Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

Kanye West quotation provokes outrage — Satire mistaken as news. Outrage in the Twitterverse as twitterers react to Kanye West claiming to be the "next Nelson Mandela." Full quotation: "I am the next Nelson Mandela. I'm only 36 years old, and when I look at everything I've accomplished, it's the only comparison that makes any sense. By the time I'm 95, I'm going to be a bigger hero than he ever was."

But West never said this. The quotation comes from the The Daily Currant, which is a humor site akin to the Onion.

Paris Hilton denies confusing Mandela and ML King — Paris Hilton vehemently denies that she tweeted, "RIP Nelson Mandela. Your 'I Have A Dream' speech was so inspiring."

According to Gossip Cop, the screenshot of this fake post first appeared on a Twitter account named @DeletedTweets.

Christmas Tinner — Game.co.uk is selling something they call "Christmas Tinner," which it describes as "the ultimate innovation for gamers across the nation who can’t tear themselves away from their new consoles and games on Christmas Day."


It's an entire Christmas Day meal, from morning to night, conveniently layered into one tin:


However, the product is listed as "SOLD OUT — Check Back Christmas 2014." But it seems that it's always been "Sold Out," which makes it a near certainty that Christmas Tinner is a joke product.

It reminds me of those stories of gamers who use pee pots so that they won't ever have to move from in front of their computer.

Photographing your imaginary girlfriend — I recently posted about how the imaginary girlfriend business is booming, with plenty of companies eager to help guys who want to pretend that they have a girlfriend. But Japanese photographer Keisuke Jinushi has some strategies for the more DIY-minded. On his Facebook page, he's been posting photos that appear to show him interacting with his girlfriend, but, in reality, are all self-portraits. And, for those who might want to imitate his techniques, he also shows how he created the photos. [via CNN]

Tail Lights for Horses—a case of satirical prophecy — On April 1, 1961, Milan's La Notte newspaper reported that city authorities had passed a new law making it mandatory for horses to be outfitted with signaling and brake lights while being ridden through the streets or neighboring countryside. Back then, quite a few people in the area still rode horses, so the law was going to have quite a broad impact. And, so the story goes, many people subsequently brought their horses into car mechanics to have them outfitted with the necessary lights.


This is considered to be one of Italy's classic April Fool's Day hoaxes. And, as is so often the case, it's only a matter of time before reality eventually catches up with satire.

No city has passed a law requiring horse tail lights. However, over on KickStarter Sami Gros is trying to raise money for what she describes as the "world's first LED lighting system for horses," aka Horse Tail Lights. Unfortunately, it looks like the lights are only designed to increase visibility. They can't be used to indicate turning or braking. But perhaps future versions of them will!

Things keep looking worse for that New Jersey Waitress — I posted yesterday that Dayna Morales (the "I received a homophobic note and no tip" woman) had been suspended from the restaurant where she was working. Now, the consumerist reports that someone got the idea of checking to see if she actually donated the money she received to the Wounded Warrior Project, as she promised she was going to. The news (kinda predictably) is that no donation was given under her name, or from the zip code where she lives, or from the restaurant. So unless she made the donation under a different name, it looks like she reneged on the one positive thing that people were giving her credit for.

Stop and Kiss — Satire mistaken as news. Gawker reports that an obviously satirical Onion video about a nonexistent NYPD "stop-and-kiss" policy has sparked some real-life outrage — from people who apparently have never heard of the Onion. (Thanks Bob!)

Another Zero-Tip Receipt — Forrest Swan, a 22-year-old waiter and Auburn fan, says he got stiffed by a customer who was an Alabama fan. The customer also wrote a note on the receipt: "don't talk about being proud of Auburn to an Alabama Fan!" Naturally a photo was quickly snapped of the offending receipt and uploaded to twitter. [huffpost]


Mr. Swan hasn't revealed what restaurant this happened at. So details are impossible to verify. But I have a hunch that this case actually is real, unlike the other recent zero-tip-receipt cases that have been in the news.

Speaking of which, last Friday Gallop Asian Bistro announced it was suspending Dayna Morales, pending further investigation. She's the waitress who recently claimed a customer left a homophobic note (and no tip) on a receipt. So this makes it seem more likely that her story about the zero-tip receipt was indeed a hoax.

Waterstones Introduces Owl Delivery —
This is their response to Amazon's recent announcement that by 2015 it hopes to be using drones to deliver packages within 30 minutes of being ordered.

Drone-delivery seems to be the hot new thing. Less than two months ago, I posted about an Australian textbook rental service that hopes to soon be using drones to deliver books. But as I pointed out then, drones have also been a popular theme in the world of hoaxes. For instance, there was TacoCopter (drones delivering tacos) as well as Parrot Air Drone Postal from the French postal service.

I'm among the drone skeptics. Having thousands of drones flying around cities seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Then there's also the issue raised by this image circulating on Twitter:

Hyperrealistic iPad portrait of Morgan Freeman —
This isn't a photo. It's a painting. Or so claims UK artist Kyle Lambert who says he made it using a fingerpainting iPad app called Procreate. He's posted a video showing the creation of the painting from start to finish.


Lambert based the painting on an existing photo (below) of Morgan Freeman. This has led skeptics (of which there are many) to suggest that Lambert simply traced over the photo, which doesn't take a lot of skill. But Lambert denies this. He sent an email to Gizmodo stating:



But this hasn't satisfied the skeptics, who point out that the photo and the "painting" appear to be pixel-by-pixel identical. How can anyone achieve that kind of accuracy without having traced over the photo?

Another theory is that Lambert didn't create a painting at all, but rather used Procreate to reverse engineer or 'deconstruct' the photo, and then ran the video of himself doing this in reverse, to make it look as if he was painting it rather than slowly erasing it.

I don't know exactly what Lambert did, but I have to agree with the skeptics that it's hard to believe he could have created this without, at the very least, tracing over the photo.

To prove he did it, I suppose he could post a time-lapse video of himself actually working on the iPad. Rather than just a video export from Procreate.

Cat Drinks From Bottle —
There's not a lot of info on where this photo comes from. It's listed on the website of the French National Library as having been created in 1911 by the "Agence Rol." photo agency. For 1911, it's a pretty good example of photo fakery.

Also included in the same series is "Cat peers through binoculars" and "cat looks through a telescope."


Found these over at retronaut.com.

Soviet Pilot Flies Under Bridge, 1965 —
This image shows Soviet pilot Valentin Privalov flying a MiG-17 under the central span of the Communal Bridge over the River Ob in Novosibirsk on June 4, 1965.

The story goes (as much as I can piece it together) that Privalov did this on his own initiative, as a stunt. The shore of the river was filled with vacationers, among whom were officers from the district headquarters, when suddenly the MiG came roaring out of the sky. Afterwards the crowd spontaneously started to applaud, but Privalov's superiors weren't happy, and they suspended him. He was threatened with disciplinary action, but Secretary of Defense Marshal Malinovsky (perhaps swayed by positive public reaction to the stunt) allowed him to return to service.

The photo found its way onto the internet fairly recently. It first appeared on various Russian-language forums, and then on sites such as Reddit. Unfortunately, I can't find any site that provides an original source for the image. I'm guessing that it must have run in a Russian newspaper or magazine, sometime circa 1965.

The photo is obviously fake. The plane wouldn't have created such a huge plume of water. And how likely is it that someone would have managed to capture a picture of the scene at exactly the right moment? And if you look closely, you can see several people in the lower-right corner who have their backs turned to the bridge. In real life, the noise of the jet would have caused everyone to look in that direction.

But I'm guessing this image was never presented to the public as a real photo. It was a photographer's recreation of the event, and nothing more.

The better question is, did this stunt really happen? As far as I can tell, it did. The story is referenced on the Russian-language wikipedia page about the Communal Bridge in Novosibirsk. (It says that the event happened on June 3, not June 4, so there seems to be some disagreement about the dates.)

Also, I found a reference to the stunt in an American news-wire article dated Aug 29, 1965, which discusses a recent spate of hooliganism in Novosibirsk, including "a drunk who stole a streetcar," "an aircraft mechanic who went on a joyride up and down runways in an Ilyushin 4 transport," and "a stunt flier who flew under bridges."


I haven't been able to find any definitive info about Privalov's subsequent career. But I did come across a reference to a Valentin Privalov in the Feb 21, 1993 issue of Stars and Stripes. He was described as being "deputy head of Russia's civil aviation air traffic control center in Moscow." So it could well have been the same guy.

The Paul Walker Reverse Death Hoax — Celebrity death hoaxes have become such a pervasive part of the internet that when a celebrity really dies, particularly a young celebrity, people legitimately wonder if the news is real or fake. And that's exactly what happened after actor Paul Walker died in a car crash on Nov. 30.

Adding to the uncertainty was the manner of his death. A lot of death hoaxes feature death-by-car-crash (that's the way Paul McCartney supposedly died back in 1966), so when the news came in that Walker (star of the Fast and Furious car-racing film franchise) had met his end in a crash, it did sound a bit hoax-like. But that's the way it actually happened.

And then the satirical news site MediaMass posted a spoof story claiming that the report of Walker's death was a hoax. A screenshot of this story soon began to circulate on Twitter, Facebook, etc. MediaMass eventually took down the story and replaced it with a note saying his death was confirmed, but too late.


So this is a "reverse death hoax" because the claim that the news was a hoax was itself a hoax.

Also, David Emery notes that an image has been circulating that's supposedly a gruesome postmortem shot of Walker. This is a hoax. The person in the photo is actually a Christian missionary who was "injured in a construction mishap two years ago in the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

Help Save the Blondes — Assuming this story is true, it sounds like this woman has fallen for that urban legend about the gene for blonde hair being driven out of existence due to the greater percentage of dark-haired people in the world. According to the legend, the World Health Organization has predicted that in 200 years there will be no blondes left.



Maria de Jesus-Lucungo has a petition you can sign if you want to help her campaign to raise awareness of the disappearance of blondes.

Starting Gate for Sprinters? — I'm not sure whether or not this was an April Fool's Day joke. I found it in the Mar 31, 1934 issue of the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, which contained quite a few April Fool spoof articles, such as the "Loch Ness Monster Captured" article that I posted about recently.

But this feature about a new starting gate for sprinters... I just don't know.


I've never heard of such a thing before. But on the other hand, it sounds kinda plausible. In fact, some googling revealed that the Ancient Greeks used a starting gate for sprinters, which they called a husplex.

However, I can't find any references to this 1934 invention other than this story in the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. So I'm posting it here in the hope that others might weigh in with an opinion.

Here's a transcription of the German text:

And my rough translation (with some help from Google translate):

News anchors brave the elements, indoors — Everyone assumed that the Duluth Northland News Center team was outside during the coverage of the "Christmas City of the North" Parade on Nov 22. After all, they were wearing heavy jackets. But it turns out they were inside, in front of a green screen. But the News Director insists there was no deception because, if you want to get technical about it, they never actually said they were outside. [jimromenesko, mix108.com]

The Nantucket Sea Serpent Hoax of 1937 — There's a long history of sea-serpent sightings off the coast of New England.

A flurry of sightings occurred in August 1817, when fishermen in Gloucester, Massachusetts witnessed a giant sea creature with a horned head ("much like the head of a turtle... and larger than the head on any dog") swimming in the ocean. A local scientific society launched an investigation and concluded that the creature might be a previously unknown species, Scoliophis atlanticus (Atlantic humped snake). However, skeptics denounced the sightings as a hoax.


As the years passed, reports of a sea serpent continued to trickle in. But it was in 1937 that the New England Sea Monster returned to the nation's headlines in spectacular fashion.

The excitement started in early August of that year when fisherman Bill Manville rushed in to the office of the Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror claiming he had seen a "green sea monster — which reared its head several times off his starboard bow before turning seaward." He elaborated that the creature was about one hundred feet long with a head like a barrel and red-rimmed glaring eyes the size of dinner plates.

The report of Manville's sighting got picked up by the news wires and ran in papers throughout the country.


Some in Nantucket suggested that Manville might have been "seeing things," but his sighting was seconded a day later by amateur fisherman (and teetotaler — as the local paper was quick to point out) Gilbert Manter, who saw the creature while he was fishing for bluefish off Smith's point.

Manter said that the creature "looked like a combination snake and whale, with a head much bigger than the neck." He added that it was grayish green with "sort of a horned head" and was "something like 120 feet long and stood up at least a dozen feet out of the water."

Manter walked down to Madaket Beach the following morning with a friend, Ed Crocker, in the hope of seeing the creature again. They didn't see the monster, but they did find "giant web-footed tracks" in the sand. The prints measured 66-inches long and 45-inches wide.


Photos of the tracks appeared in papers, and copies were sent to scientists in New York City for analysis. However, the scientists proved to be skeptical. Dr. W. Reid Blair, director of the New York Zoological Society, said:


But Blair's skepticism proved to be unfounded when, a few days later, the sea serpent itself, in its entirety, washed ashore. It was indeed about 120 feet long, with large teeth. However, it had no horn on its head.

It was also a giant, inflatable balloon.



The Nantucket Sea Serpent was revealed to have been an elaborate publicity stunt designed to get Nantucket in the news. The "monster" had been designed by Tony Sarg, the puppeteer in charge of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

After stirring up interest with the initial "sightings" (done with the collusion of the local paper), Sarg and his crew put the monster balloon in the water at Coatue beach, hoping to land it at the Jetties. But the balloon veered off course, landing instead at South Beach on Washington Street.


Large crowds turned out to see the unusual sight, which remained in place for several weeks. Numerous photographs of the sea serpent on the beach have been preserved by the Nantucket Historical Association.

The Nantucket promoters reportedly felt that the stunt was a resounding success and congratulated each other for the "cash value of the space" obtained in the press for Nantucket.

The monster made another appearance a few months later, floating above the streets of Manhattan, when it participated in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Shanty Town—The Unique Accommodation Experience — If you're curious about what it would be like to live in a shanty town, but you don't actually want to set foot in a real shanty town, then perhaps the Emoya Luxury Hotel & Spa's "Shanty Town" might be for you. It's a "unique accommodation experience" located near Bloemfontein, South Africa. The Emoya website says:



This falls under the umbrella of Reality Tourism. Other examples that I've posted about include the "Khmer Rouge Experience Cafe" in Cambodia, where you get to sample the kind of watery gruel that people ate in the Killing Fields, and Croatian Club Med, where tourists are issued convict uniforms and get to pound large stones with a sledgehammer.

A similar example that I once posted about on Weird Universe is London's Rough Luxe Hotel, where for over £200 a night you get to stay in a room where the paint is peeling off the walls.

(Shanty Town story via Gizmodo).

Invisible Girlfriend — The premise of Invisible Girlfriend is that if you need to pretend that you have a girlfriend (for instance, if a guy is trying to hide the fact that he's gay) this company will provide you with convincing proof to back up your story.


Matt Homann, its founder, says, "This is the business of helping [clients] tell a lie — we’re thinking of it more as a shield — to have the excuse ready in hand and not have to be uncomfortable." [BuzzFeed]

Fake girlfriend services are not new. I've posted about quite a few of them here, including FakeGirlfriend.co, Cloud Girlfriend, Girlfriend Hire, and ImaginaryGirlfriends.com.

This market niche seems to have become quite crowded.

Kazimir Malevich Rejected — Someone calling himself Michael Mikrivaz (his YouTube username) made charcoal reproductions of works by the early-20th-century Russian abstract artist Kazimir Malevich (whose art now regularly sells for millions of dollars). He then took these sketches to several art academies, claiming they were his own works, and asked for an opinion on his chances of getting in.

Two academies told him that, based on these works, he wouldn't get accepted.


This is an example of what I call the "Spurious Submission" type of hoax. (I've been trying to think of a better term for it for a long time, but nothing has occurred to me.)

The idea is to discredit some gatekeeper of the art or literary world by demonstrating their poor judgement. So the hoaxer takes an acknowledged masterpiece, disguises it a bit, and then submits it to a critic for evaluation. Typically the critic will fall directly into the trap, dismissing the masterpiece as amateurish.

The earliest example of this type of hoax that I've found dates back to circa 1892, when a hoaxer sent disguised copies of a work by John Milton to publishers, most of whom rejected it.

The most famous example occurred in 1982 when Chuck Ross retyped the script of Casablanca, changed its title to "Everybody Comes to Rick's," and submitted it to movie agents as a script supposedly by an unknown writer, "Erik Demos." The majority of the agents promptly rejected it.