Hoax Museum Blog: Pranks

Name Change Prank — Robert Ashton and Aisling Davis have been playing tricks on each other for years. But when Robert dyed Aisling's hair blonde while she was asleep, she decided she needed to come up with something big to get him back. What she eventually dreamed up was to legally change Robert's name... to "Ima Stapler." The Halifax Courier reports:



Apparently a "deed poll" is a legal document used in England to change one's name. It seems a bit scary that she was able to get away with this. Imagine what an identity thief could do.

But Robert, aka Ima Staper, says he thinks it's funny and has no plans to change his name back.

The Halifax Courier also reports that more than 40,000 people changed their name by deed poll last year: "New names issued included Jellyfish Mc-Saveloy, Toasted T Cake, Nineteen Sixty-Eight, Hong Kong Phooey, Daddy Fantastic, One-One-Eight Taxi, Ting A Ling, Huggy Bear, Donald Duck and Jojo Magicspacemonkey."

Drive Someone Insane With Postcards — On eBay, right now, you have the chance to bid on a chance to participate in a prank that will "Drive Someone Insane with Postcards." The seller's description reads:

Bidding is currently up to $185. It seems that the seller has figured out a clever way to make some money while on vacation.

Related Articles:
Lost Postcard Rescue Department (Dec. 10, 2007)
Postcards for Mom (Jun 22, 2004)

Prank Call Leads to Electric Shock Treatment — Prank phone calls and electric-shock gadgets are perennial favorites of pranksters. So I guess what happened at the Judge Rotenberg Education Center was just a novel combination of the two: Call up and order electric-shock treatment for someone. It's actually kind of scary to think that it's that easy to order treatment for a patient. Boston Herald reports:

Bigfoot Prank — WTVY News reports on a prank that reminded me of the Winsted Wild Man hoax from 1895, although quite a bit less sensational:

Not Andy Warhol — Kutv.com has an article describing a hoax perpetrated by Andy Warhol back in 1967. He had been asked to do a speaking tour at various colleges, but decided, at the last minute, that he didn't want to do it. So he sent someone else, Allen Midgette, who pretended to be him: "Midgette whitened his hair and face and adopted a Warhol persona, and, accompanied by Morrissey, went on tour. And most believed the forged artist was authentic."

People finally figured out that Midgette was not Warhol when they compared photos of the two men. Apparently the stunt was not an attempt to make any kind of artistic statement. Warhol just really didn't like public speaking. His friends say that he had undiagnosed Asperger syndrome.

Sending an impostor to an interview or lecture is a fairly common prank. Joey Skaggs has done it often. Though I don't think this type of prank has ever been given a name. Maybe it could be called the Impostor Interviewee Prank. Or the Substitute Speaker Prank. Or just the Impostor Prank. Or what about, the Official or Authorized Impostor Prank.

I have no idea what the earliest example of this kind of prank would be. Sounds like a good research project to waste some time on!

Lost Postcard Rescue Department — Recently Doris Alman received a postcard inside a plain white envelope. The postcard was sent from her mother and father, vacationing in Flagstaff, Arizona, to her grandmother in Audobon, Iowa. It had been mailed on Sept. 24, 1968. The envelope that held the postcard had a one-line return address: Lost Postcard Rescue Department. It had been mailed recently from Brooklyn, New York.

Doris Alman says she has no idea who could have mailed the old postcard to her. Whoever it was did some good research, because Alman no longer has the last name as her parents.

The U.S. Post Office says that there is no such thing as a "Lost Postcard Rescue Department" associated with the postal service. Nor was the envelope the postcard was sent in an official Postal Department letter. (If it were, it would have been stamped with a Postal Department stamp.)

So apparently there's a random prankster out there sending old, non-delivered postcards back to people. The Globe Gazette reports:

Phallus in Football Field — In the summer of 2004 pranksters used herbicide to trace the outline of a giant phallus in the football field located inside Harman-Geist Stadium in Northeastern Pennsylvania. When the grass died, the phallus became visible.

Maintenance crews did their best to hide the phallus by painting it green, but eventually the paint wore away. And now the prank has succeeded in reaching an even wider audience, thanks to satellite technology.

Overhead satellite imagery of the stadium -- and giant phallus -- has shown up on google maps. You can see it for yourself by searching for the address "300 N. Cedar St., Hazleton, Pa." and then zooming in to see the stadium.

An interesting thing I noticed. One of the streets leading to the stadium is called Shaft Rd., which seems very appropriate.

The organization that does the satellite imagery says that it plans to resurvey that region in early 2009. Until then, the football-field phallus will remain on google maps.

Quick Links: Dec. 3, 2007 — Pie in Santa's Face
"A 22-year-old University of Montana student was charged with assault Friday for shoving a pumpkin pie into Santa Claus’ face at a shopping mall while a teen sat on his lap."

Save the Park
Four students in the UK created a hoax website as a social experiment to test the influence of the media. Their website, savethepark.co.uk, claimed there were plans to build a 220,000 tonne waste incineration plant in a South London park. Within a few weeks their site had received thousands of hits, and they had been contacted by a newspaper. They claim that their experiment, "showed how rumours can spread and how easy it is to get information out there that isn't true." But also that, "we are still a community and we can still stand together."

Venezuelan Toilet Paper Shortage
"Venezuelans have been buying large amounts of toilet paper on rumours it could be the next hard-to-find thing amid shortages of products like milk and meat."

Death by Cell Phone Report Disputed
It turns out that the death of a South Korean man was not due to an exploding cell phone, as many media outlets recently reported. Instead, police are attributing the death to a co-worker who backed into him with a drilling vehicle, and then tried to frame the cell phone. (Thanks, Joe)

Skaggs turns down chance of TV fame — On his Art of the Prank blog, Joey Skaggs recounts how he was recently contacted by CBS TV, who were recruiting pranksters for a reality TV show, tentatively called "Pranksters." The concept of the show is that "comedians compete for a chance at their prank show." Kind of like HGTV's Design Star, except with pranksters. CBS wanted to know if Joey would be interested in participating. His comment:

Joey initially contemplated using his tried-and-true strategy of getting a friend to pretend to be him. But after he realized that any involvement with the show would give CBS the "irrevocable, unlimited, perpetual, worldwide, royalty and payment-free license to use and reproduce my materials in this program" he decided to wash his hands of them altogether.

A Perfect Prank — A perfect prank should be funny, but it should also make a statement and actually make the world a better place. I figure the prank recently revealed to have been perpetrated by the Untergunther, a French "cultural guerrilla" group, comes pretty close to fulfilling that definition. Members of the Untergunther secretly repaired a clock in the Pantheon, a Paris landmark. The clock had been broken for decades -- until one day it was mysteriously working again. The Guardian reports:

Instead of thanking them, the Centre of National Monuments, which felt embarrassed by the prank, decided to bring legal action against the group. The court recently cleared the charges against them.

Quick Links: Megan Meier, fake lawyer, etc. — I'm on the road up to Lake Tahoe for Thanksgiving, but here's a few quick links I've been meaning to post.

Online hoax leads to girl's suicide
The case of Megan Meier is attracting lots of attention, both online and offline. Megan believed that a young guy on MySpace was interested in her, but when Josh started to send her nasty messages, she committed suicide. Later it was discovered that "Josh" was a fake alias created by adults in Megan's neighborhood. A bizarre case, and one that underlines how important it is for kids to learn to be skeptical about information (and people) they find online.

Man Accused of Posing as a Lawyer
Cranky Media Guy writes, "I love the lawyer's "explanations" of his client's behavior."

Belly Dancer Indicted Over Fake Degree
"A high-profile belly dancer has been indicted for allegedly fabricating her university diploma, a prosecution official said Tuesday in the latest fake-degree scandal to hit education-obsessed South Korea." Since when has it become important for belly dancers to have advanced degrees?

Let's Marry Before Hanging Up
The latest prank from Pakistan: "The latest spin for the emergency helpline (Rescue 15) operators is prank calls from girls, who first report a ‘crime’ and then ask operators to marry them over the telephone." What are kids going to dream up next?

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.

75 Homeless Gnomes — Last month 75 gnomes suddenly appeared on the front lawn outside of a house in Springfield, Oregon. The police don't know where the gnomes came from, but they assume they were gnome-napped from other houses around town. It is one of the largest cases of gnome-napping anyone can remember.

The gnomes are currently being housed in the police station, although the police have warned that can only be a temporary arrangement:

The police urge anyone who is missing a gnome to come and claim it at the station. All the gnomes that don't get claimed will be put up for auction.

A Cruel Prank — Newkerala.com reports on a cruel prank that took a tragic turn:

But wait, there's more:

So first they scare this poor kid so much that he tries to commit suicide, and now they're going to deport him! I hope they at least pay him whatever salary he's owed.

Pizza Delivery Prank Goes Wrong — Ordering pizzas to the house of someone who didn't expect to get them is one of the oldest pranks around. The concept dates all the way back to the Berners Street Hoax of 1810 (although that prank involved just about everything except pizza being delivered to a woman's front door). Here's a case of the prank being perpetrated long-distance, from over a continent away:

I've never heard of anyone facing serious punishment for this prank, but Looi has been suspended from his job because of it, and that's just the start:

I'm making a note to myself never to order pizza to someone who doesn't want it while in Singapore!

John Harvard Becomes Halo Master Chief — The statue of John Harvard in Harvard Yard is a frequent target of pranks, and recently it became a target once again. Students from MIT transformed John into the character "Master Chief" from the video game Halo 3. The MIT Tech explains:
I think the new look suits him.

The statue bears the inscription "John Harvard, Founder, 1638," and is thus known as the "statue of three lies" because a) the statue does not actually depict John Harvard because the statue maker had no images of Harvard to work from. The guy in the chair is actually a nineteenth-century Harvard student. 2) John Harvard did not found Harvard. It was merely renamed after him after he gave the school a lot of money. 3) The school was founded in 1636, not 1638.

Best of the forum - 21st September 07 — Due to my ongoing computer problems and personal situation, this is again brought to you by Madmouse.

Peruvian Meteorite (eovti)
An apparent meteorite landing in Peru has led to reports of illness amongst locals. Original suggestions for the cause of the sickness included radiation poisoning, but that seems unlikely.

Sign Language Translator (Madmouse)
There’s been a lot of discussion in the forum about this story. A group of UK students have developed a system to translate spoken or written words into British Sign Language that is then displayed by an avatar. Suggested uses include translating for meetings and for phone calls. This seems like a very good idea to me, although a lot more development is needed.

Belgium For Sale on Ebay (LaMa)
A disgruntled Belgian, protesting about Belgium’s political problems, put the country up for sale on Ebay. He pointed out that, although the nation is second-hand, the offer included free delivery.

Bigfoot Revealed!!! (gray)
A prankster who has posing as Bigfoot to scare campers for the last two years was captured in Manitoba. Apparently the man was less intimidated by the police than he was by the telling-off delivered by his last ‘victim’.

Rude Crop Circle — The Smith family, owners of Hee Haw Farms in Utah County, weren't too pleased when they found a crop circle in their corn maze. According to the Deseret News:
What kind of message are the extraterrestrials trying to send? Unfortunately I couldn't find an aerial picture of this crop formation. (Crop circle seems like the wrong word.)

Dihydrogen Monoxide… Once Again — The dihydrogen monoxide prank has gained another victim. Jacqui Dean, a New Zealand politician, received a letter from a constituent asking her to look into the issue of the dangerous chemical known as dihydrogen monoxide. She promptly fired off a letter to the Associate Health Minister asking him whether it would be possible to ban the drug. The minister replied that dihydrogen monoxide "may have been described to her as colourless, odourless, tasteless and causing the death of uncounted thousands of people every year, and withdrawal from which, for those who become dependent on it, means certain death." However, he had no intention of banning it.

American politicians, of course, have proven themselves to be equally susceptible to this prank.

Flamingoing — I've found the new line of work that I'm going to go into: Flamingoing.

Flamingoing involves offering one's services as a professional flamingo prankster. People pay you to place flocks of pink flamingoes on other people's yards. A note is left along with the birds, "You've been flamingoed," and there's a number the victim can call to find out who played the prank.

Flamingoing, as a line of work, has been pioneered by two high school students, Emily Lohmeyer and Paige Prentice of Nevada Union High School. They charge $35 to "flamingo" someone's property. They're using the money they raise to pay for a trip to Europe. So far they've earned $700!!!

From TheUnion.com:
When I start my flamingo business, I think I'll add a "rude gnome" option -- allow customers to include a few of those mooning gnomes from prankplace.com, along with the flamingoes.

A nod should be given to the University of Wisconsin's Pail and Shovel Party, who were responsible for what remains the most famous flamingoing event.