Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

National Blonde Day — Oops. I forgot that yesterday was National Blonde Day, so designated by the Blonde Legal Defense Club. The day is designed to promote respect for the intelligence and accomplishments of blondes. In reality, it's a publicity stunt for the Legally Blonde movie.

A con gone wrong — What happens when criminals cross paths: A man sells a lump of valuable black bronze to a buyer for $64,000. But it turns out the money was counterfeit. No problem. The bronze was fake also.

Public Service Announcement: Hoax Email — South African Airlines is not offering free flights to the public, especially not to people who annoy their friends by forwarding hoax emails on to them.

The Hitler Diaries — An interesting comment from a visitor about the Hitler Diaries:
Dear Alex, The most tell-tale and overlooked detail about the Hitler Diaries being fake you do not mention in your article, although it makes the complete affair all the more funny:
On the front cover were two metal letters, supposedly the initials "A H" for
Adolf Hitler, in an old German Gothic lettering. The funny part being that
ridiculously neither Gerd Heidemann nor any other from the *Stern* staff nor
the experts they consulted saw that the "A" was actually an "F".

Hoaxes from the Philippines — Here's an interesting discussion of some historical hoaxes from the Philippines, specifically those perpetrated in the early twentieth century by Jose E. Marco, a philatelic forger.

Utah town celebrates Viking origin — Come next April (2004) the town of Cedar City, Utah will be celebrating the Festival Royale of Himmelsk, a four-day event to honor the group of Vikings who founded the town in 956 AD. The entire story of this strange festival is told here. (Thanks to Lansin Carmean for forwarding this story to me).

Bigfoot Fingerprints — A respected fingerprint technician was scheduled to present evidence during Saturday's Crypto Conference suggesting that maybe there really is an unknown Bigfoot-like primate on the loose somewhere in North America.

Tasaday Revisited — There's a very good review of the Tasaday controversy by James Hamilton-Paterson in the Guardian. Like many, Hamilton-Paterson concludes that the Tasaday were not quite the hoax that everyone has assumed for the past two decades.

Would you hire this man? — A British reporter manages to get a job guarding Serena Williams even though he submitted a fake CV with his application. No one bothered to check his references.

Princess Caraboo Parking Lot — I've just learned from a resident of Bristol that the gravesite of Princess Caraboo is soon going to be paved over and turned into a parking lot. It seems a poor way for Bristol to treat one of its most famous historical figures. I found one page protesting the planned parking lot.

Fake Doctor Notes (are not available here) — Need a fake note from a doctor to get a day off from work or school? Visit this doctor.
Update: If you've arrived here via Google, or some other link, realize that I can't actually provide anyone with a fake doctor's note. I simply linked to an article about a guy who was writing fake notes, and because of that my site is now #1 on google when you type 'fake doctor notes'. I have no idea where fake doctor notes can be obtained.

Virgin Mary in a Chimney — First they saw the image of the Virgin Mary in a window of Milton Hospital (see below). Now they're seeing the image of the Virgin Mary in Milton Hospital's brick chimney.

Send Steve a Gift — SendSteveAGift.com is the latest website in which a guy brazenly asks people to send him money, just for the hell of it (his argument: give a buck to change Steve's luck). An anonymous visitor asked me if the site is for real. My response: Of course it is! I'm 100% certain that if you choose to surrender your cash to Steve, he'll take it. But if you're in a mood to part with some money, why not give it to me?

Classes Cancelled for Green Beer Day — Check out the website of Ben Field. Ben is a student at Miami University in Ohio. Every year the students there celebrate Green Beer Day (a celebration not sanctioned by the university) by drinking green beer in bars all day. This year Ben got the clever idea of sending out an email to all 31,000 students, disguised to make it appear that it was coming from the university president, declaring that classes were cancelled for Green Beer Day. Needless to say, the university was not amused. Now Ben has to reimburse his parents $9000 in legal fees that they covered for him. So Ben created a website to tell his story and solicit donations from the public to help him reach his goal. Today the Miami University president graciously donated $10 to him. You can read about Ben's original prank in this story from the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Great Wall of China Hoax — This day in hoax history. June 25, 1899: The Great Wall of China Hoax.

Sea Serpent Sighting — Sea serpent spotted by Cape Breton fisherman.

Don’t Forward This Email — Public Service Announcement: if you get an email telling you that if you forward this message to five people you'll get a free flight from London to Asia courtesy of British Airways, DON'T BELIEVE IT. Versions of this hoax have been going around for years, involving Microsoft and Nike, among others. The premise of the hoax is always that these companies have some way of tracking email in order to determine who is forwarding their email. This, of course, is absolute nonsense.

Sultaana Freeman — The following email has been making the rounds. Someone asked me if it's real:
The Veil
By now you've heard of Sultaana Freeman. Sultaana is the Muslim convert
in Florida who is refusing to remove her veil for a driver's license
photo. So do you want to see what she looks like? Well here you go.
Sultaana with and without her veil!

Wait a minute! Doesn't that look like a mug shot on the left? Why, yes! I
think it is! I guess she was arrested! Well, as a matter of fact she was.
It happened in 1997 in Decatur, Illinois, which was after her conversion
to Islam. She was arrested for battering a foster child (religion of
peace, and all that). In 1999 she plead guilty to felony-aggravated
battery and was sentenced to 18 months probation.
By the way, since you've seen her face, you might as well know her real
name. It's Sandra Keller.
Ironic, isn't it? If Sandra/Sultaana had just gone along with the program
and allowed her face to be photographed it wouldn't now be plastered all
over the Internet. And so it goes.

Is this for real? Yes it is. Freeman's mugshot was dug up by The Smoking Gun (now owned by Court TV), which can always be counted on for digging up the dirt on people. Here's a story about it from the New York Daily News.

Balloons in Space — I just read about this British plan to fly a hot-air balloon right up to the very edge of space. The balloon pilots will have to wear spacesuits to protect them from the low air pressure and cosmic rays at that elevation. Of course, they've already been beaten out by Hans Pfaall who rode a hot air balloon all the way to the moon back in 1835.

Disumbrationist Art — A reader of my book wrote to me pointing out that in the book I claim that examples of Paul Jordan Smith's hoax 'Disumbrationist' paintings could be found on my website. But in fact, the paintings weren't there. My fault entirely. At some point, during some reorganization of the website, the page of Disumbrationist Art was deleted and never put back up. So here it is again, restored to its original glory. For those not familiar with the Disumbrationist story, Paul Jordan Smith was a novelist living in LA during the 1920s. As a joke he adopted the persona of a scruffy Russian artist, Pavel Jerdanowitch, and submitted some paintings 'in the modern style' to art contests. Jerdanowitch (i.e. Smith) claimed that his paintings represented the Disumbrationist School of Art. Inevitably Jerdanowitch soon became a darling of the art world, thus proving that art critics are suckers for brooding geniuses with foreign-sounding names.