Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

Turn Your Dog Into a Sweater — Proving, yet again, that truth is stranger than fiction, I present you with VIP Fibers (I'm assuming this is real... I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be). Send VIP Fibers a bundle of your pet's fur, and they'll turn it into any knit good of your choice, except socks. As the site explains: "Many dogs and cats have a fine and lustrous undercoat so suitable for spinning. It does not, however, have the crimp or elasticity such as found in wool from a sheep, and therefore is not suitable for all projects such as socks." My cat sheds constantly, but it never occurred to me that all that fur on the floor could be put to good use. Now I have the perfect christmas presents for my entire family. (via Red Ferret Journal)

Who is Rance? — The latest buzz in the blogosphere is about the weblog of 'Rance,' an anonymous blogger who claims to be a well-known, A-list, Hollywood celebrity. Or as he coyly puts it on his weblog, "I can tell you what it's like to see your picture on the magazine rack every now and again when you pay for groceries." For a couple of months he's been dishing up dirt on life in Hollywood, and he's succeeded in attracting a huge following. He even got interviewed (anonymously) by Reuters last week. But of course, he won't reveal who he is... which just makes everyone crazy to find out the secret. Is Rance really a celebrity, or is he just an average schmuck pretending to be a celebrity?

There have been quite a few theories about his identity. Xeni Jardin, over at BoingBoing posted a rumor that he was Owen Wilson, though she conceded he could just as easily be George Clooney or Mr. Potato Head. The Defamer weblog posted a clever theory from one of their readers that an LA-based ad agency named Butler, Shine, Stern, and Partners is secretly behind Rance's weblog. Their reasoning was that Rance's url is captainhoof.tripod.com, and the ad agency has a mascot called Captain Hoofers. Defamer also has suggested that Rance is really Ben Affleck, because Rance once made a reference to the initials 'OV,' and Ben has 'OV' tattooed on his back (seems like a bit of a stretch to me).


Anyway, I got hooked by the mystery and decided to see if I could find out anything about the identity of Rance, and I now have a lead suspect of my own. I think Rance is a cartoonist/filmmaker/screenwriter named Keith Thomson.

Here's my reasoning. What immediately struck me about Rance's weblog was that it attracted a very high number of comments from very early on. Within two hours after Rance posted his first entry on December 29, 2003, four people had left comments on his site. Most weblogs, by contrast, struggle to get anyone to read them, let alone leave comments. So how was he attracting so many visitors to his site straight off the bat?

What I discovered was that immediately after Rance posted his first entry on Dec. 29 at 4:49 EST, someone going by the screen name 'InvaderFromPluto' began posting messages about his weblog on various fan discussion groups. For instance, at 5:52, about one hour after Rance had posted his first entry, a message from InvaderFromPluto appears on Yahoo's thematthewperryplace message board. It reads:

i read slate reported a famous tv actor keeping a weblog under
pseudonym "rance" at http://captainhoof.tripod.com/blog/
it's hard to know if it is him, but it might be as it is funny and
seems witty in his sort of way

Obviously Slate hadn't written anything about Rance's weblog. Rance's weblog, at that time, was only an hour old. So how did InvaderFromPluto know about Rance's weblog so quickly, and why was he so interested in promoting it? Perhaps InvaderFromPluto was Rance himself. Makes sense to me.

InvaderFromPluto can be found promoting Rance's weblog in other discussion groups. Here he is with the same message over at HugeHughGrantFans.

So how can we find out who InvaderFromPluto is? A simple Google search revealed that throughout 2002 and 2003 InvaderFromPluto was busy on various message boards promoting the cartoon work of Keith Thomson. He even promoted what seems to be an early Keith Thomson hoax: an online petition trying to stop Britney Spears's lawyers from suing him (even though Spears's lawyers don't seem to have had any intention to sue him).

So I think it's very likely that InvaderFromPluto is Keith Thomson (who else would be so tirelessly promoting his work). Therefore, by extension, Keith Thomson is also Rance. To put it in mathematical form: Rance = InvaderFromPluto = Keith Thomson.

Or, if Rance isn't Keith Thomson, then, at the very least, Thomson seems to be involved somehow.

Here's a bio of Keith Thomson from the atomfilms site:

Keith Thomson played a season of semi-professional baseball in Europe before becoming a political cartoonist for New York Newsday. His work appeared in many other publications, including GQ and Howard Stern's book Miss America. His short film, "Cupidity," played at Sundance and can now be seen on Atomshockwave. He has since written feature film screenplays for Imagine, Paramount and Sony. He also wrote for Bill Plympton's animated MTV show, "Helter Shelter." Thomson is represented by Nick Reed of ICM.

So Thomson is a guy who knows Hollywood. Plus he has a sense of humor. Sounds a lot like Rance to me.
Update: David Emery just emailed me some more evidence linking Keith Thomson to Rance. Check out the
screen name ("Captain Hoof") on this 2002 newsgroup post that links to a Keith Thomson video.
Update 2: Another theory to consider is that the person using the screen name InvaderFromPluto wasn't Keith Thomson. It could have been Thomson's agent at ICM, Nick Reed (Reed gets a 'co-created by' credit on Thomson's films, so he would be just as likely to promote the films as Thomson). If this is the case, then Rance could be Nick Reed. Or he could be one of Reed's other clients.
Update 3: I just posted some second thoughts about the Keith Thomson/Rance connection. I still think Thomson is a prime suspect, but I'm not 100% sure.

Do Bakery Products Contain Human Hair? — An old article on Albalagh.net (it was new to me) describes how numerous bakery products contain an ingredient made out of human hair, and are therefore not allowed to be eaten by Muslims. The offending ingredient is the amino acid L-Cysteine, which can be made out of feathers, hooves... or yes, human hair. Back in January I linked to a story about soy sauce in China being made from human hair, so when I heard about bagels, croissants, pizza dough, etc. also containing human hair, I immediately suspected that this human-hair-in-food thing may be a bit of an urban legend. But as far as I can tell, there is some truth to it. The Shenzhen government has stated that it's looking into the soy sauce/human hair allegations. And L-cysteine can be made from human hair, as this Australian food additives guide notes. But I can't imagine human hair would provide the cheapest source of L-cysteine for commercial producers of it. Where would they be getting the hair from? Unless Supercuts is secretly supplying bulk shipments of it to the bakery industry (now there's a disgusting thought).

Is David Hasselhoff Making a Rap Album? — Sky News has been reporting that Rapper Ice-T has decided to produce a new rap album by his LA neighbor, David Hasselhoff (of Baywatch fame). The article quotes Ice-T as saying, "He's gonna come out as Hassle the Hoff... The Hoff will surprise people with his rap skills and humour." When I read this article I got really scared, because I figured that if such a thing were to happen, it would definitely be a sign that the end was near. But thankfully it appears to be a hoax. On his website, Hasselhoff denies the reports that he's making a rap album. Thank God for that.

Penguin Warehouse — Can't think what to get your significant other for their next birthday? What about a penguin? As Penguin Warehouse, the internet's #1 domesticated penguin dealer, notes: "Penguins make wonderful birthday and holiday gifts all year long." Penguin Warehouse offers a variety of penguins including Emperor, King, Rockhopper, and Macaroni.

The Teleparanormalphone — Do you ever answer the phone only to discover that there's no one on the other end... just the faint whisper of static? You could actually, without your knowledge, be receiving a call from a ghost. But how can you tell if it is a genuine 'ghost call' or just Uncle Fred up to his usual tricks? The answer: The teleparanormalphone. It's built-in electromagnetic field detector will tell you with 100% accuracy if that dead line is, in fact, a direct connection to the land of the dead.

Hunting for Bambi Officially a Hoax — It's official. Michael Burdick, the guy behind that whole 'Hunting for Bambi' thing that turned into a media circus about a year ago (you remember, the Las Vegas company that claimed to be hosting paintball games in which you could hunt naked women), has finally admitted that the whole thing was a hoax. Not that anyone was in much doubt of that. As part of a plea bargain deal "Burdick acknowledged that claiming the paintball hunts were real was part of an advertising strategy for the videos and apologized for 'any embarrassment to the city of Las Vegas caused by such false or misleading promotional activity.'" I'm sure we'll all be able to sleep easier now that this has finally been laid to rest.

Hebrew Beer — Is Hebrew Beer for real? Absolutely. And it comes in two varieties: Genesis Ale and Messiah Bold. I've never seen this in my local beer store, but I'll have to look for it. When I get my hands on some I'll add a bottle of it to my rapidly growing collection of weird beers.

Amazon Wish Lists — It turns out that quite a few famous people have wish lists on Amazon. For instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger wants a copy of Gladiator (seems appropriate). Warren Buffett, for some reason, wants a copy of his own collected essays. Based on what Bill Gates wants, he seems to be planning a hunting trip. John Kerry wants a pair of speedos (that's a scary thought). George W. Bush wants a copy of the American-English Pronunciation Dictionary. But Dick Cheney's list is by far the most touching. All he wants is a single copy of the album Love Songs For A Rainy Day. Could it be that Dick's feeling romantic? (inspired by a post at J-Walk)

Has Microsoft translated the Iliad into Messenger Speak? — The news that Microsoft has produced a 'messenger speak' translation of Homer's Iliad has been all over the wire services, but is it true? I thought it must be a joke when I first read it... another example of satire being treated as news. But I should have known better. It's Microsoft, after all (they're good at taking great things and making crappier versions of them... sorry, as an Apple user I couldn't resist the obvious joke). So yes, they really did do it... though they only 'translated' the first five books and condensed them down to a few lines each. In other words, it's a cute little publicity stunt, rather than a major linguistic undertaking. I took a couple years of ancient Greek in high school, but never got good enough to read Homeric Greek. But I doubt the pr people at Microsoft bothered to read the original Greek either in order to produce lines like, "Ur right to still be ngry, Anchilles has m’ssed things up 4 da Grks wiv his rage."

Crappy Dialup — If you're tired of having fast, always-on broadband service, then why not switch over to CrappyDialup.com. After all, there's no pleasure quite like that of making everyone who calls you get a busy signal. (via The Presurfer)

Christian Debt Removers — I got spammed today by Christian Debt Removers, an organization which advertises itself as a debt elimination service "based on Christian principles." Whatever that means... your guess is as good as mine. The only thing I could figure out was that they've slapped a few proverbs up on their site and this somehow makes them 'Christian.' Of course, the one Christian phrase that's conspicuously absent from their site is the line from the Lord's Prayer: "forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." But somehow I suspect that, whatever principles they might claim they hold, they draw the line at debt forgiveness. Anyway, I was about to write them off as just another company jumping on the Christian bandwagon to make a quick buck, when I did a little research and discovered that ChristianDebtRemovers.org is the exact same organization as DebtRemovers.org, which is a featured sponsor of Gay World. Immediately my opinion of them went way up, since I was glad to discover that their Christian principles didn't conflict with their support of the gay community. But I do think it would be nice if they could make their support of both Christianity and Gay Rights more evident (especially since the fundamentalist Christian and gay communities traditionally have been rather antagonistic towards each other). Maybe change their tagline to "based on Christian principles and official sponsors of Gay World." That would be pretty catchy. Though maybe, just maybe, they don't actually care about Christian principles or gay rights at all, and they're just cynically targeting different demographic groups with different messages. But no. That couldn't be.

Paranormal Potato Chip Gallery — "Found a Nixon in your bag of Barbecued? Spotted an Elvis in your Salt 'n Vinegar?" Then send them in to the Paranormal Potato Chip Gallery. Actually, I'm not sure if the chips currently on display are real or not. Surely with finds of this magnitude they should have recorded the time, date, and place of discovery. (via Liquito)

Has Rumsfeld Banned Camera Phones in Iraq? — Lots of media outlets have been reporting that Rumsfeld has decided to ban camera phones in Iraq, in the wake of the photos of prisoner abuse coming out of Abu Ghraib. For instance, the story is on Yahoo! news, the Washington Times, and The Sydney Morning Herald. The Register, at least, points out that there are doubts about the story, while also noting that it would be almost impossible to actually enforce such a ban. But what's the source for this news. The Sydney Morning Herald refers to some British newspaper called The Business. But what's that? Is there such a paper? The story actually seems to come from The Daily Farce, an online satirical magazine who printed the story (as a joke) about two weeks ago. Apparently yet another example of satirical articles being treated as real news. (via The Prison Blog)

Spanking and the Christian Parent — Sometimes I really have no clue what to make of a site. Is it serious, or just a joke? That's the puzzle that fatherly.org presents. It bills itself as a forum "made up of fathers who believe in a traditional, conservative, and practical approach to effective parenting and child discipline." Or, as it states more bluntly later on, it's promoting the message that "Christian parents know that the Word of God advises parents to use spanking as a form of punishment with their children." Okay, sure. Parents sometimes spank their kids. It's not the end of the world. But why create an entire website enthusiastically promoting the practice? Unless the whole thing is satire. It's a tough call. Some parts of the site seem so over-the-top that you think, 'they have to be kidding.' But somehow I get the creepy feeling that they're not. So I'm voting that the whole thing is real.

4-Wheel Segway Coming Soon — Rumors are flying that the next generation model of the popular Segway will one-up the original by adding an extra set of wheels to the vehicle, thereby producing the 4-wheel 'p-series' Segway. The platform will also be lengthened so that two people can stand on it at once. Of course, as Gizmodo points out, this completely defeats the purpose of the thing since "the whole point of the Segway is that it balances itself on two wheels." But it sure sounds good. (via Gizmodo)

Get GodStopper — Are you tired of religious spam filling up your inbox day after day? Then GodStopper may be what you need. It's the "ultimate in religion blocking software from the company that brought you SimJihad." It works to block faith-promoting messages from all the major religions: christianity, judaism, buddhism, islam, etc. But the real question is, will it work against the
Church of SpongeBob Squarepants?

Emily Chesley Reading Circle — Emily Chesley was a "speculative fiction writer of the late Victorian period (who lived for some time in the London, Ontario region), who has been long-overlooked by Canadian literature." She was also a "poet, social activist, explorer, aviatrix, and 92-year-old pole vaulter." The Emily Chesley Reading Circle is a "group of 'scholars' and bon-vivants" who get together to study and help promote her work. So far, they've been quite successful. They've even managed to get an abridged collection of some of her writings published. However, I think the key word in all these descriptions of her was that she was a very 'speculative' writer... i.e. speculative as in nonexistent.

A Few Nonexistent Places — According to reliable information that can be found on the internet, Idaho doesn't exist. Nor does Wyoming, Wisconsin, Vermont, North Dakota, France, and England. Oh, and the Moon doesn't exist either.

Clueless Childless Couple — Last week the British Daily Mirror printed a story about a particularly clueless German couple. As the article put it:
"Fertility doctors were baffled when a perfectly-healthy couple claimed they couldn't have children - until they confessed they had never made love. The husband, 36, and his 32-year-old wife thought that all they had to do to make a baby was to lie next to each other and let nature take its course."
This story got picked up by wire services, and soon was being linked to all over the internet. But was there actually any truth to the story?
The snopes website, skeptical of the story, pointed out that 'tales of sexually naive adults who don't understand what sex is' are a common subject for urban legends. But other internet sleuths dug a little deeper and discovered that the Daily Mirror's story actually derived from a real case. Comments left at Der Schockwellenreiter website (in German) pointed to this April 2003 medical article describing a couple who sought fertility treatment at the Lubeck clinic, only to later confess that after eight years of marriage they had never actually had sex. The reason: the husband suffered from erectile dysfunction.
Another article from the Medical Tribune describes this same case in more detail (the article is in German, so I used BabelFish to produce a rough translation of it). So the Daily Mirror's story improves on the actual case quite a bit. A whole lot, in fact. But it's not complete fiction. The author of the article was Allan Hall, a reporter based in Germany who regularly sells stories to the British tabloids (back in the 1990s he was the London Sun's New York correspondent). He seems to enjoy taking weird stories and juicing them up to make them even weirder. Headlines from some of his other stories include, "Dog Called Adolf Gave Nazi Salute to Children," "My Twins Had Different Dads," and "Eaten By His Pet Spiders" (this final article was apparently also more fiction than fact). (I got many of these links via Heiko Hebig)