that is not bisexual. Particulary poetic! It's just half of a human body ! It says the price next to it, after taxes and such. And it's getting worse. The bottom line it says there is a special offer with 5% off !
I though that in the serie of particular things, that may be interesting for you. We actually paid that bill too. :o)

What seems really weird to me is that these human-corpse retailers classify bodies by whether or not they're bisexual. What's the reason for that? Also, I think I can spot a hoax in the email. They obviously didn't take 5% off. I believe they took a full 50% off.

Snake Flossing — Here's another odd picture I got in my email (click image to enlarge). This one I happen to know is real. It's a picture of C. Manoharan, aka "Snake Manu". Threading snakes into his nose and out his mouth is his specialty. It's called 'snake flossing'. The snake in this picture is just a harmless garden snake, though apparently he also does the trick with cobras. Plus, Snake Manu also holds the Guinness World Record for most earthworms eaten. He's just an all-around Renaissance man. Below are some more pictures of him doing his snake flossing trick, taken from this article about him and his career. I think he'd be a great guest to have at a party.🐛Here's my favorite paragraph from the article I linked to:
it so happened that a snake went through his nostril and stopped somewhere close to the larynx and refused to move past it. May be it was stuck. It could not be pulled out through the nostril back also, as it was one of the deadliest varieties and pulling it out back through the entry point made Manoharan more vulnerable for a quick bite. He was left with no option. Either the snake bites him or he bites the snake. He chose the later option and bit it into pieces. And he had found another item that would strike terror among his audience. Eating them alive!

BatMax: Does It Really Work? — BatMax is a wafer-thin product that promises to dramatically extend the life of rechargeable batteries, while simultaneously decreasing the amount of time it takes to recharge them. How exactly does it do this? Well, you know, nanoceramics... patented IonXR technology... blah, blah, blah. Basically, to me it sounds like a tinfoil sticker that does nothing at all but lighten your wallet a bit. Though maybe it really does work. What do I know. However, I see that the folks over at Gizmodo and Slashdot are skeptical as well.
Update: Some guy tested whether battery extenders really work, and found that they did extend the life of batteries by about 10-15%. So maybe there is something to this nanoceramics thing.

Is the Eiffel Tower Copyrighted? — Has the city of Paris really copyrighted the Eiffel Tower as it looks lit up at night, meaning that anyone (including a tourist) who takes a picture of the Eiffel Tower at night has to get permission and pay a fee before publishing that picture? As bizarre as it sounds, apparently this is true. Even if you wanted to post your holiday photos of the 'Eiffel Tower by night' on the web, you would technically have to get permission first. The Eiffel Tower itself was built in 1889, and therefore its likeness entered the public domain long ago, but the Parisian authorities sneaked around this fact by copyrighting the lights on the Tower. They did this in 2003. That's why the copyright issue only applies to the Eiffel Tower at night. So technically it's not the tower itself that is copyrighted. It's the lights on the tower. But you can hardly photograph the tower without getting the lights. This is the kind of thing that sounds so stupid you suspect it has to be false, but David-Michel Davies who's written about this over at FastCompany appears to have done his homework, so I'm inclined to believe him. (via J-Walk)

The Phone Angel — If you've ever wanted to phone up someone who's dead, then Jürgen Bröther has the solution for you: the Phone Angel. If I understand it correctly, this is basically a speakerphone installed inside a coffin. It's configured so that whenever it senses an incoming call, it'll turn on, so that your voice will be broadcast inside the coffin. Just don't expect the occupant of the coffin to speak back. Or maybe they will... The weirdest part of the whole deal is that he offers a rebate if you return the phone once it's battery wears out. Of course, to retrieve the phone you have to dig the coffin back up. (via The Anomalist)

Connecticut Evacuated — Residents of the entire state of Connecticut were ordered to evacuate yesterday, after someone in the state emergency management department accidentally "pressed the wrong button" and sent out the evacuation message to broadcasters (thanks to Gary for forwarding the story). Even though TV and radio listeners were told that the state was being evacuated, nobody paid any attention. The police didn't even receive any calls about it. Obviously Connecticut needs to revise its emergency evacuation message. Something more along the lines of 'the state has been invaded by Martians' proved quite effective in nearby New Jersey in 1938.

Yesterday's incident recalls the time on February 20, 1971 when the National Emergency Warning Center in Colorado mistakenly told broadcasters that the country was under nuclear attack. The nuclear alert included the proper code word, 'HATEFULNESS', which meant that broadcasters should have treated it as real, but almost all of them just ignored it. Great to know people take these emergency alerts so seriously.

Bring Me A Beer — Here's yet another photo from today's email. This one I refuse to believe is real, although I can't see any evidence that it's fake. I've been to those beer festivals in Germany where the waitresses carry around huge numbers of beer mugs steins in each hand, and I never saw one with six large steins in each hand. At least, I can't remember seeing anything like that (the whole beer-festival experience is a bit blurry in my mind). However, I don't know how such a thing could even theoretically be done. How could you position the steins so that you could grip six handles simultaneously? Unless she's supporting some of them against her body. (click the image to enlarge)

View From Airplane Window — I'm receiving a lot of strange photos in my email today. This one comes with the caption: 'Holy Crap' Engine. I have no idea where it originally comes from. But I would guess that it's real. If it's photoshopped, it's a very good photoshop job. Click on the image to enlarge.
Update: This is definitely a real photo. It was taken on July 13, 2004 aboard an AirTran flight from Atlanta to Orlando with 110 people on board. The left engine cowling came off soon after take off, but the plane managed to turn around and land safely. One of the passengers took this photo. It's not known which one.

Nuns on Stools — I just received this photo in my email. I suppose those stools the women are sitting on are real enough, though I have no idea if the women are really nuns, or if the whole scene was staged. It looks to me like the picture was taken somewhere in Europe, based on the drinks and signs behind the bar.


Update: I added the picture that Charybdis linked to, since it's evident they belong together in a series. It must have been some kind of 'nuns on stools' photo shoot. (click images to enlarge)