Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

Scorched Crotch Prank — If you need a reminder of the human race's capacity for stupidity, consider this story, from SanLuisObispo.com:


I'm labeling this a "prank gone wrong," though I can't imagine how it could have gone right. Pillers looks just like I imagined he would in his mugshot.

The Perfect Woman — Ai Robotics claim to have developed the "Perfect Woman." Her face is shiny and her movements jerky, but she does housework. From perfect-woman.com:


Also:


Check out this video of "Lisa" on YouTube:



I would call Lisa "creepy" rather than "perfect." I would also call her "an actress pretending to be a robot" rather than a "robot."

The absence of google ads on the perfect woman site suggests to me that it's some kind of art project. The site is registered to Etienne Fresse, so he, at least, might be real. (via dvice.com)

The World’s Largest Drawing — I'm very late with this one, but I thought it was worth including on the front page. I'll defer to David B. who posted about it a few days ago in the forum:


Nordenankar now has a notice at the top of his website acknowledging the drawing was a hoax: "This is made as my graduation project in Advertising and Graphic Design at Beckmans College of Design. I think it's possible to realise the project for real, but due to my extremely limited budget (about 20 000 SEK = 3 370 USD) that was not possible. Therefore, I have realised the idea in a fictional way."


Some other links: An article in The Telegraph, Wired's article about the hoax, and Nordenankar's youtube video.

The question I have is, What is the world's largest drawing? I've found two possible candidates, after searching the Google News Archive:

1) In 1991 thousands of volunteers drew on an 800-pound, 7-mile-long-when-extended roll of paper. According to a July 11, 1991 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the plan was to completely roll out the paper and take an aerial photo of it when it was done, but I can't find any articles indicating if it was ever completed.

2) According to a Feb 4, 1996 article in the LA Times: "In a project cooked up for the Los Angeles bicentennial, [the artist Tom Van Sant] and a crew set up mirrors in the shape of an eye across a 1 1/2-mile stretch of the Mojave Desert to overexpose sensors in a satellite passing overhead. The result was the world's largest drawing." But again, I can't find any pictures of Van Sant's drawing.

Was Shakespeare a Jewish Woman? — There are many theories about the true identity of Shakespeare. A new one (at least, new to me) is that Shakespeare was actually a Jewish woman named Amelia Bassano Lanier. This argument is made by John Hudson, author of a forthcoming biography of Bassano (who was the first woman to publish a book of poetry in England). Haaretz reports:


Hudson offers a summary of his theory in an article he posted on Jewcy.com, "Shakespeare's Plays Were Written By A Jewish Woman." Hudson also maintains a site, darkladyplayers.com, where he goes into more details about his theory.

If it turned out that Shakespeare really was a woman, that would top Pope Joan for Most Outrageous Case of Gender Concealment Ever. However, I'm sure that mainstream Shakespeare historians are going to resist accepting Hudson's theory.

Back from Virginia — I returned last night from Virginia, where I spent Memorial Day Weekend with my parents. Their dog, Falcon, never ceases to amaze me. He's huge. Every picture of him looks surreal, as if it's been photoshopped to increase his size, but he really is that big. At 200 lbs, he's heavier than I am. You don't sit with him on the couch, so much as you try to squeeze in beside him.

Punishing linkbaiters? — On May 9, money.co.uk published a story alleging that a 13-year-old kid in Texas had stolen his dad's credit card and used it to rent a motel room and some prostitutes. The cute/quirky part of the story was that the kids simply played Xbox with the "$1,000 a night girls." The story quickly spread throughout the media, appearing in The Sun, The Daily Telegraph, and Fox News, among others. But a few days later it was exposed as a hoax, since the police had no record of such an incident. David B posted about it here in the forum.

Online marketer Lyndon Antcliff admitted he had posted the story on the website of his client, money.co.uk, as an experiment in "linkbait." He said, "It's been a lesson in the power of social media and the power of people suspending their disbelief. [Traditional news organizations] are always banging about how inaccurate blogs are, but in this case, it was the opposite."

The story of the hoax and its exposure now has got a second wind, and is doing the rounds again, on account of some suggestion that google may punish linkbaiters by lowering their page rank. This doesn't sound like a good plan to me. Linkbait (or, more simply, hoaxes) may have publicity as a motive, but can also serve other, more socially useful purposes (i.e. exposing the pompous and gullible). Plus, once hoaxes are exposed, they become genuine news stories. So why try to artificially suppress their visibility?

However, Google hasn't actually said it will punish linkbait, but Wired's article about the hoax suggests the possibility. They write, "We didn't get an official response from Google about how the search engine might treat fake content that's used as a marketing tool, but search quality guru Matt Cutts implied that the company frowns upon this sort of practice." (Thanks, Joe)

Why do casinos have ugly carpets? — There are many rumors about casinos. One I posted about earlier is the belief that casinos pump in oxygen to encourage people to gamble more. (It's not true). Another rumor focuses on the carpets in casinos, which are often noticeably ugly. The theory is that there must be some diabolical reason why they're so ugly.

David Schwartz, a historian of gambling, writes, "Casino carpet is known as an exercise in deliberate bad taste that somehow encourages people to gamble." He's collected an extensive gallery of photos of casino carpets.

There are four main theories to explain the carpets:

1) Colorful carpets better hide the stains (blood, vomit, etc.)

2) The carpets have subliminal themes and messages in them that encourage gambling. Schwartz (again) writes, "Many of the carpets use flowers and wheels, both suggestive of a cyclical life: flowers bud, bloom, and then die, and their beauty is only ephemeral. The wheel was famous to the Romans (note its prominence at Caesars Palace) as a symbol of the relentless capriciousness of fortune. Could both be subtle reminders to casino patrons that life and luck are fleeting, and one should eat, drink, and be merry before the morrow brings a swing in fortune?"

3) The ugliness of the carpets encourages people to look away from the floor and up at the gambling tables.

4) The intricate patterns are designed to conceal chips that gamblers accidentally drop. The High On Poker blog writes, "Rumor has it, casinos make lots of money with a machine not traditionally on the casino floor: the vacuum. The rumor goes that every night/morning during clean-up the vacuums pick up all sorts of chips that have fallen on the casino floor. The kaleidescope vomit [pattern] with its reds ($5 chips) and greens ($25 chips) would serve as a perfect way to fool patrons into losing their dropped chips."

I think theories 1 and 4 are the most convincing. I've accidentally dropped chips on a casino floor, and it is hard to see them amid the swirling patterns. (via High On Poker)

Todd Davis’s Social Security Number — Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock, claims his company offers such a high level of identity-theft protection that he's willing to advertise his own social-security number. (It's 457-55-5462.) He's that sure no one is going to be able to steal his identity. Many criminals are quite happy to take him up on the challenge. From Yahoo! News:


Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear was recently involved in a similar situation. He published his bank account code, claiming it was impossible for people to use it to steal money from him. Someone promptly used it to create a direct debit from his account.

The bigger issue, says attorney David Paris who's participating in a class-action suit against Lifelock, is that the company charges people $120 a year for an ineffective service: "Paris noted that LifeLock charges $10 a month to set fraud alerts with credit bureaus, even though consumers can do it themselves for free."

I get a couple calls a month from my credit card company trying to sell me their identity theft service. The last time they called (about two days ago) the telemarketer launched into her sales pitch and then suddenly yawned loudly in my ear. I appreciated the sentiment but hung up on her. I always hang up on telemarketers. Anyway, it seems to me that identity-theft services are a waste of money. I'd rather be careful and hope nothing happens, rather than guarantee I'll lose money by paying it to a protection company while still being at risk of identity theft.

Grand Teton and Wildflowers — The image to the right is available for purchase on webshots.com. The photographer is listed as Adam Jones. It's titled "Grand Teton and Wildflowers, Wyoming."

The image has become quite popular and has slowly been circulating around the internet. One person on the webshots message board writes:


But the image has met with skepticism from professional photographers. Ralph Nordstrom of ralphnordstromphotography.com writes in his blog:


It's a bit sad to think of that guy in smoggy Beijing staring longingly every day at a fake photo. (via How could I be so dumb)

Altered Yearbook Photos — When students at McKinney High School recently received copies of their yearbook, they noticed that many of their photos had been altered. From dallasnews.com:


I'm pretty sure the school's photo guidelines didn't specify digitally disrobing students. Sounds more like there's a rogue employee at Lifetouch Studios. (via J-Walk)

Rapture Check — RaptureCheck.org allows you to check the probability that the rapture has happened -- just in case you look out your window, see no one there, and get worried. Right now the rapture is listed as "Getting Close." Here's how it determines the imminence of rapture:


If I understand this correctly, it means that the more unique visitors rapturecheck.org receives, the less likely the site is to think that rapture has occurred. This logic seems questionable. After all, if rapture does occur, and all the sinners start checking rapturecheck to find out what's going on, the visitor rate will increase dramatically, causing the site to think that the rapture hasn't occurred.

Rapture Check is the creation of Cindi Knox, who writes that she's also a member of the band Terrycloth Lobster, "the greatest band you've never heard" (because it doesn't exist).

The Museum of Fakes — Smithsonian Magazine has an article about the Museum of Fakes, located in southern Italy. (Thanks, Joe.) It's like a real-life Museum of Hoaxes, but devoted exclusively to art fakes. Thanks to a special arrangement with the Italian police, it has become the repository for all counterfeit works of art confiscated in Italy (and there are a lot of them). Its director, Salvatore Casillo, is a sociologist who has spent 20 years studying counterfeits. My favorite detail in the article:


Related link: The Museum of Forgery, "a virtual institute dedicated to promoting an appreciation of the aesthetics of forgery."

SpongeBob Vandalism — A chimney is all that remains of the cabin that used to be the home of the manager of the Forest Service tree nursery in Pike Forest. It's considered a historically significant remain. That didn't stop pranksters from refashioning it, with the help of some paint, into a monument to SpongeBob Squarepants. From gazette.com:

Panic Buy Carrots — On May 15th thousands of people around the world went to their local grocery store to panic buy carrots. They were members of the facebook group called "On May 15th 2008, everybody needs to go out and panic buy carrots." From northernnews.com:


The group created a website: http://www.panicbuyers.co.nr/. It's now almost a week later, and some members of the group are talking about whether May 15th should be turned into an annual Panic Buy Carrots Day. Others are trying to figure out what to do with all the carrots they bought. My vote would be carrot cake. Lots of it.

Child Trader — If you're tired of your kid, why not swap him or her for another? Childtrader.com makes this possible. From the site:


You can view the profiles of kids available for trade. For instance, Jacob (pictured) is described as, "Not a particularly impressive boy. He hasn’t much been into sports, but he does have a great smile and likes to sit around the house, so he is very quiet."

I'm willing to go out on a limb and declare this a hoax. I'm not even going to do any research into who the site is registered to, etc., because it's obviously a joke. In other words, you're stuck with your kids, even if you don't like them. It's not legal to swap them for another.

Links on the child trader site indicate it was created by the same person responsible for two other spoof sites: medicaladoptions.com (adopt a kid who is a perfect match for an organ transplant you need), and puppyprofits.com (make money from illegal dog fighting).

Childtrader.com does, at least, highlight that children aren't always a constant source of joy to their parents. It reminds me of a study conducted in 1931 by Dr. Mandel Sherman of the Child Research Centre in Georgia. Sherman asked thirty-two parents to keep track in notebooks of all the ways their children annoyed them. He found that there were 2,124 ways in which children annoyed their parents. The most common source of annoyance was disobedience, but other annoyances included being too slow, too quick, and spending too much time primping.

Malaysian Sea Monster — In an email with the subject "Giant Fish - Caught in Malaysia? Apparently...," Joshua Penley asks: "What the HELL is this?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!"



This sounds like a question for Big Gary, the museum's Deputy Curator in Charge of Fish. I would simply note that the guys in the photos don't look particularly Malaysian, making it a case of "real picture, fake caption."

The bottom picture reminds me of a picture of a (fake looking) sea monster, taken in 1906 on the beach at Ballard, Washington and now part of the Library of Congress's collection:

Plant Rights — An ethics panel commissioned by the Swiss government has determined that the arbitrary killing of plants is morally wrong. From The Weekly Standard:


The author of the Weekly Standard article appears to have some kind of conservative agenda. (He's a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, which makes him suspect in my book.) However, the basic facts about the Swiss ethics panel appear to be correct. The text of the panel's report, titled The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants, can be downloaded as a pdf file.

From my point of view, what makes this interesting is that it represents the fulfillment of a satirical prophecy. Back in 2004 I posted about the spoof Society for the Protection of Plants. It only took four years for the satire to become true.

Organic Tomatoes — Posted recently on Yahoo! News: "A farmer tends organic tomatoes at a greenhouse in Langfang, Hebei province, near Beijing, China, February 6, 2007."

It's not photoshopped. It's an example of forced perspective. (via Snapshots from my world)

Unreal Beauty — The models in Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign (whose tagline was "we believe real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes and ages") may have benefitted from some "digital plastic surgery." From The Telegraph:


Dove's ad agency is denying it, insisting that they have no record of Dangin working on that campaign.

Decades-old Donut Prank — Two former Junior High teachers have been giving each other the same donut as a gift for 37 years. From sj-r.com:


Mr. Nelson currently has the donut in his freezer. He's plotting when and how to give it to Mrs. Ross, who is now 93 years old and living in a retirement community.