Hoax Museum Blog: Animals

I Buy Strays — The latest hoax website doing the rounds is IBuyStrays.com. I posted a page about it in the hoaxipedia.

The site purports to be a business that buys people's unwanted pets and resells them to research labs. Animal lovers, of course, are up in arms about this.

It's pretty obvious the site is a fake. Its over-the-top tone, if nothing else, gives it away:



The business the site describes is perfectly legal, and there are companies that do it... for now, at least. Legislation has been proposed to make this kind of practice illegal, because the companies involved in this business seem to be a pretty shady bunch who do things like acquire pets from "free-to-good-home" ads, or even steal them out of people's backyards, and then resell them to labs. Kind of like the nineteenth-century "resurrection men" who used to steal corpses from graves to supply medical labs.

Apparently the larger goal of the site is to raise awareness of the stray-animal trade and to encourage people to contact their congressmen and encourage them to pass the Pet Safety and Protection Act. For which reason, the site falls into the genre of Modest-Proposal-style hoaxes (i.e. hoaxes that, like Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, seek to shock people by seeming to advocate outrageous ideas).

Or whoever created the site could just be hoping to make a quick buck from the ads he's running on it.

Photoshopped Kitten in Defamation Suit — Stewart Bright lived with Marjorie Hervey, founder of the Hervey Foundation for Cats, a charity for injured cats. But when Bright and Hervey had a falling out, "Bright accused Ms Hervey of needlessly killing kittens and emailed about 600 supporters of the charity with an attached picture showing a hand with a gun pointing at a kitten with its front paws up as if surrendering."

That's pretty damning evidence, though not in the way Bright hoped. The picture was recently entered into evidence in court to prove that Bright was guilty of sending phoney emails, and also needed a psychiatric assessment.

Hippo Goes For A Swim — Here's a story I missed last month, even though it occurred right here in my backyard (figuratively speaking). FoxSports.com took the lead in disseminating it, but versions of it, such as the one below (from the Seattle Times) appeared in many papers:


Turns out there was no escaped hippo lounging in Steve Crosby's swimming pool. The San Diego Wild Animal Park doesn't even have hippos (though the San Diego Zoo does). Crosby claims that it was a locker-room joke that somehow got mistaken as real news.

He should have said there was a hippo in his pool eating a dwarf.

Quick Links: Nov. 27, 2007 — Ocean's 11 Conman
"It was one of the most audacious jewel thefts in history. In the middle of a crowded room, the famed Star of the Empress Sisi was stolen from its high-security case and replaced with a replica." (Thanks, Joe)

Turkey Mystery
Turkeys mysteriously show up in a town, and then wander away. "After entertaining residents of Harborview Drive on Thanksgiving morning, 15 turkeys departed - in single file - about 1 p.m. Thursday and have not been seen since, residents said Friday."

FEMA not the only agency to hold fake press conferences
Apparently Immigration and Customs Enforcement does it too. (Thanks, Gary)

The EPFX Quack Medicine Machine
Its inventor, William Nelson, claims it can diagnose and destroy disease. The FDA says it's a fraud. And it's just one example from the growing field of "energy medicine." (Thanks, Joe)

Hawk Kills Whitey — The students of Ohio State are in mourning after a hawk killed Whitey, an albino squirrel that was widely known around the campus. A facebook page has been created to honor Whitey's memory. It currently has over 2100 members. The Lantern, Ohio State's student newspaper, reports:

This reminded me of the Killer Hawk of Chicago, which got Chicagoans upset back in 1927 because it was killing pigeons outside the Art Institute. A lot of people had doubts about whether the Killer Hawk of Chicago was actually real, or whether it was the invention of a paper trying to drum up sales. But it sounds like Ohio State's Whitey-killing Hawk is real.

Heiresses Against Drunk Elephants — A few days ago word got out that heiress Paris Hilton was trying to call attention to the problem of drunken elephants going on rampages in northeast India. Soon this story got picked up by the press. For instance, here's part of a report that appeared in India's The Hindu:


Much to everyone's disappointment, it turned out that Paris Hilton never made these comments about drunken elephants. The AP posted a brief retraction:


It's not clear to me what the original source of the Hilton-elephant news was. One theory is that it originated from an article on spoof.com, which would make it a case of satire mistaken as news. But the spoof.com article seems to be dated after the story had already widely circulated.

Whoever dreamed it up should be commended, because I can think of no one better qualified to be the patron saint of drunken elephants than Paris Hilton.

But while on the subject of drunken elephants, I should note that the widely circulated notion that elephants like to get drunk by eating marula fruit rotting on the ground is not true. Recent scientific studies have shown that a) elephants don't actually like to eat the marula fruit when it is on the ground. They prefer the fruit still in the tree. And b) the fruit does not spend enough time in their gut to ferment there and make them drunk. But it is true that elephants will happily drink alcohol if it is offered to them. (There have been studies about that too.)

[Credit goes to Tah for posting this first in the forum.]

Dead Cow Prank — Neil Steinberg, author of the definitive work on school pranks, advises would-be pranksters in the title of his book that they should, If At All Possible, Involve a Cow But I don't think Steinberg would approve of this prank at Wichita Falls High School. From the AP:

Dead cows aren't funny. They're just disturbing and cruel.

What does an elephant on acid look like? — One of the things that's interested me with the recent flurry of articles about Elephants On Acid, is how the artists who illustrated the articles chose to depict an elephant on acid. So here's a small collection I've put together of artistic depictions of elephants on acid. The two popular options are either to show an angry-looking elephant, or a psychedelic one.

(left) from the cover of my book; (right) from an album by Tusko Fatale, a Virginia-based band.



(left) from the Daily Mail; (right) from the Daily Telegraph.



(left) from the New Scientist; (right) from the London Times



A sad-looking elephant from the Guardian:



This looks like it should be a picture of an elephant on acid, but it's actually the logo of the 2008 Republican National Convention to be help in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota.



And finally, here's the one published picture of an actual elephant on acid, that appeared on the front page of the Daily Oklahoman on August 4, 1962. There are other pictures of elephants on acid from the two elephant-lsd experiments that have been conducted, but they're all hidden away in an archive at UCLA, having been deemed too controversial for the public to see.

Hawk Attacks Poodle — The Sacramento Bee reports that a strange event occurred at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael -- a hawk swooped down from the sky and snatched a woman's toy poodle. At least, that's what the woman claims:

It's actually not that uncommon for hawks to attack small dogs. I think it's usually a case of the hawk protecting its territory, rather than wanting to eat the dog. So I think the case at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center could be true.

It reminds me of the case of the Killer Hawk of Chicago, from 1927, which also (I believe) turned out to be true, despite suspicions to the contrary. Although the Chicago hawk attacked pigeons, not poodles. (via Legends & Rumors)

Insomniac Fish — Big Gary, Deputy Curator in Charge of Fish, spotted this article about fish who suffer from insomnia:

I've heard that watching fish swim around in an aquarium can be very relaxing, but I wonder what effect watching insomniac fish would have.

Three-Headed Dog Costume — Halloween Mart has a page of "Halloween costume masterpieces." I couldn't help but notice the one of the three-headed dog. It reminded me of Vladimir Demikhov's two-headed dogs, that I included on my list of the top 20 most bizarre experiments of all time. On the left is a fake three-headed dog. On the right is a real two-headed dog.

Blue Peter Socksgate Scandal — For the second time in six months, the hosts of Blue Peter have had to apologize for deceiving their viewers. For Americans who don't know what Blue Peter is, it's a British children's show featuring always peppy presenters. It's been on the air for decades, and is like a TV institution over in Britain. I remember watching it as a kid when my family lived in London.

The latest incident involves a cat named Cookie. The show had asked their viewers to vote on what to name the next Blue Peter Cat. 40,000 votes were cast, and the name "Cookie" won, but the Blue Peter production team decided to veto that choice and instead pretend that the name "Socks" had won. It's difficult to understand their reasoning. Maybe they believed that a cat named Cookie would prove to be a disaster for the show's ratings.

The Blue Peter presenters recently apologized for the cookie cover-up and announced they would be adopting a new cat named Cookie (shown in the thumbnail), while simultaneously keeping Socks around as well. The Socksgate scandal cost Richard Marson, the Blue Peter editor, his job.

In the previous case of deception, Blue Peter had faked the winner of a charity phone-in competition. (Thanks, Joe!)

Links: The Guardian, Times Online, CNN.

Meerkat Takes Family Photos — Just yesterday my wife and I were oohing and aahing at some pictures at telegraph.co.uk of meerkats taking photos of themselves. The text told how an inquisitive meerkat, at Longleat Safari Park, had clambered up the tripod of a camera accidentally left in their enclosure. The meerkat had then "explored the controls and managed to take three family photos." The photo of the meerkat sitting behind the camera was really cute.



Nope. Turns out it was a hoax. I should have known. When Amateur Photography magazine queried Keith Harris, head warden at Longleat, he responded:

Water-Skiing Elephant — You can find a lot of weird stuff on YouTube, such as this video of a water-skiing elephant. Watching it, I feel kind of sorry for the poor elephant made to do this.



The story behind the video is that it was a publicity stunt from 1959 dreamed up by New York PR man Max Rosey in order to promote an amusement park. Rosey was also the man who came up with the idea for an annual hot dog eating contest in Coney Island to promote Nathan's hot dogs.

I found this video (and the explanation about it) on a blog called Liquid Soap, which is about publicity stunts of yesteryear. The blog is written by Mark Borkowski, who's also the head of the UK's Borkowski PR agency.

Goat Sacrifice as Airline Maintence — If I saw mechanics busy sacrificing some goats as I boarded my plane, it wouldn't exactly set me at ease. Still, mechanics in Nepal seem to think it did the trick. From Reuters:

Feejee Mermaid on Display — The Feejee Mermaid is apparently currently on display as part of the American Museum of Natural History's exhibit on Mythic Creatures. A Flickr user, despite being told that photography was forbidden in the exhibit, managed to surreptitiously snap a picture of it anyway.

The one time I saw the Feejee Mermaid was back in 1998 when it was housed at Harvard's Peabody Museum. It wasn't on display, so I had to ask for special permission to see it back in the archives. I managed to snap a few pictures of it, despite also being told that photography was not allowed. I always wondered what the big deal was about taking pictures of it.

Anyway, I have a pretty thorough description of the Feejee Mermaid and its history in the Hoaxipedia. The irony is that the creature currently on display as the original Feejee Mermaid almost certainly isn't. The original probably was destroyed when Moses Kimball's Boston Museum burned down in the 1880s.

World’s Biggest Cat — Meet Angie from Chernobyl. She's the biggest cat in the world. She belongs to Dr. Maricek, who's a radiation scientist. Angie's missing a gene that controls her growth. As a result, she just keeps growing and growing (and growing!). She currently weighs about 800 lbs and eats 60 lbs of food a day. Despite her size, Angie behaves like a normal cat, though she is extremely shy with people.

Angie's very cute (and looks a bit like my cat Boo), but if she ever curled up on someone's lap, I think the result would be a very flat human.

Thanks to Sarah of messybeast.com for the link. Sarah says, "With some dodgy photo-editing. I can't work out how this hasn't yet ended up in a chain email. Eat your heart out Snowball!"

Death-Predicting Dog — First there was Oscar, the death-predicting cat. Now there's Scamp, the death-predicting schnauzer. Metro.co.uk reports: It sounds like these death-predicting animals are a fairly common phenomenon, though I suspect it all must be some kind of Clever Hans Effect. Now we need some death-predicting rabbits, gerbils, and parakeets to round out the menagerie.

The Bermuda Triangle of Cats — Cats are disappearing from the town of Stourbridge in the West Midlands. Up to 40 lost cats have been reported so far, all from the same small neighborhood. Metro.co.uk reports: It reminds me of that bridge in Scotland I posted about two years ago, which dogs keep leaping off of, apparently to commit suicide. Perhaps the cats of Stourbridge have gotten tired of life in the town and are wandering off to find new homes. Unlikely. Or perhaps there's a cat-napper in the area. Or perhaps it's just a statistical fluke.

The Great Cornish Shark Hoax — Kevin Keeble stirred up a lot of excitement when he sent pictures to the Newquay Guardian showing a great white shark that he claimed to have spotted about a mile off the coast of Cornwall. At the time he said, "We were out about one mile off Towan Head and I saw this fin in the distance. We were reeling in the mackerel but I picked up my camera and caught a picture with my telephoto lens. The shark was about 100ft away. It was only there for a few seconds before it disappeared."

A shark mania ensued. Others sharks were spotted, but they turned out to be harmless basking sharks.

Now Keeble has changed his tune, confessing that it was all a hoax. He's told a rival paper that he actually took the photo of the shark, "whilst I was on a fishing trip in Cape Town and just sent it in as a joke. I didn't expect anyone to be daft enough to take it seriously."

So it's once again safe to go swimming in Cornwall.