Hoax Museum Blog: Animals

Quick Links: Fake Gucci Advertisement Fools Newspaper, etc. —
Fake Gucci Advertisemant Fools Newspaper
A man in Switzerland phoned a national newspaper and managed to get them to run a two-page advertisement showing himself posing beside a bottle of Gucci perfume. He told the newspaper he was a representative for the company, and told them to send the 60,000 Swiss Frank bill to Gucci.
Forum thread here.
(Thanks, Carlotta.)

Shark with ‘Webbed Feet’ Caught
A Malaysian fisherman recently caught what appeared to be a shark with webbed feet. The 1.7kg shark was given to a worker at the Malaysian Fisheries Development Board in Penang. When she noticed the feet, she gave it back to the fisherman, who threw it back into the sea.
(Thanks, Richard.)

Homer Simpson Appears on Pizza
With a hopeful-sounding minimum bid of $100, the seller from Kentucky has yet to garner a single taker for his piece of half-eaten pizza with the image of Homer Simpson on it.
(Thanks, Andy.)

Quick Links: Fishermen Eat ‘Alien’, etc. —
Fishermen Eat 'Alien'
Fishermen from the Rostov region of Russia recently caught a mysterious creature that is said to have made 'squeaking sounds'. The men were out fishing two weeks ago after a storm, and found something unidentifiable. The animal weighed around 100kg, and the men took video footage of it using a camera phone. Then they ate it.
Whilst experts were disappointed that there was nothing left of the creature, the footage has been reviewed by scientists and ufologists, and both appear to agree that there was nothing extra-terrestrial about the specimen.
(Thanks, Jen.)

Duckling Born with Four Legs
A genetic mutation meant Stumpy the duckling was born with four full sized legs. Apparently he's doing well.
(Thanks, Nettie.)

Nope, It's Soap
This website sells... well, soap that's hand-made, coffee-scented, and made to look like dog poo.
Apparently it's a great gift. If a tad surprising for the recipient.
(Thanks, Randall.)

Riding The Tiger — I found this picture posted on Weird Asia News. It could easily be real. Especially if that woman has some experience handling tigers (though she doesn't look like she does). Or the tiger is really tame. My hunch is that it is real. However, I wouldn't be willing to sit on a tiger's back. My cat is vicious enough, and she's a lot smaller. So assuming that it is real, I wonder what the story behind it is. Maybe you pay a buck and have your picture taken with a tiger, and hope you don't get killed.

Quick Links: Chicken Born With Duck Feet, etc. —
Chicken Born With Duck Feet
A chicken in Columbia has surprised everyone by being born with webbed feet and legs like a duck. Vetinary experts say that the chicken is not a result of cross-species breeding, and is just a genetic mishap.
(Thanks, Adam.)

Divine Or Delusional?
wcbstv.com has a gallery of images showing items on which religious icons have allegedly been found. We've covered a few of them here, but some of the images were new to me. I found I could generally make out the figure or face or whatever was being claimed to be there, if I squinted or tilted my head, however some of them were really beyond my ability to make out, even though I was trying to. Personally, I accredit these phenomena to pareidolia.

Vatican Newspaper Denounces Fake Penitent
The Vatican Newspaper has attacked a reporter who, in the course of writing an article for a magazine, made false confessions to 24 different priests. The article the reporter was writing was researching whether priests followed the strict teachings of the church, and how they handled difficult situations in which to give advice.

Museum of Hoaxes is Site of the Week
Scifi.com has this week chosen the Museum of Hoaxes as its Site of the Week.
(Thanks, Hulitoons.)

Pet Spa Video — Dave emailed us asking about this video that had been posted on youtube.

The video shows a 'pet spa' machine, used to automatically wash and dry pets, and a cat's reaction to it.

The person who submitted it to the site added to their posting:


So, as to whether it's a real machine and a real video, I'd say yes. The CBS news website has run an article on the owner of one of the pet spa machines.
As for the video, some cats do freak out when in an enclosed space, or when water is sprayed on them. I suspect the cat was a little more nervous than those belonging to the satisfied customers.

Quick Links: Flying Bananas, etc. —
Toilet doubles as goldfish aquarium
Link submitted by Big Gary (the deputy curator in charge of fish) who notes, "Yet another way to torture goldfish ..."

Man cooks eggs on floor
"experts are investigating but have still not discovered why the floor of his home is so hot." Just a thought, but they might want to check if everything is okay in the apartment below him.

Banana tree predicts Lotto numbers
"They rub a mixture of powder and water on the tree's trunk, then wait to see what number the solution resembles as it dries." Probably works as well as any method of picking numbers.

Giant banana to fly over Texas
"A Montreal artist is planning to float a gigantic yellow banana in geostationary orbit above Texas next year." All hail the Flying Banana Monster.

Bride's joke ends wedding ceremony
"a bride in Austria jokingly answered "no" instead of "yes"... the official performing the civil wedding promptly broke off the ceremony." I guess wedding ceremonies are like going through security at the airport -- no joking allowed.

Quick Links: ‘Customised’ Jaguar, etc. —
‘Customised’ Jaguar
If you’re immensely proud of your car, and your co-workers are fond of pranks, you may end up with something like this: the workers at InPhonic covered the Jaguar S-Type with 14,000 Post-It notes.

Authorities Prank Hoax Caller
15 fake 911 calls had been made by the same cell phone number in Knoxville, Tennessee. So they phoned the number and left a message telling the owner that he’d won a gift card.

False Limb for Three-Legged Cow
The cow, who lives in northern Tasmania, fell down an embankment two months ago and had to have a leg amputated. Her owner is seeking someone to make a prosthetic limb for the heifer, who is valuable breeding stock.

Quick Links: Pig-Tossing, etc. — Pig-Tossing
A number of incidents involving animal throwing have been reported in West Point, Miss., leading one to the conclusion that the sport is the new fad for those to whom cow-tipping is just too passé.

Mayor of Lebanon Sends Chain Letter
The Mayor of Lebanon was not available to comment after he discovered that the Make-A-Wish chain letter that he sent to 33 other businessmen was a hoax.

Woman Sues Over Fake Avocado Dip
A Los Angeles woman has filed a lawsuit against Kraft, claiming that what they label as guacamole... well, isn't.

Big Dog Needs Home — Adela forwarded me this email, wanting to know if it's real or fake:


The text, I assume, is fake. But the picture looks real. That's just a big dog. Looks like a mastiff. I've become more familiar with very big dogs ever since my parents got a 180-pound Great Dane named Falcon. He's so big that every picture we take of him looks photoshopped. Here's a picture of me and Falcon (and my wife on the left) taken over Thanksgiving while visiting my parents. Note how Falcon's head appears to be at least twice the size of my head. That's not a trick of the camera. His head really is twice the size of mine, and I don't have a small head.


Related Post:
Feb 28, 2005: Big Dog

Quick Links: Giant Pawprints Puzzle Couple, etc. — Giant Pawprints Puzzle Couple
Mr and Mrs May, of Ipswich, are mystified by a set of large pawprints, seemingly of an animal with claws or toes, which have appeared in their garden.
Maybe it's Bernard.

Drivers Buy Fake Emblems
Increasing numbers of car owners are going to dealers, or to eBay, to buy emblems to make their cars look like more expensive versions.

Fake Breastfeeding Picture of ABC Anchor
Elizabeth Vargas was disappointed that the magazine Marie Claire photoshopped her head onto a picture of a model breastfeeding at the anchor desk. The photograph was to illustrate an article on balancing work and motherhood.

Cat Gives Birth To ‘Puppies’ — Cassia Aparecida de Souza, a student in the Brazilian city of Passo Fundo, claims that her cat, Mimi, has given birth to three offspring with canine traits, reports say.

Mrs de Souza says that Mimi mated with a neighbour's dog three months ago and, when the cat gave birth, three of the offspring showed canine characteristics and three were normal kittens. The three with cat features died shortly after birth.

A geneticist from the Passo Fundo University will take blood samples to verify that the 'puppies' were part of the litter.

(Thanks, Neo.)

UPDATE: The blood tests show that the cat did not give birth to the 'puppies'.

(Thanks, Cranky Media Guy.)

The Balbirnie Beast is a St. Bernard — The Beast of Balbirnie is a large creature which is said to roam the country park in Balbirnie, Fife, Scotland. Paw-prints have been found and analysed, and the leading consensus is that they belong to a big cat, such as a lynx or puma. However, one expert believes that the marks were made by a big dog.

Enter Mark Proctor and Bernard the St. Bernard. Mark suggested that the tracks belonged to Bernard, owned by Mark's sister, Lisa, and her husband. He realised that the tracks had been found around the time that they had last been visiting.

He measured Bernard's paws, which seemed to be about the same size as the tracks. He then digitally placed the pawprint on top of the photo of Bernard's paw, and they were a match.

This sparked some interest in the media. First, the story gained column inches in local newspapers, then The Sun, The Daily Mail, and The Daily Express. Full House magazine did a spread on the story. Radio Scotland broadcast an interview with Mark, and both GMTV and BBC News featured the story on television.

The trouble is, Mark had made it all up. He had resized the photograph of Bernard's paw to fit the photo of the cast of the pawprint, and had never planned for his hoax to be spread across the national news. He'd simply started off posting it on his blog forum, and it all sprang from there.

As Mark himself said, if anyone had properly examined his story, they would have found a distinct lack of evidence.

All fees gained from appearances on television and in newspapers have been donated to the shelter at which Lisa found Bernard.

(Thanks, Matt.)

Rat Salad — Todd Haley, a Dallas Cowboys assistant coach, issued a lawsuit against McDonalds on Thursday. He alleges that his wife and au pair found a dead rat in their take-away salad this June.

The story goes that, on June 5th, Christine Haley and Kathryn Kelley ordered $14 of food, including the salad. They drove home, where they both ate some of the salad before uncovering a young, dead rat (pictured right, the rat has been digitally coloured to show up as blue).

The rat was determined to be a ‘roof rat’, a breed which live in the rafters and can pass on such diseases as bubonic plague and endemic typhus. The two women say they are haunted by this knowledge and fear they may have caught a disease. Mrs Haley was breastfeeding at the time, and switched to formula milk in case she passed illness to her child. She claims this caused her mental anguish.


Tod Haley and the two women are suing the restaurant, the franchise owner and KLB Group for a minimum of $1.7 million in physical and mental pain and anguish.

(Thanks, Charybdis.)

Quick Links: Chris De Burgh, etc. —
Chris De Burgh, Miracle Healer
Pop singer Chris De Burgh supposedly cures a woman's paralyzed arm by laying on his "healing hands." I had no idea who he even was when I first saw this. But I googled him and found out he's the guy who sings "Lady In Red." There's already a Church of Tom Jones. So why not a Church of Chris De Burgh?

Doll Experience Rooms
Apparently these are the hot new thing at Korean brothels. "A 'doll experience room' is a place punters rent for some W25,000(US$1=W958) an hour, a fee that includes a bed, a computer, and an inflatable sex doll."

$60 Champagne gets relabeled and sold for $300
Hoping to address a need in the hip-hop market for "bling" champagne, Cattier puts $60 "Antique Gold" in a flashier bottle and sells it for $300 as "Armand de Brignac" with the help of rapper Jay-Z. (Thanks, Joe)

Pelican Swallows Pigeon
Not a hoax. Just odd. What happened: "the bird got up and strolled along until it reached one of the pigeons, which it just grabbed in its beak. There was a bit of a struggle for about 20 minutes, with all these people watching. The pelican only opened its mouth a couple of times. Then it managed to get the pigeon to go head first down its throat. It was kicking and flapping the whole way down." This news story inspired blogger Faye Williams to create a list of the Top 10 I’ve Got Eyes Bigger Than My Belly stories.

RIP: Pink Flamingo, 1957-2006
Union Products of Leominster, Massachusetts, is scheduled to close its doors on November 1. It's apparently the only maker of pink flamingoes in America. It's being forced to close due to "increases in costs of electricity and plastic resin." Does this mean pink flamingoes will never again congregate on the front lawn of UW-Madison?

Quick Links: Bear Hunting, etc. —
Spanish King Shoots Drunk Bear
When the Spanish King visited Russia recently he was taken on a bear hunt. But apparently "hunt organizers, keen to make the King of Spain's chances of killing a bear easier, provided a tame one drunk on vodka." Sad. But the last paragraph of the story is even more pathetic: "Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had trouble with his aim in his later years. Some of the animals he liked to stalk were either tied to trees or plied with booze." (Thanks, Big Gary)

Ich Vergessen
Here's an urban legend I'd never heard before: "German immigrants arriving at Ellis Island were asked their names, and might respond 'Ich vergessen,' meaning 'I forgot,' if they couldn't understand English. The officials would then mark down that the name was 'Ferguson.'" This doesn't make any sense to me at all. The German and English words for 'name' are almost identical, so I think German immigrants in particular would be able to understand a request for their name. But even if they didn't, why would they respond 'I forget'?

Top 10 Best Ghost Photographs Ever
The Brown Lady of Raynham comes in at #10. (Thanks, Kathy)

Chupacabra Captured? — Posted on YouTube, a news report from Coleman, Texas, talks of a creature (described as "A mix between a hairless dog, a rat, and a kangaroo") that has been trapped by a farmer. The farmer had set the trap after some of his turkeys and chickens had been killed.
The animal has been sent to Texas Parks and Wildlife in the hope that they can discover what exactly it is.



(Thanks, Tah and Christopher.)

Quick Links: False Lobster, etc. — False Lobster
Maine Senator Olympia Snowe is lobbying to remove the pelagic crab known as "langostino lobster" from restaurant menus in Maine.

Pine Cone 'Help' Hoax
A careful 'help' was spelt out in pine cones at a junction of two roads in Oregon, complete with an arrow pointing out into the woods. After a nine-person, six-hour search, it was deemed to be a hoax.

Nigerian Bulldog Scam — The latest in the long series of what are known as 'Nigerian Scams' is one featuring bulldog puppies.

Three red flags went up when Mindy Gorman enquired after a $500 bulldog advertised on the Savannah Morning News website. When she emailed the sellers, they replied with an announcement that the puppies had been sold, but:


Then there was the fact that the seller was in Nigeria. Thirdly, when she offered to pay to the transport of the puppy using Pay Pal, the seller, who identified himself as 'Pastor Harry', said that he would only accept a $500 payment sent to Lagos via Western Union.

Ms Gorman did not go through with the transaction, but another customer in the area lost $900 on the scam.

Jeff Thomas, with the Savannah office of the U.S. Secret Service, was unaware of the Nigerian puppy scam. But the details, including the offer of English bulldogs in a state where the biggest football mascot is the same breed, didn't surprise him.
"These folks are not dumb," he said. "They may do their homework in terms of regional interest. People here are nuts about Georgia football."
Thomas suggests puppy lovers approach any Nigerian offers with skepticism.

The website no longer runs the advertisement.

Quick Links: Man Dives 50 Feet for 20 Dollars, etc. — Man Dives 50 Feet for 20 Dollars
$20 blew out of Mark Giorgio's hand when he was crossing a bridge. So he followed it.

Prisoners Train as Crocodile Handlers
Five prisoners from Darwin Correction Centre in Northern Australia are currently involved in an 11-week rehabilitation pilot scheme.

Mosquito Dance Track
The Mosquito anti-teenager device has theoretically already been used as a ring tone. Now it's being made into a dance track - 'Buzzin' - which mixes two tracks, one normal, and one using the Mosquito technology.

Chess Championship Split Over Loo Breaks
Viktor Kramnik of Russia has been accused of cheating during his multiple toilet breaks. He and Veselin Topalov are playing for the title of world chess champion and the bathrooms are the only area not under video surveillance.
(Thanks, Accipiter.)

Ethnic Games End in Cross-dressing and Gang Violence
After several contestants in the women's dragon-boat racing event were described as "big women with Adam's apples", it was found that they were men in wigs. Then a dispute over a wrestling final sparked off a violent brawl.
(Thanks, LaMa.)

Talking Elephant — A sixteen-year-old Asian elephant named Kosik has been found to echo eight words back to his keeper. Staff at the South Korean amusement park say that Korik 'says' words such as 'yes', 'no', 'sit' and 'lie down' by putting his trunk into his mouth and shaking it whilst exhaling.

It is not known whether Kosik knows the meaning of the words, but spectograms show that the elephant's voice frequency is a 94% match with his keeper's voice, prompting speculation that he is trying to bond with the keeper by copying the noises.

Video can be found here.

(Thanks, Nettie.)