Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

Back Home — I've finally made it back to San Diego. The vacation was great, but it's good to be back home. I'm also glad to see that the site wasn't completely overrun by spammers in my absence. Here's a few snapshots from the trip:


Posing with Nessie in Drumnadrochit.




The relatives I was staying with in Gloucester had a weird, mutant goldfish swimming around in their backyard pond. I dubbed it Nessie. Later we learned that the poor fish was suffering from dropsy and had to be put down before it popped and infected all the other fish in the pond.


   I was amazed by the meats they sold in French supermarkets. On the left is lapin, otherwise known as rabbit meat. Since the rabbits were already skinned, I couldn't tell if one of them was Bernd. On the right is pigeon meat, which isn't really very shocking, though you'd still be hard-pressed to find it in any American supermarket.


Here I am posing in front of the Piltdown Man Pub located in the town of Piltdown. Unfortunately the pub was closed when I was there, so I didn't get a chance to go inside. Plus, it was raining when this picture was taken, so I didn't stick around for very long.


Finally, here's an odd advertisement that was painted on a wall next to the hotel I was staying at in York. I had no idea if 'Bile Beans' were ever a real product, and no one I asked knew either.

Loch Ness Monster Seen? — I'm posting this message from Paris, France. So far I've been finding it very hard to get onto the internet, but when I turned on my laptop in my hotel room I discovered that someone nearby is running an open wireless network (it's definitely not the hotel... I think it's the cafe on the corner).

Anyway, when I visited Loch Ness a few days ago I didn't think I had seen the monster, until I later examined the pictures I had taken. Then I noticed this mysterious object on the Loch that I didn't see while taking the picture. Perhaps it's just a small boat... or perhaps it's Nessie. Hmmm.


By the way, if you ever stay in Loch Ness, skip the Loch Ness Lodge. It's a tourist trap. Opt for the Benleva Hotel instead. That's where the locals hang out. It's also got a great restaurant. I had kangaroo meat for dinner there (kangaroo meat in Loch Ness!!).

Vacation Time — I'm off to Europe for a two-week vacation, so don't expect that much in the way of posts during that time, though I'll be trying to check in from time to time. The itinerary is Loch Ness, Liverpool, Gloucester, Paris, Southampton, Canvey Island, and finishing up in York. So I'll be moving around quite a bit. Speaking of Loch Ness, I've haven't seen any word on how the Virgin sacrifice at the Loch went off. I'll try to find out when I'm there.

Eye Squirting — About a week ago Turkish construction worker Ilker Yilmaz set the world record for squirting milk out of his eye, projecting it a full 9.2 feet. The sport of eye squirting is definitely a new one to me. If someone had told me about this I would have sworn they were joking, but the story has appeared in numerous papers and there's even pictures of Yilmaz with the milk coming out of his eye. So looks like it's real. Of course, only a very few people who are born with the appropriately anomalous tear glands can participate in the sport. However, sponsors are already lining up behind it. Yilmaz, for instance, was sponsored by Kay Sut, a Turkish milk company (seeing milk spray out of some guy's eye really makes me thirsty for a glass of the stuff). Maybe someday in the future eye squirting will become an Olympic event.

90-Foot Babe — Natalia is a "fun-loving, shoe-hoarding, chocolate-loving gal who likes to travel, flirt with cute guys, and hang out with friends." She also happens to be 90 feet tall. You can read all about her adventures on her blog, 90-foot babe. All I can say is that a) she gives new meaning to the term 'tall tale'; and b) she really puts Heather Haven in her place. (via the Hoax Forum)

Unmanned Mission? — Hmmm. There's either a typo in the caption to this Yahoo! News photo, or maybe they're trying to tell us that all those NASA manned space missions really were a hoax:

A Mercury-Redstone rocket that once stood upright at the credentialing center at the Kennedy Space Center (news - web sites) in Titusville, Fla. lies on the grass after being blown down by Hurricane Frances Saturday, Sept. 5, 2004. A rocket similar to this was used to launch Alan Shepard on the first unmanned suborbital mission. (AP Photo/Peter Cosgrove)

Save Bernd — The opening statement says it all: "I swear by God, I will have this lovely rabbit for New Year's Eve Dinner if my account doesn't show a balance of at least 1'000'000 € by latest 31st Dec 2004!" Wow. It's cute rabbit blackmail. How low can you stoop? One million Euros is a lot. I'm not quite sure of the current exchange rate, but I think that's about a million dollars. But if somehow the world does band together and raise the ransom, then Bernd will be given to a bunny breeding farm "where he can spend the rest of his life as playboy in a way that we would all be jealous of." Will Bernd really be eaten if the money isn't raised? I'm doubtful (which is why I'm putting the site up here), though I should note that Europeans eat rabbit quite often... so maybe Bernd should be searching for ways to escape. The Free Bernd group (in German) is circulating a petition to demand Bernd's release. And Rabbit Company appears to be some kind of German militant group threatening to rescue Bernd by force. The plight of Bernd reminds me of all the fuss about Grendel a year ago. I've actually eaten rabbit once before in my life when I was in France years ago visiting my Aunt. It tasted okay, but I don't think it's something I'd do again. For some reason it's just really hard to stomach eating cute, fluffy animals.

Lonely Hearts Scam — So out of the blue this girl from Russia sends you an email via Yahoo Personals. The two of you start corresponding. She sends you her picture... and she's really freakin' hot! Then she says she wants to call you. But she also insists that you give her your mailing address and full name. Why would she need that? So the question is: are you being set up to be scammed? If so, then what's the scam? That's the real-life question facing Johnny over at LiveJournal. I don't know exactly what the scam is, or even if there is one, though it sounds like one to me. Posting under the username 'hornswoggle' I theorized that Johnny could be faced with either some kind of identity theft scam, or the classic Lonely Hearts Scam. In the Lonely Hearts Scam, men are duped into sending gifts and money to beautiful female pen-pals, not realizing that their pen-pals are never who they claim to be. One of the most famous practitioners of this con was Susanna Mildred Hill, a 60-year-old mother of ten who conned hundreds of men out of thousands of dollars during the 1940s by convincing them that she was actually a beautiful young woman in her 20s.

Are You Superstitious? — Do you think you're not superstitious? Then test it using this simple little experiment devised by John Stilgoe:

Stilgoe's Law: to test if you are really NOT superstitious.


Bring a photograph of your romantic partner, or of a son or daughter to a meeting. Here is an ice pick. Will you poke out the eyes in the picture? Will you poke out the eyes for ten dollars? Most students will not do this, the image has the power of a voodoo doll.


-- suggested by Professor John Stilgoe, Harvard Magazine, (Jan.-Feb. 1996) pp. 36-42.
Personally, I would fail. (via Liquito)

Gross Prank — The Anchorage Press reports on a prank whose grossness lies not in what is said, but rather in what isn't. Read it for yourself:

Troopers were called to Showboat II, a club also known as “Showgirls,” where “a female employee had spiked another female employee's drink with a laxative” according to troopers. No further details were given, and the investigation continues.
Thinking about this too much might just give me nightmares tonight.

Britney Spears Used Chewing Gum — Britney Spears' used chewing gum is the latest craze on eBay. Just do an eBay keyword search for Britney's Gum and all kinds of stuff comes up. Apparently there must be hordes of people following Britney around, devotedly picking up her gum (probably are). When I saw the article about Britney's gum, I actually thought it was old news. Didn't someone sell a piece of her used gum about a year or two ago? Or maybe I'm thinking of the time someone sold a piece of french toast NOT eaten by Justin Timberlake; or the time someone sold Paris Hilton's pubic hair. So much fake celebrity detritus constantly being sold on eBay. It's hard to keep track of it all.

Dog Gives Birth to Kitten — Some guy in Cambodia is claiming that his dog has given birth to a kitten. As he says, "This animal cries like a cat, and its face is like a cat, but its feet are bigger than a cat's and look more like a dog's feet." Uh, yeah. It's feet look like dog's feet because IT IS A DOG! The guy is also insisting that anyone who wants to view the cat-dog thing first must pray to it. Unbelievable. Actually, the really unbelievable thing is that the media even bothers to report things like this. But wait, I'm posting about it too. So scratch that last remark.

The Hibbing Monster — Reporter Aaron Brown is hoping to boost the fortunes of his hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota by propagating "a mysterious local legend to drum up economic development for the region." As he points out, it's worked for other places. Case in point: I'm off to Loch Ness next week solely because of some murky legend of a sea serpent. So what kind of monster should lurk around Hibbing? What about a 1000lb wild hog? No, that's already been done. But Minnesota does already have the Iceman, so maybe they could play that up a bit.

Operation Mincemeat — Captain Bill Jewell, the British submarine commander responsible for carrying out Operation Mincemeat, died last month. Operation Mincemeat was the top-secret WWII military subterfuge that, many argue, helped to ensure the success of D-Day the southern invasion of Europe. A dead soldier's body was launched overboard by Captain Jewell with Allied plans for an invasion of Corsica and Sardinia chained to his wrist. The Nazis found the body (and the plans) when it washed up on the coast of Spain, and believing the plans to be real proceeded to beef up their defenses in the wrong place, thereby diverting attention away from the true site of the invasion (Sicily). The covert operation was turned into a movie in 1955, The Man Who Never Was, which I've never seen. But I'm sure that sooner or later Hollywood will do a remake of it.

An Email from National Geographic — Any copyright lawyers out there willing to offer some free advice? I just received the following email from National Geographic (I'm sensing a bad trend developing here with emails like this... first the time travel mutual fund, and now Nat Geo):


One of our readers has informed us that you are featuring one of our
photographs on your website at http://hoaxes.org/weblog/2003/10/ [note: here's a more direct link].
We would ask that you either remove the photo immediately, or forward me
details of how long the image has been posted and how long you intend to
keep it posted so that we can determine an appropriate licensing fee and
send you a formal retroactive rights release and invoice. Please let me
know if you have any questions.


I'm not quite sure how to proceed. Nat Geo, unlike the time travel mutual fund, isn't someone you want to mess with. But on the other hand, I believe (hope) that my use of the image is protected by fair use. First of all, the image had circulated widely via email before I put it on my site. All I did was add some commentary to it in order to inform the public of the image's true source. Second, my use of the image hasn't deprived Nat Geo of any income since the image was too low quality to make print copies from. In fact, my commentary probably provided them with some free advertising.

I could just buckle under and remove the image, but this question of what is and what isn't fair use with regard to images that have escaped into the wilds of email is one that I'd very much like to know the answer to. Does a site such as mine, that tries to provide some information about random images that people find in their inboxes, have to request permission from the copyright owner whenever the owner is identified? Am I going to have to request permission from Touristguy to have his image on my site, or from that guy posing with the big bear? If so, that would potentially kill off large portions of my site.

Explicit Scenes On Haribo’s Fruit Chews? — Do the new graphics on boxes of Haribo's Maoam fruit chews show scenes of explicit sex? The members of St. Blasien Jesuit College think they do, and have publicly complained about them. The boxes depict various fruits frolicking with a blobby lime-colored creature. Are the scenes as bad as the college says? Well, you've got to admit that the College has a point. After all, what is that lemon doing with the lime-blob? Even Haribo admits that the packaging is "very racy." So my guess is that the sexual overtones are deliberate. But on the other hand, we are just talking about fruits and a lime blob. So maybe all of us who think the lemon and lime-blob are getting it on, just have dirty minds. The controversy reminds me of that rogue tin of Huntley & Palmers biscuits, but on a much larger scale.
Update: The story gets even better. Turns out that the faculty of the Jesuit College never complained about the racy candy packaging. The letter of complaint actually was "a hoax perpetrated by pupils at the school who admitted writing it and posting it on the Internet 'as a joke'." The German tabloid press found the letter, thought it was real, and reported it as news. You gotta love the tabloids. Of course, this still doesn't answer the question of just what is that lemon doing with the lime-blob?

Snake Wine — I belong to the wine club of a local Southern California vineyard, but although they've sent me some nice merlots, chardonnays, etc., they have yet to send me any snake wine. Although I just found out about this stuff myself, evidently it's quite real, and fairly well known... at least in south-east Asia, where it's predominantly found. Snake wine consists of rice wine mixed with (you guessed it!) snake. You buy it in bottles with the snake coiled up inside (here's a picture). Very pleasant. Reportedly, the more venomous the snake, the better the wine. For a more in-depth account of snake wine, check out this article by Jerry Hopkins where he describes visiting the Snake King & Completely Restaurant in Guangzhou and sampling not only snake wine but also Five Testes & Penises Wine. (via Mostly Harmless)

Freezing Plastic Water Bottles — An email has been going around about the danger of freezing plastic bottles of water. It goes something like this:

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in their newsletters...worth noting...
Dioxin Carcinogens cause cancer. Especially breast cancer. Don't freeze your plastic water bottles with water as this also releases dioxin in the plastic. Dr. Edward Fujimoto from Castle hospital was on a TV program explaining this health hazard. He is the manager of the Wellness Program at the hospital.

But Johns Hopkins never sent out a newsletter suggesting any such thing. And Dr. Rolf Halden, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has now gone on record to debunk this hoax, noting that if freezing the plastic bottle were to do anything, it would probably make the water inside safer to drink because "freezing actually works against the release of chemicals."

But heating plastic water bottles is another matter. "Halden does warn that another group of chemicals that are used to make plastic less brittle can be released if you place them in hot water or heat them in the microwave." But considering all the junk that we Americans willingly shove into our mouths, the "miniscule amounts of chemical contaminants present in your water supply" probably shouldn't be high on anyone's list of worries.

Hogzilla Festival — Hogzilla, the 1000lb wild hog supposedly shot and killed in Georgia, has already had its fifteen minutes of internet fame. But now the small town of Alapaha, GA is hoping to extend the fond memories of Hogzilla just a little longer by making the dubious hog the centerpiece of their November festival. They plan to have a Hogzilla float, a Hogzilla information booth, and Hogzilla T-shirts. Maybe they should make Hogzilla fest an ongoing tradition. It could become like the iceworm festival held every year in Cordova, Alaska. Oh, and despite what this story claims, President Bush has not declared Aug. 23 as 'National Hogzilla Day.'

Child Pimp & Ho Costumes — Looking for a unique Halloween costume for your kid? Then check out the Child Pimp & Ho Costumes offered by Brands On Sale. For your boy you have a choice of the generic pimp suit costume, the long pimp daddy suit, cheetah pimp suit, or zebra pimp suit. But for your girl you're limited to just a single ho costume (though you could send her out in the spoiled brat girl costume). And let Fido join in the fun with the pimp suit dog costume. A link to these costumes was doing the blog rounds last week, and when I first saw them I figured they were simply costumes in bad taste... not a hoax. But according to des femmes they are a hoax. Des femmes reports that, "I spoke with Jonathan at Brands On Sale. He said the page was hacked and they're still trying to remove it from the server. The pimp costumes are actually zoot suits and the ho costume is supposed to be a flapper." This was posted on the 25th. It's now six days later and Brands on Sale apparently still has not been able to correct the item descriptions, which seems a little suspicious. But we'll have to wait and see what happens.
Update: Looks like I was wrong. This Yahoo! News story that Dwight linked to in the comments seems to indicate that Brands on Sale is seriously selling these outfits... that they weren't the creation of a hacker.