About the Museum
The Museum of Hoaxes, founded by Alex Boese in 1997, is dedicated to promoting knowledge about the phenomenon of hoaxes. On our blog (to the left) we post about dubious-sounding claims — and whatever else strikes our fancy. But there's more to the museum than the blog. Check out our historical wing, which contains hundreds of articles about famous hoaxes, arranged chronologically from the Middle Ages right up to the present. Our Gallery of the Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes Ever celebrates that one day of the year devoted to pranks and practical jokes. In our forum, you can chat with other MoH members. And there's much, much more.

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The commerce department of India is considering filing a formal diplomatic complaint against China because of Chinese garments being sold in Nigeria with fake "Made in India" tags. I'm sure it's a serious diplomatic matter, but if you could just somehow add a Russian gangster and a Spanish prisoner into the mix, you'd have a perfect storm of scam artists. [Economic Times]
Apparently there's a tradition of past employees of Jiffy Lube breaking into the store and stealing the bleeder valve on the compressor, thus rendering the machine useless. It's called the "Jiffy prank." At least, that's the excuse Paul Marvella is giving to explain why he took the valve. He later returned it, but nevertheless the store is charging him with felony commercial burglary. [Hernando Today]
As part of an ongoing effort to battle a culture of corruption, the Indonesian government is opening Honesty Cafes, designed to teach people the value of honesty. Snacks and drinks are available, and you pay on the honor system, putting your money into a clear plastic box. From the NY Times:


It's a cute idea, but I think the reasoning behind it is flawed, because even if people behave honestly in the cafes, that doesn't mean the behavior is going to transfer to other contexts.
After receiving a complaint that some residents of a Houston apartment complex were barbecuing stray cats, the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Control investigated but determined the complaint was a hoax. But their conclusion isn't that reassuring, because after analyzing bone fragments from nearby dumpsters, the bureau did find that "There are animals that have been consumed that are similar to the size and structure of a cat."

So, if not cats, what were these animals that were consumed? Small dogs? Giant rats? Chupacabras?

Also, this is news to me. According to Texas Penal Code 49.02, it's legal to cook and eat cats "as long as it's a wild or stray cat and was not killed in a cruel manner." But you're not allowed to cook your pet cat.
A news story (credited to the Chongqing Business Daily) is circulating about a recently apprehended burglar whose method of operation was to gain access to homes by chewing through steel window bars. From Ananova:


Biting through steel bars was a stunt performed by strongmen back in the 1920s. Shorpy.com has a picture of Siegmund Breitbart, who claimed he could bite through steel chains. And steelworker Gust Lessis (pictured) claimed to be able to break a railroad spike with his teeth.

Still, Xiong's claim sounds pretty farfetched. I'm going to list it as undetermined.

Thanks, Ferret!
The Lebanon Daily News confesses to coming down with a bad case of the Gullibility Virus. In a recent article they whipped themselves into a state of righteous indignation about a series of frivolous lawsuits. They had read about the lawsuits in an email. (Best part: they titled the article "Sad but true"). A reader later wrote to them:


The LDN admits to sloppy research, but points out that one of the cases in the email was true, the infamous McDonalds coffee-burn case brought by Stella Liebeck. I'm probably one of the few people who thinks Stella Liebeck had a decent case, because, in my opinion, McDonalds was keeping their coffee too hot. I've had this argument with plenty of people, and no one has ever agreed with me.
Thanks, Joe!
This case sounded so stupid to me that at first I thought it had to be a joke, but here's the actual ruling, Sugawara v. PepsiCo, Inc., so apparently it's true.

Janine Sugawara filed suit against PepsiCo, maker of Cap'n Crunch's CrunchBerries, alleging she had been deceived by their marketing into believing that crunchberries were real fruit, only to learn, to her dismay, that the product contained "no berries of any kind."

The judge threw the case out, noting, "The survival of the instant claim would require this Court to ignore all concepts of personal responsibility and common sense."

Sugawara is a serial litigant (pun intended). She had previously filed suit against the maker of Froot Loops for similar reasons. Link: Lowering the Bar
Philadelphia Mom Bonnie Sweeten had apparently been embezzling money from a charity where she worked for years. Fearing that she was about to be found out, she fled to Orlando with her daughter, but not before concocting a hoax about being abducted by two black men who rear-ended her SUV. (She placed a call to 911, pretending she was locked in the trunk of the black men's car.)

I guess the hoax was intended to cover her tracks, but I'm not sure if it didn't simply increase police scrutiny, making them search more closely for her than they otherwise would have. Obvious signs that her call was a hoax: a) the call was placed miles from the scene where she said the abduction occurred; b) police soon found her car, unharmed; c) police then identified Sweeten on airport video, boarding a flight to Orlando with her daughter. The police tracked Sweeten down in Orlando and arrested her.

If someone wanted to disappear effectively, I would think they should slip away quietly, to give themselves as much of a head start as possible. And also avoid airports and other places with lots of security cameras.

Links: Yahoo! News, Philly.com.
A dispute between two young girls escalated into an online fight between the mothers. The mother of one of the girls posted an ad on Craigslist offering sex with men, and listed the phone number of the other girl's mother as the contact. Twenty-two people called the number. The woman has now been charged with aggravated harrassment. [Newsday]
There's a report of a pigeon drop scam in which the scammers approached a woman at an ATM and tried to convince her to buy a diamond (that was supposedly such a bargain that she'd easily make a profit if she resold it). But in this case the scammers got tired of haggling with her and eventually just grabbed her money and ran. Which means that the scammers are now guilty of grand theft. [Mercury News]