Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

The Dream Machine — The Dream Machine, from Takara USA, "is designed to stimulate the user at the appropriate times during REM sleep to increase the likelihood of dreaming a particular desired dream." It involves incense, soothing background music, and a pre-recorded statement repeated over and over in your ear as you sleep. My guess is that it works about as well as cramming for a test by sleeping on a textbook would work.

Coke vs. Pepsi — According to the Independent, researchers have proven that the difference between Coke and Pepsi really is all in your head. Apparently the popularity of Coke's brand image causes people to think Coca-Cola itself tastes better, even though it really doesn't taste very different from Pepsi. As the article says: "When asked to taste blind, they showed no preference. However, when the participants were shown company logos before they drank, the Coke label, the more famous of the two, had a dramatic impact: three-quarters of the tasters declared they preferred Coke." I've long suspected this. Personally I can't taste any difference between Coke and Pepsi, but I have a friend who swears passionately that there's a huge difference. Now I can show him this research to prove that he's simply been brainwashed by advertising. Oh, and the Pepsi Taste Test also turns out to be nothing but hot air: "The findings suggest there is no scientific basis for claims made during the Pepsi ad campaign in which testers purportedly chose Pepsi over Coke when they were not told what they were drinking."

The Center for Chihuahua Exploitation — If you're curious about how to go about exploiting chihuahuas, then the Center for Chihuahua Exploitation is the site for you. If you dig around the site a bit, you'll discover some interesting facts, such as this: "Most people don't realize that the chihuahua is not a true member of the canine family. In fact, it shares the same ancestor as common rats. This opens up new possibilities for the scientific community as chihuahuas can now legally be used in place of lab rats for experimentation." That reminds me of the old urban legend about the rat that's mistaken for a dog.

Enslave New Zealand — Are you tired of "namby-pamby politicians with their bean-counting, child-smooching sweaty handshakes?" A few Australians are, so they've taken politics into their own hands and formed the Enslave New Zealand Party. If elected, members of this party promise one thing: to invade New Zealand and enslave its entire population. Their plan sounds foolproof. After all, as they point out, "New Zealand bases her defence policy on one simple fact: no one can attack New Zealand without going through Australia first. This is generally true but there is, of course, one exception…Australia." But has the Enslave New Zealand party forgotten about Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn? Surely they'd save New Zealand.

Bees — I didn't get around to posting for the last couple of days because a major situation developed in my house. We discovered that an entire wall in our guest room is home to a colony of bees. What a nightmare. I thought (hoped) it was some kind of hoax at first, because I didn't know that bees will build hives inside of walls. But sadly, it's very real. I spent the last two days moving furniture around, getting everything ready for the exterminator to come next week. But as much as it sucks to discover these uninvited guests in my house, I'm dying of curiosity to see what the hive looks like once the exterminator knocks down the drywall. Plus, now that I know they're there, I'm running into the guest room every couple of minutes to put my ear up to the wall and listen to them buzzing around. It's very creepy.

Nick Nolte’s Blog — Here's yet another possible faux celebrity blog. This time it's the blog of Nick Nolte. It's probably becoming a sign of status in Hollywood to have a faux blog... it shows that someone out there cares enough about you to want to pretend to be you. Imagine all the forgotten stars waiting desperately for someone to create a fake blog about them. Maybe they eventually break down and pay someone to pretend to be them... which would make it a faux faux celebrity blog. Lost in Technophilia argues that the reason to believe the Nick Nolte blog isn't real is because the domain name is registered to someone called "Christian Newton" living at 501 Privacy Lane, Santa Monica, CA 90402. Obviously a fake address. Or maybe Nick Nolte just didn't want to give out his real address.

Iraqi Urban legends — Here's an interesting article about Iraqi urban legends regarding the American forces. Here's a few of the more popular beliefs:

• that the bulletproof vests American soldiers wear actually contain air-conditioning units (I'm sure the soldiers wish this were true)


• that the sunglasses worn by almost all American soldiers allow them to see through clothing


• And that American armored vehicles are protected by electrical fields that detonate RPG rockets before they strike, but that this protection can be defeated by wrapping the rockets in electrical tape.

Sleep Sex — Australia's The Age reports on the strange nocturnal exploits of a middle-aged woman living with a steady partner. "By night, she crept out of their house to seek random sex with strangers. But the woman was unaware of her own double life, which was conducted while she was asleep." The doctor who is treating her, Dr. Peter Buchanan, claims that she is suffering from a rare syndrome known as 'Sleep Sex', which he's hoping will soon be officially recognized as a legitimate sleep disorder. Dr. Buchanan also notes that "Incredulity is the first staging post for anyone involved in this... One has to maintain a healthy degree of scepticism." I think I'm definitely still in the incredulity and skepticism stages, because I'm having a very hard time believing this could be true. I can understand doing things around the house like making a sandwich (or even trying to have sex with your partner) while asleep. But I can't understand how anyone could leave their house, meet a stranger, and engineer a sexual encounter... while being asleep the entire time. I would accept that she may be suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder, but Sleep Sex... I'm not buying that yet.
Update: Here's an article in New Scientist about the sleep-walking woman. I'm still not convinced she was really sleeping. But it mentions a prior case where a man drove 23 kilometres, killed both his in-laws, then pleaded innocent to the murders by reason of being asleep... amazing. Can a person get out of anything by claiming to be asleep?

The Belly Button Plant — Vincent linked to this in the hoax forum, and I thought it was bizarre enough that I should post it here where I can add a poll to it. The story is that 'Stephan M' lost his clothes overboard while on a canoe trip, so he had to wear the same things for the next six days. When he got home he took off his sweater and discovered that a seedling had sprouted in his belly button lint. He took photos of it as proof. Now to me this seems like a joke. I think he just stuck a leafy twig in his belly button and started snapping photos. But would it even be theoretically possible for this to happen? Wouldn't the sweater rubbing against his skin damage a delicate seedling and prevent it from growing? I think so. I also think that the sweaty, salty environment would kill a plant. But others might disagree.

Slovakian Satire Reported as News — Here's another case of the media in one country reporting another country's satire as straight news. About a week ago the Austrian paper Der Standard reported that a Canadian-American company was going to privatise and expand the Bratislava airport, which would involve the relocation of the entire village of Ivanka pri Dunaji. And where did Der Standard get this story? From the website of sme.sk, a Slovakian paper. It didn't notice that the story was over six months old and dated April 1st. What happened next, of course, was that the news bounced back to Slovakia where it was also reported as true, with the Slovakian media citing Der Standard as their source. Probably gave the villagers in Ivanka pri Dunaji a good scare.

Marijuana Mobile — Peptalk seems to be positioning itself as the mobile phone service provider of choice for Dutch marijuana lovers. Check out its website, pepyouraddiction.nl, where you can see that its corporate logo is a hemp plant. Marijuana is, of course, legal in Holland... and PePtalk is a Dutch company, but the weird thing is that beyond that PePtalk doesn't seem to have any rational connection to marijuana. It's as if they just liked the idea of being a pot-lover's phone company... without offering pot lovers any benefit from choosing their service over another. As this article at Strand Reports notes: PePtalk do not actually seem to express any views on cannabis on their website - other than their name and logo. And although they offer many premium rate SMS services, none of them seem to have anything to do with daily cannabis prices - or where you can locate your nearest cannabis coffee shop!  But maybe that is in the pipeline?

Eight-Legged Cat — Take a look at this picture. Is it real or fake? It kind of looks like two cats held up one behind the other. But it's not. The picture is real. It's Octopussy, the 8-legged cat. It's a cat that was born in Norway in 2001. Information about it can be found over at Messybeast.com:
In 2001, I received an email detailing a conjoined kitten which was born in Østfold, Norway in April. Unlike the 1750 six-legged cat which was only doubled from the "waist" down, the Norwegian kitten was doubled from the neck down. It had eight paws, two tails and two chins and was part of a litter of six. The other 5 kittens were normal. The conjoined kitten died shortly after birth, which is not unusual for such grossly malformed offspring. The image indicates two tortoiseshell and white female kittens (incompletely separated twins) which were joined at the belly and which would have shared most of their internal organs. Had such a severely deformed kitten survived, such a gross deformity would have severely compromised its lifestyle and mobility.

Update: I really messed up on my first attempt at this post (I was writing it late at night), confusing the Norwegian cat with an American-born 8-legged cat called Octopussy. Part of the Octopussy story can be found here.

Was Bob Heironimus Bigfoot? — Bob Heironimus has been getting a lot of press lately by claiming to have been the guy who dressed up in a Bigfoot costume and mugged for the camera in the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, shot in October 1967. I haven't examined his story closely, so I haven't formed an opinion on whether he really was Patterson's Bigfoot, but looking at that Bigfoot costume he was photographed posing with last week, I've got to say that it doesn't look much like the Bigfoot in Patterson's film. Maybe it looks more like it at a distance.

Cow Manure Tossing — CNN reports that Oklahoma tourism officials have recalled about 200,000 brochures because they contain, among other things, "a photo of an event in which lumps of cow manure are thrown as a part of a contest in the town of Beaver, in western Oklahoma." The way the article described it, I wasn't sure if the cow-manure tossing was a joke that somehow made its way into the brochure, or if it was a serious event. But a quick google search reveals that it's real enough. Here are some photos of the event. I wonder if there's some kind of special trick involved in throwing a cow chip (does it fall apart easily?), or is it just like throwing a frisbee?

Enormous Wave Video — When I first saw this movie clip of a guy surfing a huge wave (windows media player file), I figured it had to be fake, especially since the wave just seems to get bigger and bigger as the camera pans out. But on second thought, I think it's real. Waves in Hawaii or Australia can get huge, and some of those surfers are insane enough to surf them. This clip seems to be footage from the surfing documentary Billabong Odyssey.

Elite Designers Against IKEA — IKEA is my wife's favorite shop. I go along with her on her IKEA outings on the condition that I get to stop in at their restaurant and have a plate of Swedish meatballs. Anyway, the Elite Designers Against IKEA site pretty much describes what it is in its title. According to their manifesto: "We design profound and beautiful furniture for those with wealth and taste. Which is why IKEA makes us furious livid and angry." I'm assuming this site is part of an advertising campaign for IKEA itself.
Update: This definitely is a hoax, and it may be backfiring on Ikea (oops. I mean, IKEA). Here's a blurb from PR Week about the ad campaign:


Ikea has opened a can of worms with its hoax PR campaign to ban the furniture brand, spearheaded by the flamboyant sham-designer Van den Puup, who believes design should be exclusive and expensive.
Cooke & Brand PR set up an email and phone line for the phoney character and, flooded with responses, has found it difficult to differentiate those who have been taken in by the ruse from those enjoying the interaction.
'Huw Shooter' probably got the joke when asking for Puup to design his second guest suite in a fusion of 'Byzantine and Spanish Rococo' styles, but Stef Wheway felt compelled to write: 'It seems we av (sic) a mutual disliking for Ikea! But what's with your prices? Are they for real or is it a joke to take the piss out of Ikea?'

Martha Serving — Someone called Martha (I wonder which Martha that could be?) who's recently been incarcerated in a federal prison has got a new blog up and running. She's already working on plans to redecorate her new surroundings:

I'm going to use toilet paper and threads taken from my bedsheets to quilt some nice drapes. I've been talking to some people on the outside about sneaking in some potpourri for me. This place is severly lacking in fine scents!

Irish Ghost in a Bottle — If you hurry, you still have time to bid on the latest eBay sensation: a genuine Irish Ghost in a bottle (as opposed to a fake Irish ghost in a bottle). When I saw this, it immediately conjured up fond memories for me of the original Ghost in a Jar, but this new item seems to have a far longer pedigree than the Ghost in a Jar did. It is said to contain the ghost of a rogue 19th century landlord who took his own life after getting a young girl pregnant. And this is the best part of all: it's caught the attention of Michael Jackson, who reportedly is bidding on it. The price is already up to £1,550. It'll be interesting to see how much it ends up selling for.

Book Contest Winners — The book contest has now been running for a week, and I got a lot of great responses. It was pretty tough making a decision (and any choice like this is bound to be somewhat random), but I finally opted to award a book to 'Redmond' for his account of the brownies with the secret added ingredient that turns urine blue. I'm also giving a book to Quentin Smith for his description of how they filled a school administrator's office from floor to ceiling with shredded paper (in order to give him a little more paperwork). The photographic evidence of the prank being pulled was great. So thanks to everyone for contributing their stories, and if you didn't win, don't worry. I think I'm going to have some more stuff to give away pretty soon.

Soldier in Iraq Cuts the Grass — A picture of a soldier cutting a small square of grass outside his tent is making the rounds. It's accompanied by this text.

Sometimes the little things we take for granted - Priceless
Here is a soldier stationed in Iraq, stationed in a big sand box he asked his wife to send him dirt, fertilizer and some grass seeds so he can have the sweet aroma and feel the grass grow beneath his feet.  If you notice, he is even cutting the grass with a pair of scissors.
 Sometimes we are in such a hurry that we don't stop and think about the little things that we take for granted.  Upon receiving this, please say a prayer for our soldiers that give (and give up) so unselfishly for us.

Someone who left a comment on the Utah VVA site where I came across the image noted that they had found a larger version of the image on which a date is clearly marked: November 2000. On this date the soldier could not have been stationed in Iraq. Of course, the date could be photoshopped in. Or maybe that's not even the date. I can't figure out what the numbers after '2000.11' mean. Also, I'm not sure how long this picture has been floating around.
Update: The soldier has been identified as Warrant Officer Brook Turner in Iraq. For more info see this update from Dec. 31, 2004.