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About the Museum
The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about dubious- sounding claims, and whatever else strikes our fancy. The site is also home to the Hoaxipedia (the museum's online encyclopedia of hoaxes), the Hoax Forum, and the Top 100 April Fools' Day Hoaxes.
The museum was created in 1997 by Alex Boese. He's assisted by a staff of deputy curators and docents. Alex is the author of three books, most recently Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments (which has nothing to do with hoaxes). Check out the list of the Top 20 Most Bizarre Experiments of All Time for a preview.
The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about dubious- sounding claims, and whatever else strikes our fancy. The site is also home to the Hoaxipedia (the museum's online encyclopedia of hoaxes), the Hoax Forum, and the Top 100 April Fools' Day Hoaxes.
The museum was created in 1997 by Alex Boese. He's assisted by a staff of deputy curators and docents. Alex is the author of three books, most recently Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments (which has nothing to do with hoaxes). Check out the list of the Top 20 Most Bizarre Experiments of All Time for a preview.Prankplace.com
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Hoax Forum: most recent posts
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Old Forum
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Zoo Text Message Prank
Status: Prank
Officials at the Houston Zoo report that they're being inundated with thousands of phone calls as a result of a prank text message circulating via cell phone. From click2houston.com:"It's an enormous annoyance," zoo spokesman Brian Hill said. Thousands of people have received a message that someone has been talking about them. Some of the messages read: "Hey y is someone calln me and lookn for u n askn me where r u at n where u live heres tha # 713 555 650 tell then to stop calln me"
"It's scaring a lot of people," the switchboard operator told a caller. "We are working with the FBI and the major cell phone providers." Hill said that anyone who receives a similar message should trash it instead of calling the zoo.
"Chances are that if you get a text message, 'somebody's looking for you,' or 'I'm getting calls from somebody looking for you,' and our phone number is at the bottom of it, you'd be pretty safe to just ignore it and delete it," Hill said.
"It's scaring a lot of people," the switchboard operator told a caller. "We are working with the FBI and the major cell phone providers." Hill said that anyone who receives a similar message should trash it instead of calling the zoo.
"Chances are that if you get a text message, 'somebody's looking for you,' or 'I'm getting calls from somebody looking for you,' and our phone number is at the bottom of it, you'd be pretty safe to just ignore it and delete it," Hill said.
I think the message, translated from text speak into english, says: "Hey, why is someone calling me and looking for you and asking me where are you at, and where you live? Here's their number: 713 555 650. Tell them to stop calling me."
This is a new variant of the classic "phone the zoo" prank, which is one of the most popular April Fool's Day pranks of all time. Usually the prank involves tricking someone into calling the zoo and asking for "Mr Lion" or "Mr Fox". The prank used to be so popular that many zoos would have to shut down their switchboards on April 1st.
The prank is as old as telephones themselves, and actually traces back much further, deriving from the even older prank of fooling people into going to the Tower of London to see the "washing of the lions."
Hitler Doll
Status: Hoax
About two weeks ago a story started going around alleging that an Adolf Hitler doll, marketed to children, was being sold in the Ukraine. From the Daily Mail:One saleswoman said: "It is like Barbie. Kids can undress fuhrer, pin on medals and there's a spare head in the kit to give him a kinder expression on his face.
"He has glasses that are round, in the manner of pacifist Jon Lennon".
The doll will also come with accessories like a miniature Blondi, Hitler's faithful Alsatian who died alongside the Nazi in his bunker in Berlin in 1945.
The doll is dressed in long light-brown cloak, military uniform and jackboots.
According to the saleswoman, should the demand be high, manufacturers will go further and launch a series of themed Third Reich toys, including interiors of Hitler's chancellery, toy concentration camps with barbed wire, barracks and operating models of gas chambers and crematoriums.
"He has glasses that are round, in the manner of pacifist Jon Lennon".
The doll will also come with accessories like a miniature Blondi, Hitler's faithful Alsatian who died alongside the Nazi in his bunker in Berlin in 1945.
The doll is dressed in long light-brown cloak, military uniform and jackboots.
According to the saleswoman, should the demand be high, manufacturers will go further and launch a series of themed Third Reich toys, including interiors of Hitler's chancellery, toy concentration camps with barbed wire, barracks and operating models of gas chambers and crematoriums.
But now it seems that the reports of the Hitler Doll were a hoax. WikiNews reports:
The hoax first appeared two weeks ago and was spread rapidly, when a journalist found a model of Asian origin aimed at adult collecters in a specialist shop in Kiev, and misrepresented the find by failing to give basic details of the facts of the case when he publicised his find. The story propagated and expanded from there.
Shark Surfing
Status: Fake
In this video a surfer hitches a ride behind a shark, after getting the shark to swallow some chunks of meat attached to a fishing line. It looks like it was shot in southern California, and we do get some big sharks around here occasionally. Just last week a guy was killed off the coast of San Diego by a great white. But this video looks obviously fake. As many of the youtube comments point out, you can see the wake of a boat off camera in front of the shark fin. I don't have any information about who made the video. At the end, the word "Notorious" appears on the screen, but I don't know who or what that is.
From the Archives: The Central Park Zoo Escape
Status: Famous Hoax
On November 9, 1874 the New York Herald reported that the wild animals had escaped from the Central Park Zoo. The article filled an entire page of the paper, and was topped by the dramatic headlines: "AWFUL CALAMITY. The Wild Animals Broken Loose from Central Park. TERRIBLE SCENES OF MUTILATION. A Shocking Sabbath Carnival of Death."The article, after a slightly slow start, really hit its stride once it started to describe the carnage. Readers were treated to vivid descriptions of rhinos impaling people on their horns, lions tearing limbs off, and panthers attacking churchgoers. They just don't write news articles like that anymore.
But if you read through to the very end of the article (which was 10,000 words long), you encountered this disclaimer: "Of course the entire story given above is a pure fabrication. Not one word of it is true."
Most people didn't bother to read the entire article, and so mass panic ensued in the city. The next day the Herald claimed it had done the city a favor by drawing attention to the possibility of such a scene occurring if conditions weren't improved at the zoo.
The New York Zoo Escape is one of the more notorious hoaxes of the 19th century, and yet, to my knowledge, the text of the Herald's article has never been reprinted. So I resolved to change that. I found that San Diego State University had the Herald on microform, made a trip out there, copied the article, and typed it out. It took me longer than I anticipated, but it's done now. It's a pretty good read.
Some trivia about the Zoo Escape hoax: It was indirectly connected to the tradition of using an elephant as the symbol of the Republican party. I explain the connection fully in the hoaxipedia article.
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Brunus edwardii
Status: Scientific humor
I recently received a nice letter from a reader in England:Dear Mr. Boese,
I have enjoyed the Museum of Hoaxes greatly. I do not know if you want any more examples, but if not just throw this away.
The Veterinary Record is the weekly journal of the Veterinary Profession, and I did the index for 36 years. So on 1st April 1972 I met some observations on the diseases of Brunus edwardii (Species Nova), Vet. Rec. (1972) 90, 382-395. It reads like a perfectly authentic scientific paper though the illustrations give the game away. So I suppose it does not really qualify as a hoax. I understand that the British Library had some difficulty with the classification! But the authors had great fun doing it. If you would be interested to see the text I will send you a photocopy. I am not a vet but a librarian, understandably retired at 92! With all good wishes for 2008.
Yours sincerely,
M.M. Raymer
I have enjoyed the Museum of Hoaxes greatly. I do not know if you want any more examples, but if not just throw this away.
The Veterinary Record is the weekly journal of the Veterinary Profession, and I did the index for 36 years. So on 1st April 1972 I met some observations on the diseases of Brunus edwardii (Species Nova), Vet. Rec. (1972) 90, 382-395. It reads like a perfectly authentic scientific paper though the illustrations give the game away. So I suppose it does not really qualify as a hoax. I understand that the British Library had some difficulty with the classification! But the authors had great fun doing it. If you would be interested to see the text I will send you a photocopy. I am not a vet but a librarian, understandably retired at 92! With all good wishes for 2008.
Yours sincerely,
M.M. Raymer
After debating whether or not to throw away her letter (of course not!), I decided to drive up to UCSD, where I hunted down the Veterinary Record (UCSD has a complete run of it), and made a copy of the article.
The article does describe, in a dry, scientific fashion, the diseases of Brunus edwardii, which is described as a species "commonly kept in homes in the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe and North America." The article warns that: "Pet ownership surveys have shown that 63.8 percent of households are inhabited by one or more of these animals, and there is a statistically significant relationship between their population and the number of children in a household. The public health implications of this fact are obvious, and it is imperative that more be known about their diseases, particularly zoonoses or other conditions which might be associated with their close contact with man."
The pictures do give the joke away:
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For months afterwards the correspondence section of the Veterinary Record was dominated by letters about Brunus edwardii. A few readers were outraged by it, such as A. Noel Smith who wrote:
I have been practising veterinary medicine for the past 12 years or more "across the pond" and my Veterinary Records arrive a month or more late. However, I still open them with interest and read what is going on "at home". April 1st's edition thoroughly soured my interest. How three members holding sets of impressive degrees can waste their time writing such garbage in a journal that is the official publication of the B.V.A. is beyond my comprehension, as is your effrontery to publish it under "Clinical Papers".
But most of the correspondents loved it. It proved so popular that it was eventually published in a special edition by Whittington Press.
Anyway, thanks to M.M. Raymer for the reference.
Three Pranks
Status: Pranks
Three pranks that recently made headlines:Riding the elevator
Elizabeth M. "Betsy" Ormsby's state Supreme Court lawsuit against Michael W. Behling, her former supervisor at the Washington Street office building, continues. Mrs. Ormsby, wife of Jefferson County Legislator Barry M. Ormsby, alleged she was duct-taped to a chair while working at the building in April 2006 and then, while bound, sent to several floors on an elevator. She claimed she complained about the incident to Mr. Behling, the building's superintendent, but was told by him to keep the matter quiet.
Gorilla Chases Bananas
Last week ten students in larger-than-life banana costumes ran through the halls of the Zion-Benton Township high school with an eleventh student dressed as a gorilla giving chase. "The boys entered the school's main entrance around noon last Thursday and made their way through the English and science hallways before running into a crowded lunch room and then out a back door. All the while they flailed their arms and yelled "Seniors '08."" School officials have responded by giving the bananas and gorilla a seven-day suspension.Prank or Art?
Potted plants were taken from the atrium of the Center for the Arts at Luther College and moved into a single room, where they blocked students from moving around and accessing projects. This sparked a debate about whether moving the plants was a prank or an artistic statement. Jeff Dintaman, professor of theatre and head of the art and theatre/dance departments, noted: “Artists will always push the boundaries, and if we’re not doing that, we’re not artists.” But Kate Martinson, Professor of Art, said: "I think ‘prank’ is the word whether it’s artistic or not."
PETA’s Million-Dollar Fake Meat Prize
Status: Publicity Stunt
PETA recently offered a $1 million reward to the first company that can produce In Vitro meat in commercially viable quantities by 2012. (AussieBruce posted about it in the forum.)But Daniel Engber, writing for Slate.com, explains why PETA's prize has so many strings attached that it's basically a bogus offer.
1) According to the contest guidelines, the fake-meat must be sold in stores to qualify for the prize. Engber writes: "Fake-chicken entrepreneurs have to demonstrate a "commercial sales minimum" at a "comparable market price"; in plain English, they need to move 2,000 pounds of the stuff at supermarkets and chain restaurants spread out across 10 states during a period of three months. And the Franken-meat can't cost more than regular chicken."
2) This is an impossible condition to meet, since the FDA would have to approve the fake-meat before it could be sold in stores. And there's no way a product like this could be invented and make it through the FDA's approval process in the next four years. The FDA review process itself typically takes years to complete.
So don't expect anyone to win PETA's prize.
I'm still waiting for those "Meat Trees" (genes from cattle spliced into the reproductive cells of grapefruit trees) described by the Weekly World News back in 2003 to become a reality. (Thanks, Christopher)
Emory University Zebra Prank
Status: College Prank
Neil Steinberg's classic advice about college pranks was that "If at all possible, involve a cow." The zebra (named Barcode) that was found locked inside Seney Hall at Georgia's Emory University this morning is a novel substitute. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:Campus police were still trying to find out who put the zebra on the third floor of Seney Hall sometime Tuesday night...
Putting animals inside Seney Hall has passed for a dry wit on the Emory at Oxford campus for decades...
Bowen said it was unlikely the responsible party would be punished. "We're not launching a major manhunt" he joked. And whoever put Barcode in the building made sure it didn't get hurt. "They lined up a row of chairs so the animal couldn't get close to the windows and injure itself," Bowen said.
Putting animals inside Seney Hall has passed for a dry wit on the Emory at Oxford campus for decades...
Bowen said it was unlikely the responsible party would be punished. "We're not launching a major manhunt" he joked. And whoever put Barcode in the building made sure it didn't get hurt. "They lined up a row of chairs so the animal couldn't get close to the windows and injure itself," Bowen said.
Good for the pranksters for making sure the zebra wasn't harmed in any way.
I found out about the prank because I received an email this afternoon from the pranksters themselves. Or someone claiming to be the pranksters. Here's what they had to say. I didn't correct for spelling:
So i was looking at your top 10 college pranks and i think that you are missing one.. last night some friends and i locked a Zebra in a building at Emory University. here are the details.
I was deeply disappointed when i read what the press had wrote about the Zebra incident at the Oxford College of Emory University. Quite frankly everyone has it wrong. I know, because i organized it and the executed the prank with a group of friends and lookouts.
First of all, the prank had no intentions other than to raise a certain spirit in the Oxford College community. The was no malice what-so-ever.
To the detail that you can varify that I am , in fact , the one whom the credit is due. -I cut a chain around a gate that contained the Zebra that was accompanied by only a donkey. This "pasture" is off of Collingsworth drive after the dead end. - then i unhinged the second gate with a wrench because that chain was too thick to cut. - I then proceeded to transport the Zebra on foot down Collingsworth to Wesley street and then down a power-cut that leads behind the college off in the woods. At approximately 0455hrs I left the Zebra in the care of my cohorts as i met another accomplice that had slept in Seney hall in order to let me in from the inside. We prepared the 3rd floor by placing chairs and tables by the windows so that the Donkey would not be tempted to go near them. We also moved picture frames so that they would not be hurt. Lastly we barricaded the doors using 2"x2"x4' board that extended over the door frame and then were secured to the door with duct tape, zip-ties, and 11/2 inch U-bolts. Once the buildings was prepared we then moved the donkey through the front doors of Seney to the elevator to the 3rd floor. We then unloaded the donkey and took the elevator back down to the first floor. (now this is a good part) we sent the elevator back up to the second floor (which was also barricaded from the inside) with a Chair, books, and a small shelf leaning against the doors of the elevator so that when they opened on the second floor, the chair would fall prohibiting the doors of the elevator to close for use. As a back up we removed the elevator call key panel from the 1st floor lobby and Removed, NOT Cut, wires from the back of the button. The most damage this may have caused is a blown fuse. All in all I believe that once people see the brilliance behind this prank and get off their high-horse they may be able to see that college is about relationships and memories, not a grade on a test or your attendance record. - Seney hall was discovered to be locked down at approx 0735 and it took until 1115hrs to remove the Zebra. - Ultimately this was a HARMLESS prank, NOT vandalism. - and when all is said and done, it may have been one of the greatest pranks ever pulled off in history of American academia... A zebra was barricaded into the most historic building of one of the highest ranked universities in America... thats awesome!!
Regards, The Emory Pranksters
I was deeply disappointed when i read what the press had wrote about the Zebra incident at the Oxford College of Emory University. Quite frankly everyone has it wrong. I know, because i organized it and the executed the prank with a group of friends and lookouts.
First of all, the prank had no intentions other than to raise a certain spirit in the Oxford College community. The was no malice what-so-ever.
To the detail that you can varify that I am , in fact , the one whom the credit is due. -I cut a chain around a gate that contained the Zebra that was accompanied by only a donkey. This "pasture" is off of Collingsworth drive after the dead end. - then i unhinged the second gate with a wrench because that chain was too thick to cut. - I then proceeded to transport the Zebra on foot down Collingsworth to Wesley street and then down a power-cut that leads behind the college off in the woods. At approximately 0455hrs I left the Zebra in the care of my cohorts as i met another accomplice that had slept in Seney hall in order to let me in from the inside. We prepared the 3rd floor by placing chairs and tables by the windows so that the Donkey would not be tempted to go near them. We also moved picture frames so that they would not be hurt. Lastly we barricaded the doors using 2"x2"x4' board that extended over the door frame and then were secured to the door with duct tape, zip-ties, and 11/2 inch U-bolts. Once the buildings was prepared we then moved the donkey through the front doors of Seney to the elevator to the 3rd floor. We then unloaded the donkey and took the elevator back down to the first floor. (now this is a good part) we sent the elevator back up to the second floor (which was also barricaded from the inside) with a Chair, books, and a small shelf leaning against the doors of the elevator so that when they opened on the second floor, the chair would fall prohibiting the doors of the elevator to close for use. As a back up we removed the elevator call key panel from the 1st floor lobby and Removed, NOT Cut, wires from the back of the button. The most damage this may have caused is a blown fuse. All in all I believe that once people see the brilliance behind this prank and get off their high-horse they may be able to see that college is about relationships and memories, not a grade on a test or your attendance record. - Seney hall was discovered to be locked down at approx 0735 and it took until 1115hrs to remove the Zebra. - Ultimately this was a HARMLESS prank, NOT vandalism. - and when all is said and done, it may have been one of the greatest pranks ever pulled off in history of American academia... A zebra was barricaded into the most historic building of one of the highest ranked universities in America... thats awesome!!
Regards, The Emory Pranksters