The Hoax Museum Blog

Russian propaganda warns of gay indoctrination

Russian state TV, Rossiya-1, has been warning viewers of the moral decadence of the West by airing news footage that shows an American father indoctrinating his child into homosexuality by covering the kid's bedroom wall with gay pornography. However, the footage is obviously fake. It originally came from a sports paraphernalia company, Fathead, and showed a father surprising his son by decorating his wall with a massive photo of a monster truck. The footage was then altered by 4chan users to replace the monster truck with gay pornography. It seems clear that this is not a case of satire mistaken as news. It's a case of willful misrepresentation of satire for the sake of propaganda. [vox.com]

Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2014.   Comments (3)

Baby Deception

Determined to maintain a relationship with Liam Griffiths, with whom she had a one-night stand, Charmaine Wilson presented him with a child, telling him it was his. A birth certificate and DNA test seemed to back up her claim. So Griffiths did what he thought was the right thing and took responsibility for the child, only to find out six months later that it was all an elaborate deception. Wilson had "borrowed" the child from a friend and used her position at a hospital to forge the birth certificate and DNA test results. Wilson, who said it was "a lie that snowballed out of control," was sentenced to serve 16 weeks in jail, but was released after 23 days on condition that she take a "thinking skills" class to help her realize the effect her actions had on Griffiths and his family. [Daily Mail]

Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2014.   Comments (1)

True or False: Not all dogs can bark

In his 1930s newspaper column, John Harvey Furbay (aka The Debunker) wrote that it was a myth that all dogs can bark. But was he correct?

Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2014.   Comments (4)

Bear Chases Cyclist

A video has gone viral that shows a bear chasing a cyclist through a forest. The video seems realistic when you first view it. But if you slow it down and watch it frame by frame, it starts to look a lot less convincing. more…

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014.   Comments (1)

The Pilgrim Fathers were not Puritans

"Historians point out that there is a great deal of difference between pilgrim and puritan, which many people use interchangeably, supposing them to be the same thing. The Puritans were a religious order that arose in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They were the strictest among the Church of England. The Pilgrims split off from this sect and refused to follow the Church of England -- thus they were no longer puritans. In fact, they were not as strict as the old puritans, but were quite liberal in comparison with them."

Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2014.   Comments (0)

Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2014.   Comments (0)

Tom Thumb’s baby not a hoax?

It says here that in a recently aired BBC documentary, The Real Tom Thumb, historian John Gannon argues that Tom Thumb's baby may not have been a hoax, even though Tom Thumb's wife Lavinia confessed it was a hoax in her autobiography.

Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2014.   Comments (3)

The Legend of the Chloroformed Turkey

The tale of the chloroformed turkey usually involves two women living in the city who decide to get a fresh turkey for Thanksgiving or Christmas. But after the turkey has been delivered to their door, they realize they need to kill it. Unwilling to tell the local butcher that they're too squeamish to cut off its head themselves, they search for a "humane" way of ending the bird's life, and come up with the idea of using chloroform. more…

Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014.   Comments (3)

Baby Jesus in the manger watched over by 2 T-rexes

It took me a while to see it, but once you see it, you can't unsee it. The question is: is this a purposeful illusion, or an accidental one? more…

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2014.   Comments (1)

Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014.   Comments (0)

Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014.   Comments (3)

Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014.   Comments (1)

Moore’s Beach Monster

In the summer of 1925, the carcass of a large ocean creature washed up onto Moore's Beach in the California town of Santa Cruz. The creature had a strange duck-like head and what looked like a long neck. Interest in the carcass grew when it was examined on the beach by one E.L. Wallace, who described himself as the president of the Natural History Society of British Columbia, and he declared that it was the remains of a plesiosaur — a species long extinct. more…

Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2014.   Comments (0)

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014.   Comments (0)

Giant Eel

A pair of videos that seemed to show a giant "human sized eel" in New Zealand's Manawatu River went viral in the past week. It caught the attention of a viral video show, Right This Minute, who contacted the two young men (brothers Tim and Ray Hamilton) who filmed the footage and asked them for the right to air it on TV. At which point, Tim and Ray confessed that the footage was fake. They had filmed the eel in a bathtub and then composited that footage with shots of the river and Ray throwing bread at the imaginary eel.

Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2014.   Comments (0)

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