Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

Amazing Hilltop Homes — A reader sent in these photos of amazing hilltop homes wanting to know if they're real or fake. I'd say it's pretty obvious that they're fake, but they're definitely cool, nevertheless. I would guess that they come from a Worth1000 photoshop contest, though I haven't confirmed this yet. I think they've been circulating around for a while, because I have a vague memory of seeing a few of them before. Note that in the second image from the right you can see a car in the garage, if you look closely.

Drive-By Shooting Video — A video clip that's been circulating around appears to show a violent gang murder in Compton. A group of gang members driving in a car shoot and kill a guy on the street. It all looks frighteningly real, but according to LA CityBeat writer Mark Cromer it's a scene from the movie Gang Tapes. However, for a long time many police officers who saw the clip were convinced that it was real:

Several officers told me the video had been discussed during briefings. Two officers who evaluated the clip numerous times pointed to a variety of nuance that led them to believe the video was of a real shooting, including what appear to be sparks from the bullets striking the sidewalk... Helmed by director Adam Ripp, the shooting is a scene from the film Gang Tapes, a straight-to-DVD release from Lions Gate Films in 2002. Billed as a “coming of rage” story, the movie is essentially an urban play off The Blair Witch Project, with gang members using a stolen video camera to document their lives and crimes. The movie’s cover jacket quotes The New York Times as heralding the film as “engrossing” and Daily Variety calling it “relentless.” But Ripp’s film is getting the ultimate thumbs up from cops and civilians alike: “Real.”

Real-Life Ken and Barbie Dolls — Steve Erhardt boasts that he's had over 30 plastic surgery operations, at a cost of over $250,000. These include pec, bicep, and butt implants. The results look a little creepy, but he claims to be happy with his new look, even though he really does look plastic. Another real-life Ken doll is Miles Kendall, who has spent about the same amount of money to transform his appearance. In terms of real-life Barbie dolls, there's Cindy Jackson, who describes herself as a "bombshell who wasn't born that way." Of course, Michael Jackson easily retains the title of King of Awful Plastic Surgery. (via J-Walk)

Nessie Revealed — News agencies are reporting that sightseers at Loch Ness were fooled into thinking they saw Nessie:

Around 600 people desperate to catch a glimpse of Nessie were stunned when they came face to face with a 16ft creature emerging from the Highland waters. But channel Five television revealed that the mythical beast was actually a 440lb animatronic model called "Lucy" who baffled tourists when she roamed the murky depths of Loch Ness for two weeks. The results have been filmed by Five for their television programme: Loch Ness Monster: The Ultimate Experiment, which will be shown at the end of the month.

But, of course, we all know the real story. Government agencies, in collusion with the extraterrestrials, created a story about a 440lb animatronic model as a cover to hide the fact that Nessie (who is controlled by the aliens) accidentally revealed herself.

Outsourcing Blogging — I always feel guilty when I don't update my weblog regularly. Like when I was finishing my book and didn't have time to post, or this past week when I got the stomach flu and didn't feel like sitting at the computer. The guys at Blogoriented have an ingenious solution to this problem. They're outsourcing blogging:

We are outsourcing blogs to China. Our general business model is a two tiered effort to hire Chinese citizens to write blogs en masse for us at a valued wage... These blogs will pop up in various areas of the net and appear to the unknowing reader to be written by your standard American. Our short term goal for these original blogs is to generate a steady stream of revenue through traditional blog advertising like google adwords... The long term goal is to generate a large untraceable astroturfing mechanism for launching of various products. When a vendor needs to promote a new product to the internet demographic we will be able to create a believable buzz across hundreds of ‘reputable’ blogs and countless message boards. We can offer a legitimacy to advertisers that doesen’t exist anywhere else. The second tier of our plan is a blog vacation service where our employees fill in for established bloggers who need to take a break from regular posting.

All this smells a lot like a hoax to me. It also smells like a hoax to the author of this news.com article. If these Chinese bloggers have such a perfect command of English that they could effortlessly pass for "standard Americans," then they should blog as themselves. That would be more interesting than pretending to be American.

As for the blog vacation service, that's not a bad idea. I've thought about having guest bloggers step in when I don't have time to blog. Or I could invite readers to submit posts and pay a buck or two per post that I choose to put on the site (as a way to share the Google adsense revenue). Interesting thought.

Eye Jewelry — Thanks to Mara for giving me a heads up about eye jewelry. This is jewelry attached to a contact lens that you wear dangling from your eye. It's real in the sense that artist Eric Klarenbeek really has designed examples of this concept. However, it isn't real in the sense that anyone actually goes around wearing this stuff (at least, I don't think they do). What I can't figure out is how people could blink with a piece of metal sticking out of their eye. Note that eye jewelry is different from eyeball jewelry (the latter is inserted into the eye itself).

Walken for President — Has Christopher Walken announced his intention to run for President of the United States? If you believe the press release posted on the 'Walken for Pres' site, he has:

09 August, 2005. New York - Early today, actor Christopher Walken, 62, held a private conference at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York in which he announced his intentions to run for the Presidency of the United States in the 2008 Election. Said the Queens native, “I have always been a follower of politics. My father was friends with the mayor of Schodack (NY) back in the 1940’s. We would walk the streets of Schodack and the people, they would wave to him. The children adored him. That is what I love to be, a man of respect and love.”

However, WorldNet Daily (which, I realize, isn't the most credible of sources, but in this case I suspect they're correct), reports a rumor that the Walken For Pres site is a hoax that is being perpetrated by members of the General Mayhem message boards.

Skinny Water — Jana Skinny Water is drinking water that's being marketed as a diet aid. Drink a bottle of it 30 minutes before a meal and it supposedly suppresses your appetite and blocks the absorption of carbohydrates. What made me dubious about this claim when I first came across their website is that I thought any water (including tap water) would do the same. However, when I looked up some of the research they cited, it appears that this stuff really does contain a special chemical, Hydroxycitric acid or HCA, that according to a Georgetown University Study is "derived from the fruit rinds of Garcinia cambogia, which exhibits a distinctive sour taste and has been used for culinary purposes in Southern Asia for centuries to make meals more 'filling'." So they've added some kind of herbal extract to the water, which is therefore supposed to justify the $2 a bottle price. So maybe this stuff works as advertised. I'd have to try it to be sure. But nevertheless, even if it does work, their website contains some puzzling contradictions. On one page they claim that:

Jana Skinny Water is made with a specially processed natural artesian water with a hint of fresh lemon (patent pending).

But then on another page they write that:

The essence of Jana Skinny Water's pureness lies in the fact that nothing comes between you and Jana... Bottled at the source, Jana natural artesian water is not altered or processed in any way.

So which is it? Specially processed or not?

Museum Entry Tickets — Here's a curious email I just received:

Hallo! My name is Wojciech Krajewski. I come from Poland. I'm collecting museum entry tickets. I would be very happy if I have got in my collection ticket from Yours. I hope that my favour won't be a problem for You and that you won't leave it without answer. I give my regards to you and thank you very much.

I'd really like to help this guy out. But what should I send him?

Rainbow Parties — The recent publication of a novel for teenagers titled RAINBOW PARTY has revived debate about whether or not such 'rainbow parties' are real. As a recent NY Times article explained, "rainbow parties are group oral sex parties in which each girl wears a different shade of lipstick, and each guy tries to emerge sporting every one of the various colors." Such parties are supposedly all the rage with teenagers (kids these days!... what will they think of next?). In the book, a teenage girl has to decide whether or not to go to such a party, but the party ends up never taking place.

The concept of rainbow parties first gained widespread attention back in 2003 when a guest on the Oprah show claimed that all kinds of teenagers were going to these things. But the thing is, tales about rainbow parties always seem to be third-hand: coming from adults who are trying to raise alarms about teenage sexuality. The same NY Times article notes that "Many say rainbow parties are just a new urban legend -- suburban, actually -- not much more trustworthy than the old stories about alligators in the sewer."

I'd have to agree that the rainbow party concept is probably more urban legend than reality. It reminds me of the Jelly Bracelet tale (that teenagers supposedly wear color-coded jelly bracelets to indicate to other kids what kind of sexual acts they're willing to perform). But as always with such things, it may have started out fake, but give it enough time and someone, somewhere, is probably going to be inspired to make it real.

Kidsbeer — I suppose it's no worse than candy cigarettes, or Shirley Temples, but it just seems kind of weird. It's 'Kidsbeer', now being sold in Japan. It looks like beer, but it's not. It's really just a yellow-colored cola beverage that comes in a brown bottle. So kids can drink it and pretend to be beer-guzzling adults. It's marketed with the slogan: "Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink."

The Dangers of Jaywalking — John Walkenbach gave me a heads up about this image, which has been puzzling visitors to his blog. Is it real or fake? His readers have already figured out that the message on the front of the bus means "cross on the zebra crossing" (or something to that effect) in Portuguese. In other words, it's warning people not to jaywalk, or they'll end up hit by a bus. It's hard to tell with such a low-resolution image whether or not it's real, but my hunch would be that it is real. I don't see any obvious signs of photoshopping. It reminds me of the 'Air Santa' image that was circulating around a few years ago (which seems a bit more fake to me).

Tibetan Dragons — A photograph of what appears to be dragons flying in the sky above Tibet has been generating some attention. The photograph was taken over a year ago:

On June 22, 2004, the photographer went to Tibet’s Amdo region to attend the Qinghai-to-Xizang Railroad laying ceremony, and then took a plane from Lhasa to fly back inland. When flying over the Himalaya’s, he accidentally caught these two "dragons" in a picture that he took. He called these two objects "the Tibet dragons."

To me the 'dragons' (you can see their 'tails' in the lower left corner of the picture... click the thumbnail to enlarge it) appear to obviously be clouds. Or maybe they're some kind of formation on the ground. But yeah, I can see the resemblance to dragons.

WiFi Speed Spray — A recent auction on eBay was for WiFi Speed Spray. Spray the air around your computer with this stuff, and it will increase the speed of your wireless connection by scrubbing and cleansing the air, thus allowing the radio waves to move more rapidly. Funny joke. The auction got some coverage from Gizmodo. However, what Gizmodo didn't realize was that the idea was blatantly stolen from John Walkenbach who has had the concept posted on his site for years (John is also the author of classics such as the 3rd Annual Nigerian Email Conference). It's incredibly lame to not only steal other people's hoaxes and present them as your own, but also to try to make a quick buck by doing so.

My Biography For Sale on Amazon — I was procrastinating by typing my name in the search box at Amazon.com and seeing if anything would come up besides my book. To my surprise, a biography of myself popped up in the search results. It cost $1.50 and stated that it was 540 words long. I wasn't about to pay for it, but I told my mother about it, and she couldn't resist. So she bought the thing. The 'biography' seems to be a summary of the publicity info about me that the publisher of my first book sent out to the media three years ago. I'm guessing that my mother was probably the first one to ever buy it. But here's the part about it that I like. While they're describing my book they make a mistake. They state that:

In 2002, Boese compiled a book version of The Museum of Hoaxes that includes hundreds of scams, pranks, and deceptions dating as far back as the Middle Ages. In addition to the tricks and forgeries featured on his Web site, recent hoaxes are also described, including the case of nonexistent film critic David Manning, who enthusiastically promoted Sony films, and the recurring report circulated via the Internet that KFC no longer serves meat from chickens, but rather from "genetically engineered organisms."

However, I never mention the KFC Frankenchicken legend anywhere in The Museum of Hoaxes (the book). I purposefully didn't include it because it's an urban legend, not a hoax. In fact, I don't think I mention it anywhere on the site either (though I could be wrong about that... maybe it's hidden away somewhere). So I'm not sure how this piece of information got into my bio. But I like the fact that it's there because it introduces a slightly hoaxy element into the biography, which is appropriate.

Pismo Beach, Faux Clam Capital of California — This week's edition of the LA Times Magazine includes an article about various small towns in California that claim to be capitals for various types of food, such as Gilroy 'the garlic capital of the world', or Yuba City 'the prune capital of the U.S.' The article includes this description of Pismo Beach, which claims to be the clam capital of California:

Call it the ultimate bait and switch. The clams disappeared from this thriving seaside town, almost exactly halfway between San Francisco and L.A., about 30 years ago. Over-clamming tourists and gorging sea otters did the dirty deed. But did the city fathers of this middle-class destination resort promptly notify the governor, alert the media, then shift their promotional emphasis to, say, the annual profusion of monarch butterflies?
No way. They began importing clams from the East Coast and elsewhere, erected a few diversionary clam sculptures, kept their annual two-day Clam Festival on the fall calendar and certainly didn't discourage citizens from continuing with their clam-themed motels and seafood restaurants. You can either (1) protest this blatant hokum by patronizing nearby Avila Beach or San Luis Obispo, or (2) go along happily with the hoax by stopping at bistros such as Brad's, the Cracked Crab and Splash Cafe for some of the best clam chowder this side of--oh, never mind.

Silver Audi A8 — Mark Davis has forwarded a set of images that's doing the rounds via email. The subject line is: WHY OIL IS SO EXPENSIVE. And the text reads:

Audi A8 in SILVER made for a sheik
IT IS NOT SILVER COLOUR IT IS MADE OF SILVER!!!!!

You can see the pictures below. A search on the internet doesn't pull up any other references to these pictures. So I have no idea if the car really is made of silver, though it seems more likely to me that it's polished chrome, making this a case of 'real picture, fake caption'. But whether or not it's silver or chrome, it's doubtless a very expensive (and cool looking) car. Someone very rich must have ordered it.

Thieves Steal Fake Paintings — A couple of days ago thieves stole three Edvard Munch paintings from the Hotel Continental in Oslo. But unfortunately for the thieves, all the paintings they stole were fakes. The hotel had the real paintings in a vault. This confirms a pet theory of mine: that most of the time, when you see a famous painting hanging in a museum or gallery, it's a fake. It's simply too risky to hang the priceless originals out in public, either because they could get stolen or damaged. For instance, I'm convinced that the Mona Lisa hanging on display at the Louvre is a fake. Which means that all those tourists who crowd around it are basically wasting their time. They could see a better version of it on a poster in the gift shop. (But having said this I have to admit that when I was in Paris last year I became one of those tourists who trekked through the Louvre just to see the Mona Lisa).

Greenlighting — The term 'greenlighting' refers to a secret fashion code that sexually promiscuous teenagers use to communicate with each other. Greenlighters wear green shirts with the collar turned up. When they see someone else wearing a green-collar-up shirt, they pull their collar down. This is the secret signal that means 'let's have sex'. The other person then signals their willingness by pulling their collar down, in turn. If they're not willing, they keep their collar up (which is called 'redlighting').

Of course, this secret fashion sex code isn't real. It's a hoax (or rather, an idea for a hoax), dreamed up by some people at WookieFetish.com. The idea was that they were going to fool the media into believing that this practice was really going on... just as the creators of the toothing hoax had done a year or so ago. But unfortunately for the WookieFetish crowd, their hoax got exposed before it had a chance to gain any momentum. Cyrus Farivar (an editor at MacWorld) outed it on his blog and also via a wikipedia entry. In an article on Salon.com Farivar tells how his exposure of the hoax then incurred the wrath of the would-be hoaxers, resulting in a few threatening emails and phone calls.

Actually, it doesn't sound like the WookieFetish people ever really threatened Farivar that much. I remember that after I exposed the 'Great UFO Hoax' being plotted by LUE (actually, I simply reported that it had already been exposed, but that distinction was lost on them) a few of them threatened to send thousands of empty boxes to my house. Strange threat, but nothing ever came of it.

Noisy Neighbor Revenge CD — I have noisy neighbors, so I've often fantasized about a product like this. It's a noisy neighbor revenge CD that plays loud, annoying sounds such as a newborn baby crying, a drill, a domestic squabble, or the phone ringing. Put it in your stereo, point the speakers at the neighbor's house, and have your revenge. A set of earplugs comes with the CD. My neighbors (college-age kids renting the house next door) have been fond of doing things like blasting rap music at midnight, or playing games of wiffleball in their backyard at 3am. I initially tried asking them to shut up, which worked in the short term, but not in the long term because they'd simply be out there doing it again next weekend... or during the week, which was even worse. So now I just call the police whenever they make noise after 10pm. That actually seems to have worked. (via Fun Reports)