In 1959, the Colgate-Palmolive company began airing three TV ads in America for its Palmolive Rapid-Shave shaving cream. All three commercials included a "sandpaper test" designed to demonstrate that Rapid-Shave's "moisturizing" action was so powerful it would not only soften up even the heaviest beard in seconds, but also make sandpaper shaveable. But what viewers were led to believe was a piece of sandpaper being shaved was actually plexiglass covered with sand.
More after the jump →

On Jan. 11, TMZ posted a photo of the sign outside the Beulah Hill Baptist Church, which apparently bore a nice message inspired by the recent birth of Beyonce's baby: "BEYONCE HAD HER BABY. SATAN IS ON EARTH."



According to TMZ, the pastor at that church told them that vandals had placed the message there, and that it had been taken down promptly.

However, the pastor, Rev. Curtis Barbery, is denying he ever told TMZ this. He gave an interview to the Fayetteville Observer in which he insisted the sign hadn't been vandalized and that the photo was a fake. He said, “It’s never been on our sign because our sign stays locked and the same phrase has been on it since Thanksgiving. Only one man has the key to it.”

But TMZ continues to insist the photo is real (though they won't say how they got it), and that the pastor DID tell them the sign was vandalized.

Most people seem to be inclined to believe the pastor, not TMZ. Mainly because it's so easy to photoshop fake messages onto signs. To illustrate the point, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution posted this photo on their blog:

Back in 2009, bird watchers in New Zealand began reporting sightings of a red harrier hawk. There was speculation it was a new species. But in 2010 a hawk was found dead (hit by a car) that had been spray-painted red. So bird watchers realized there was no new species. There was just someone going around spray-painting birds.

Suspicion eventually focused on dairy farmer Grant Michael Teahan after a video was uploaded to youtube showing Teahan beside a bird trap covered in red spray paint.

Teahan denied the allegation, but last week a judge decided Teahan was lying. He'll be sentenced later this month.
Links: stuff.co.nz, Hawkes Bay Today.

MadCarlotta sent me an interesting video:



The premise of the video (which has over 1 million views) is that people around the world are hearing eerie groaning sounds that seem to rise up from the ground and echo through the sky. My first thought was that it sounds like the noise my tankless water heater makes on cold days. So if anyone in La Mesa is hearing eerie noises echoing through the neighborhood, I'm the culprit.

Is the 'strange sounds' video a hoax? Seems to be. Some of the youtube comments point out that you can hear the exact same bird noises at three separate moments (in segments supposedly shot in different parts of the world): at 0:47, 10:35 and 13:38. Which suggests the audio has been dubbed over the video.

A whole slew of similar videos can be found on youtube. So whoever is behind this has put some work into making it seem as if there's all kinds of people hearing these sounds. But the entire 'strange sounds' movement seems to trace back to a single site: strangesoundsinthesky.com, which launched in Sept. 2011. The guy posting on strangesoundsinthesky.com identifies himself only as "Jay Man," and the site itself was registered anonymously through Domains By Proxy. Hoaxers always love anonymity.

I don't know why someone is trying to make people believe that the "sounds of the apocalypse" are being heard around the world. The obvious suspect would be that it's a marketing campaign of some kind. I'm sure we'll find out in time.

At least 10 people in Vancouver who bought iPad 2s have reported opening up the packaging only to discover it contained a slab of modeling clay, not an iPad. It's an old strategy for thieves to conceal their crime by replacing the item in the box with something of lesser value. Reminds me of the case from 2006 of the Hawaiian boy who opened an iPod box on Christmas Day, only to discover it contained a package of meat. Link: Yahoo!

I think I'll add a degree from Carlingford University to my resume. I'll list it alongside my degree in Loch Ness Monster studies from Bigfoot U.

Carlingford was a fake university -- a diploma mill -- created by con artist Kenneth Shong, while he was in prison on forgery charges. He was getting his fellow inmates to enroll there, having convinced them it was real. Though one inmate became suspicious of "'poor business practices and unresponsiveness' in relation to the school returning his grades and giving further lessons."

Shong made a website for Carlingford, to make it seem slightly more legitimate. I found an archived copy of the site on the wayback machine. The site boasted that Carlingford taught students, "the ability to think creatively and critically" -- just not critically enough to realize they were being conned.

More astute critical thinkers might have noticed the site included a short rant about how the accreditation process is a scam (and therefore why Carlingford wasn't accredited) -- which is the kind of thing you don't usually find on the websites of legitimate universites:


Prison officials cottoned on to Shong's scheme around 2007. But it was only a week ago that he went to court to face a charge of fraud -- immediately after he had finished serving his sentence on the forgery charges. Links: Daily Mail, Green Bay Press Gazette.

Add this to the 'Things on Roofs' file: Police in Houston, Texas received reports of a tiger sitting on the roof of an abandoned hotel. The animal was causing a bit of a traffic jam as drivers stopped to look at it. But upon investigation, it turned out to be a toy tiger. I'm assuming it was the work of a prankster, who's now out a pretty nice stuffed animal. Link: BBC News.

About two weeks ago a story hit the news wires about a car that landed on the roof of a house in Fresno, CA. The story goes that Benjamin Tucker stole the car, was driving fast, but lost control as he was going round a corner and hit some landscaping rocks, causing the car to become airborne. And it flew through the air until it landed on the roof of a nearby house.


The autoshopper blog points out that this chain of events is highly improbable:


So could the story of the car that landed on a roof possibly be a prank, or a hoax? Well, putting cars on top of buildings is a classic prank. For instance, back in 2006 I blogged about a car-on-a-roof senior prank. But I haven't seen anything related to this current story to suggest it was a prank. Apparently the driver leapt out of the car once it landed on the roof, fell to the ground, and broke his leg. So if it was a prank, the joke was on him.

Unless some other details emerge, I'm going to have to go with the car getting up there by accident, as unlikely an event as that might have been.

The Irish Times describes a real-life Museum of Hoaxes -- the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris:


It sounds a lot like the Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA.

In recent days, a photo of Mitt Romney that appears to show him getting a shoe shine as his private jet waits has been spreading around the internet. It's been popular with anyone who doesn't much like Romney because it seems to capture the swanky lifestyle he enjoys as a 0.001 percenter.


But, in reality, this photo is a case of 'real picture, false caption'. The picture dates to 2008 and actually shows Romney sitting for a security check before boarding a plane in Denver, Colorado. The guy in the red jacket is waving a security wand over Romney's shoe. Not giving him a shoe shine.

Of course, the scene still depicts the lifestyle of the one-percent, because most of us don't get personalized security checks on the tarmac in front of our plane. Instead, we have to remove our shoes and wait like cattle in long security lines. Link: NPR.org