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), and the Hoax Forum.

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.



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#66: Smaugia Volans
The April 1, 1998 online edition of Nature Magazine revealed the discovery of "a near-complete skeleton of a theropod dinosaur in North Dakota." The discovery was referred to in an article by Henry Gee discussing the palaeontological debate over the origin of birds. The dinosaur skeleton had reportedly been discovered by Randy Sepulchrave of the Museum of the University of Southern North Dakota. The exciting part of the discovery, according to the article, was that "The researchers believe that the dinosaur, now named as Smaugia volans, could have flown." In actuality, the University of Southern North Dakota does not exist, though it has been made famous by Peter Schickele who refers to it as the location where the music of the obscure eighteenth-century composer PDQ Bach was first performed; Smaug was the name of the dragon in Tolkein's The Hobbit; and Sepulchrave was the name of the 76th Earl of Groan in Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan. This Earl, believing that he was an owl, leapt to his death from a high tower, discovering too late that he could not fly.

Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
Page 1 of 1 pages
"volans" is the Latin present participle form of the verb, "volare", meaning to fly. "Smaugia volans" means "Flying Smaug."
Posted by Artie Malone  on  Wed Apr 13, 2005  at  09:07 PM
Sepulchrave was eaten by the owls, I think.
Posted by David Aldridge  on  Wed Aug 24, 2005  at  03:00 PM
Sepulchrave, the 76th Earl of Groan, did in fact believe that he was an owl. But he did not jump from a tower. Rather, he brought the fresh corpse of his castle's chef to the death owls in the Tower of Flints, whereupon they devoured it and him, that he might be reborn as one of them.
Posted by Jack  on  Sun Feb 19, 2006  at  05:59 PM
I think the University of Southern North Dakota once played a bowl game against the East Westchester North Stars, the champions of the Southern Conference.
The latter was actually a bit from an early Cheech and Chong album.
Posted by Scott  in  California  on  Mon Apr 02, 2007  at  12:47 AM
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