Ancient legend tells of Cleopatra drinking an extravagantly expensive beverage — the world's most expensive pearl dissolved in vinegar. But modern scholars disagree about whether she ever really drank such a concoction.
After gaining a coveted place in the 1993 Manchester Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition, the creator of this painting was revealed to be 4-year-old Carly Johnson of Lancashire. Her mother had submitted the work as a joke. more…
A photo circulating on social media shows Cheeseburger Oreos. No, there is no such flavor. It's the latest in the "fake Oreo flavor" trend popular on social media.
An ancient legend described the role of chance in art — a sponge flung in anger at a canvas accidentally produced the exact effect a painter had been striving for. The same story was told of three different painters, suggesting the tale was an urban legend. more…
Was a male model's genitalia really visible in the 1975 Sears Fall/Winter catalog? We add some new evidence to this old debate. more…
The image shows a crowd sitting in bleachers calmly watching a football game, apparently unconcerned as a building burns to the ground behind them. The bizarre juxtaposition has led some people over the years to suspect that this image is fake — perhaps a result of darkroom photo manipulation. But in fact, the image is entirely real and was unstaged. more…
A 74-year-old Chinese man claims that his cat has given birth to a Chihuahua. As absurd as the situation sounds, I initially suspected this wasn't a hoax (although I didn't think the young animal really was a Chihuahua). But now I'm thinking, yeah, probably a hoax. more…
I have a new book to add to my reading list of hoaxes. It's Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News
A 1931 photo in the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung showing the US Navy airship "Los Angeles," blown by a gust of wind, lifting a ship into the air, was just an April Fool's Day hoax. But it was inspired by a very similar real incident. more…
The Internet claims that this image shows a 140-year-old tortoise wearing her 5-day-old son as a hat. Is this true or false?
By now the 'poo in beards' story that went viral earlier this month has been thoroughly debunked. But what people may not know is that there was a very similar media scare about germs in beards over 100 years ago, in 1912.
Were these women members of one of the most feared of all London's street gangs in the 1880's, a group of female toughs known as the Clockwork Oranges?
A widely shared photo has been identified as a young boy in Nepal comforting his sister following the deadly earthquake. But the photo was actually taken in Vietnam in 2007. more…
Do Mr. Burger and Mr. Fries really have tombstones next to each other? more…
This image has circulated online since at least 2013, and recently it's been doing the rounds again. Often it's given the caption, "Best Manhole Cover. Ever." Is it real or photoshopped? Honestly, I'm not sure. But my best guess is that it's a 'real' photo, but that isn't a genuine, functional manhole cover. more…
On March 27, 1940, the front page of The Daily Princetonian carried a photo that it described as the "Composite Princetonian." It said the photo had been created by analyzing the photos of 2100 Princeton students, then selecting 12 who exemplified the varieties of types on campus. The photos of these 12 were combined into a single composite photo. The next day the truth was revealed. The composite photo was actually a doctored photo of Errol Flynn, minus his mustache and given a crew haircut.
Does this photo show a killer whale attacking a bear? No, it's just an April Fool photo hoax that's apparently still fooling some people.
Edward Mordake is said to be an Englishman who was born with a second face on the back of his head — a face that eventually drove him mad. But was he a real person? I say no. I argue that he was actually the literary creation of the 19th-century poet Charles Lotin Hildreth. more…
'Canard' is the French word for duck, but in both French and English it can also mean a false or absurd story. According to one theory, the word acquired this meaning on account of a 19th Century experiment involving cannibalistic ducks. But is this theory true, or is it itself a canard? more…
