Ocean's 11 Conman
"It was one of the most audacious jewel thefts in history. In the middle of a crowded room, the famed Star of the Empress Sisi was stolen from its high-security case and replaced with a replica." (Thanks, Joe)

Turkey Mystery
Turkeys mysteriously show up in a town, and then wander away. "After entertaining residents of Harborview Drive on Thanksgiving morning, 15 turkeys departed - in single file - about 1 p.m. Thursday and have not been seen since, residents said Friday."

FEMA not the only agency to hold fake press conferences
Apparently Immigration and Customs Enforcement does it too. (Thanks, Gary)

The EPFX Quack Medicine Machine
Its inventor, William Nelson, claims it can diagnose and destroy disease. The FDA says it's a fraud. And it's just one example from the growing field of "energy medicine." (Thanks, Joe)

The students of Ohio State are in mourning after a hawk killed Whitey, an albino squirrel that was widely known around the campus. A facebook page has been created to honor Whitey's memory. It currently has over 2100 members. The Lantern, Ohio State's student newspaper, reports:

This reminded me of the Killer Hawk of Chicago, which got Chicagoans upset back in 1927 because it was killing pigeons outside the Art Institute. A lot of people had doubts about whether the Killer Hawk of Chicago was actually real, or whether it was the invention of a paper trying to drum up sales. But it sounds like Ohio State's Whitey-killing Hawk is real.

A few days ago word got out that heiress Paris Hilton was trying to call attention to the problem of drunken elephants going on rampages in northeast India. Soon this story got picked up by the press. For instance, here's part of a report that appeared in India's The Hindu:


Much to everyone's disappointment, it turned out that Paris Hilton never made these comments about drunken elephants. The AP posted a brief retraction:


It's not clear to me what the original source of the Hilton-elephant news was. One theory is that it originated from an article on spoof.com, which would make it a case of satire mistaken as news. But the spoof.com article seems to be dated after the story had already widely circulated.

Whoever dreamed it up should be commended, because I can think of no one better qualified to be the patron saint of drunken elephants than Paris Hilton.

But while on the subject of drunken elephants, I should note that the widely circulated notion that elephants like to get drunk by eating marula fruit rotting on the ground is not true. Recent scientific studies have shown that a) elephants don't actually like to eat the marula fruit when it is on the ground. They prefer the fruit still in the tree. And b) the fruit does not spend enough time in their gut to ferment there and make them drunk. But it is true that elephants will happily drink alcohol if it is offered to them. (There have been studies about that too.)

[Credit goes to Tah for posting this first in the forum.]

Neil Steinberg, author of the definitive work on school pranks, advises would-be pranksters in the title of his book that they should, If At All Possible, Involve a Cow But I don't think Steinberg would approve of this prank at Wichita Falls High School. From the AP:

Dead cows aren't funny. They're just disturbing and cruel.

I've recently been rereading Phantom Fame, the autobiography of Harry Reichenbach, who was a famous publicist during the early 20th century. In the book Reichenbach describes all kinds of bizarre and amusing publicity stunts he dreamed up. When I first read it, years ago, I took it all at face value, assuming Reichenbach really did all the things he described. But now that I'm rereading it, I'm realizing that at least a third of it is complete baloney.

For instance, Reichenbach claims he was responsible for making September Morn one of the most famous paintings in the world by convincing New York's anti-vice campaigner, Anthony Comstock, to denounce it as immoral. But the reality is that Reichenbach wasn't involved in the September Morn scandal in any way. (I posted about this recently.)

Reichenbach also takes credit for dreaming up a low-budget publicity stunt involving a "Brazilian Invisible Fish." The idea was to put a large, transparent bowl of water in the window of a store with a sign in front of it reading, "Brazilian Invisible Fish." People soon gathered around to try to see the invisible fish.

I think the reality is that this was a common stunt in sideshows long before Reichenbach ever took credit for it. (The showman Florenz Ziegfeld, of the Ziegfeld Follies, also took credit for inventing it.) It's certainly easy to find the stunt described in newspapers years before Reichenbach described it in his book.

But I'm wondering whether there actually are invisible fish? Or, at least, transparent fish. I imagine there are. I found one report, by the Smithsonian, describing a species of Pacific fish called "sand divers" whose bodies, except for their eyes, are apparently as transparent as glass.

I'm hoping that the Museum of Hoaxes' Deputy Curator In Charge of Fish might be able to shed some light on this matter.

One of the things that's interested me with the recent flurry of articles about Elephants On Acid, is how the artists who illustrated the articles chose to depict an elephant on acid. So here's a small collection I've put together of artistic depictions of elephants on acid. The two popular options are either to show an angry-looking elephant, or a psychedelic one.

(left) from the cover of my book; (right) from an album by Tusko Fatale, a Virginia-based band.



(left) from the Daily Mail; (right) from the Daily Telegraph.



(left) from the New Scientist; (right) from the London Times



A sad-looking elephant from the Guardian:



This looks like it should be a picture of an elephant on acid, but it's actually the logo of the 2008 Republican National Convention to be help in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota.



And finally, here's the one published picture of an actual elephant on acid, that appeared on the front page of the Daily Oklahoman on August 4, 1962. There are other pictures of elephants on acid from the two elephant-lsd experiments that have been conducted, but they're all hidden away in an archive at UCLA, having been deemed too controversial for the public to see.

The Sacramento Bee reports that a strange event occurred at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael -- a hawk swooped down from the sky and snatched a woman's toy poodle. At least, that's what the woman claims:

It's actually not that uncommon for hawks to attack small dogs. I think it's usually a case of the hawk protecting its territory, rather than wanting to eat the dog. So I think the case at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center could be true.

It reminds me of the case of the Killer Hawk of Chicago, from 1927, which also (I believe) turned out to be true, despite suspicions to the contrary. Although the Chicago hawk attacked pigeons, not poodles. (via Legends & Rumors)

Big Gary, Deputy Curator in Charge of Fish, spotted this article about fish who suffer from insomnia:

I've heard that watching fish swim around in an aquarium can be very relaxing, but I wonder what effect watching insomniac fish would have.

Halloween Mart has a page of "Halloween costume masterpieces." I couldn't help but notice the one of the three-headed dog. It reminded me of Vladimir Demikhov's two-headed dogs, that I included on my list of the top 20 most bizarre experiments of all time. On the left is a fake three-headed dog. On the right is a real two-headed dog.

For the second time in six months, the hosts of Blue Peter have had to apologize for deceiving their viewers. For Americans who don't know what Blue Peter is, it's a British children's show featuring always peppy presenters. It's been on the air for decades, and is like a TV institution over in Britain. I remember watching it as a kid when my family lived in London.

The latest incident involves a cat named Cookie. The show had asked their viewers to vote on what to name the next Blue Peter Cat. 40,000 votes were cast, and the name "Cookie" won, but the Blue Peter production team decided to veto that choice and instead pretend that the name "Socks" had won. It's difficult to understand their reasoning. Maybe they believed that a cat named Cookie would prove to be a disaster for the show's ratings.

The Blue Peter presenters recently apologized for the cookie cover-up and announced they would be adopting a new cat named Cookie (shown in the thumbnail), while simultaneously keeping Socks around as well. The Socksgate scandal cost Richard Marson, the Blue Peter editor, his job.

In the previous case of deception, Blue Peter had faked the winner of a charity phone-in competition. (Thanks, Joe!)

Links: The Guardian, Times Online, CNN.

Today (September 13) is the 69th anniversary of the election of Boston Curtis to the office of Republican precinct committeeman for Milton, Washington. The reason that's interesting is because Boston Curtis was a mule. His election marks one of the few occasions in which an animal (of the non-Homo Sapiens variety) has gained office. You can read more about the Milton Mule in the hoaxipedia.

In a similar vein, but more recently, USA Today reports that Jane Balogh has agreed to do 10 hours of community service and pay a fine of $250 in order to avoid being prosecuted for registering her dog, Duncan M. McDonald, to vote in April 2006. When Duncan was sent his first absentee ballot, Balogh returned it marked "VOID" with an image of a paw print on the signature line. This prompted an official to call her, and Balogh admitted what she had done. Nevertheless, Duncan still got sent two more ballots in February and May. How could that have been paw-sible?

Just yesterday my wife and I were oohing and aahing at some pictures at telegraph.co.uk of meerkats taking photos of themselves. The text told how an inquisitive meerkat, at Longleat Safari Park, had clambered up the tripod of a camera accidentally left in their enclosure. The meerkat had then "explored the controls and managed to take three family photos." The photo of the meerkat sitting behind the camera was really cute.



Nope. Turns out it was a hoax. I should have known. When Amateur Photography magazine queried Keith Harris, head warden at Longleat, he responded: