Welcome to the Hoaxipedia!

The Hoaxipedia is an online encyclopedia of hoaxes, urban legends, pranks, tall tales, scams, and deceptions of all kind. It is a work-in-progress, currently containing approximately two hundred articles. Over the coming months much of the content of the Museum of Hoaxes will be transferred into it. If you’re interested in adding an article to the Hoaxipedia (or revising an existing one), please let us know.

Where to start

If you’re browsing, try clicking on the random page link and see what turns up.

If you’re looking for something specific, either look at the categories page, or use the search box located in the right-hand column.

Hoaxes Throughout History

One of the way the articles in the hoaxipedia are categorized is by time period. This allows you to browse through the history of hoaxes.

Era:

Before 1700 | 1700-1799 | 1800-1868 | 1869-1913
1914-1949 | 1950-1976 | 1977-1989 | 1990-1999 | 2000 to the Present

Hoax Haiku

In 2004 the Museum of Hoaxes sponsored a contest in which the person who wrote the best haiku about an urban legend or a hoax won a free book. The contest got a great response. In fact, a few of us enjoyed it so much that we didn’t want it to end. So we kept on composing haikus even after the contest was over. For which reason, you might notice haiku accompanying some of the articles in the hoaxipedia. Feel free to contribute your own. Submit them via our hoax haiku submission form. (Sorry, we’re no longer giving away a free book.)

A haiku (for those that don’t know) is a short three-line poem. Traditionally, the first line has five syllables, the second line seven syllables, and the third line five. An example:

The hoax museum
invites you to write haiku
about its content.

You can find a list of all the articles that include haiku by checking out the Haiku Category.