Hoax Museum Blog: Death

Man Dies, No One Notices — Yahoo News offers up this brief report about a British train conductor who "stamped and carefully returned the ticket of a slumbering passenger without realizing the man was dead." I guess people only realized the guy was dead once the train pulled into the station (York) and he failed to wake up. Now, by coincidence, I took this very same train last month, and the seats were pretty cramped, so either the train was quite empty, or whoever was sitting next to the dead guy was really oblivious. The story reminds me of the old urban legend about the guy who dies in his office, sitting at his desk, but none of his co-workers notice.

Who’s Buried in Yeats’ Grave? — William Butler Yeats is widely regarded as one of the greatest modern poets. He's also my favorite poet (and we happen to share a birthday!). When I spent a semester studying in Ireland fifteen years ago I made a special trip to visit his grave located just outside of Sligo. It's well worth a visit, even if you couldn't care less about Yeats, because the scenery there is stunning. But now I find out that Yeats may not occupy that grave. Instead, it may be a random Englishman named Alfred Hollis who's buried there. According to this article on Eircom.net it's very likely that a mix-up occurred when Yeats' remains were moved from France to Ireland in 1948. So now I have to make a completely different trip to France if I want to say that I've been to Yeats' grave. Though unfortunately, even if I do make it to his real grave, I'm sure that I still won't have any clue what Yeats meant by his epitaph: "Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by."

Banana Straightener — German artist Karl-Friedrich Lentze has applied for a patent on his new invention: a banana-straightening device (thanks to Hairy Houdini for posting this in the hoax forum). Obviously this is just what the world needs. Basically Lentze's idea is to chop off the bent bits and then seal the banana back up with a "biologically safe plaster." Here are some of Lentze's other projects:

• He asked the Bonn City Council whether it would be possible for him to be buried with an inflatable sex doll (the council said yes)



• He wrote to zoos asking them whether they'd be willing to feed his body to piranhas after he died



• He applied for permission to open a restaurant that would serve urine goulash and 'Mommy's Muffins' (muffins made from breast milk)



• He tried to open a brothel service for dogs (he copied this idea from Joey Skaggs)



• He sued the Pope in the International Court in The Hague for opposing the use of condoms



• He tried to ban Santa Claus, arguing that the bearded old man scares children

Fake LiveJournal Deaths — There's a LiveJournal community devoted to exposing fake LiveJournal deaths. I love it. You find cynical observations such as this: "you'll notice when visiting luna's journal that her dad died on August 8. He was immediately buried the next afternoon. In the meantime however, luna spent the hours posting bad poetry and stupid surveys." The Museum of Hoaxes also gets mentioned. Unfortunately it looks like they're configuring the community so that you'll now have to join it in order to see any future posts.

William Hung Not Dead Yet — I've noted before how popular celebrity death hoaxes have become. In fact, it's kind of like a weird sign of status for a celebrity to have their death falsely reported. It shows people care, in a sick and twisted way. Britney still leads the pack, having been killed in car crashes many times, but now American Idol anti-star William Hung has joined this elite group of prematurely-reported-dead celebrities. Reports of his death via heroin overdose have been spreading all around the internet. They originated from a faux-news piece on Broken Newz. His suicide note was particularly touching: "I have no reason of living... my art which is my importance to the best everybody laugh to... I make end here... goodbye world of cruel." (via David Emery's Urban Legends and Folklore)

Thatcher Isn’t Dead — Margaret Thatcher isn't dead, despite what this elaborate mock-up of The Guardian claims. Nor is Stephen Hawking now going to speak in her voice.

Andy Has Returned… And He’s Got A Weblog — I should never have doubted that Andy Kaufman wouldn't return. He's now back from the dead (or the faux dead), and he's started a weblog. Among the things he's learned while away: alien abductions are a hoax, and he's Ann Coulter's twin. (via J-Walk)

Where’s Andy? — Today's the day Andy Kaufman is supposed to return from the dead... twenty years to the day after his 'death.' But it's only 5 pm here in California. He has a couple of hours left to make an appearance.

LifeGem — I should create a category for things that sound fake, but are actually real. In that category I would place LifeGem. According to their website, a LifeGem is "a certified, high quality diamond created from the carbon of your loved one as a memorial to their unique and wonderful life." Or, to put it more plainly, it's a diamond made from cremated human (or animal) remains. Actually, I'm just assuming it's real because it seems to have received quite a bit of publicity from places like the BBC and NPR. But the obvious con to watch out for would be that after someone pays all that money they would then receive a diamond that wasn't actually made from the remains of their loved one. How would anyone ever know the difference?

Will Andy Kaufman Return? — Some say Andy Kaufman died on May 16, 1984. Some say he didn't. But whatever the case may be, Kaufman said that if he did fake his death, he would return 20 years later, and May 16, 2004 will be the 20th anniversary of his 'death.' In honor of this, Comic Relief will be holding an 'Andy Kaufman: Dead or Alive' show at the LA House of Blues on May 16. Perhaps Andy himself will put in an appearance. (Thanks, Julie)

Afterlife Publicity — As Gawker reports, a great 'take-this-job-and-shove-it' email has been making the rounds recently. It's penned by Bob Rubenstein, a publicist for a record label, who lost his job soon after the lead singer of the band he was supposed to promote, Pre)Thing, died of a heart attack. Bob, embittered for being fired, dishes some dirt on the company he was canned from, revealing how they brought in a psychic to talk with the departed spirit of the singer to see if he'd be willing to do any interviews with music journalists, via the psychic, from beyond the grave. But it turns out there's more to this story than Gawker realized. Rolling Stone reveals that the Bob Rubenstein email is actually a hoax created as an ingenious viral marketing campaign in order to get the word out about Pre)Thing, since their lead singer really did die recently and therefore really can't do publicity. (via BoingBoing)

Michael Jackson Isn’t Dead — Despite the claims of this faux news story, Michael Jackson isn't dead.

Woman Killed by Frozen Urine — Kelli wrote in with a question about this strange photo showing a woman impaled by a long, yellowish-looking stick.

The photo comes with an explanatory caption:

Kelli wants to know if it's real. Well, of course it's not. This photo has actually been floating around the internet for quite a while. As explained over at the Darwin Awards, it comes from a spoof news program aired in Britain called The Day Today.

A Wedding and a Funeral — New York artist 'Shishaldin' has announced her intention to marry the French poet, Isidore Ducasse. The one catch is that Ducasse has been dead for 134 years. But in France the President is allowed to approve marriages between the living and the dead thanks to a law that was passed following a case where a woman's fiancee died right before they could get married and the grief-stricken woman pleaded with the President to allow the marriage to proceed anyway. My one question here is that, okay, say Shishaldin gets married to the dead poet. What if she later changes her mind? How does she then go about getting a divorce? I mean, most of the time you're no longer considered married once your spouse dies, but if you marry your spouse after they're dead, surely the situation is different. Of course, before this marriage proceeds President Chirac would have to approve it, and I'm guessing that the chances of that happening are slim.

Actor Wanted, Preferably Dead — A British theater group is auditioning actors for a part in its next production. But there's one catch. They're only interested in people who can promise that they'll die before the play begins its run. Your body, if you get the part, will then lie lifeless on stage. Evidently it's not a speaking role. It's hard not to suspect that this is all a big publicity stunt and that when the time comes there will be no body on stage. Wouldn't you need a license for something like that? It reminds me of Hell on Earth's Suicide Stunt from last September.

Decomposition Cam — The folks over at SeeMeRot.com have engineered something rather unusual: a webcam set up inside a coffin so that you can see their friend's body decompose. At least, that's what they claim. The 'webcam image' appears simply to be an animated gif that cycles between a blurry and an in-focus image to simulate how a real webcam might behave. Plus, they have rather odd sponsors for a project of this kind... sponsors offering 'live sexy girl cams'. I suppose the logic is that once you get tired of watching the dead girl (they say it's a woman in the picture), you can head over and watch some live sexy girls. The site is registered to someone at 7985 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood. No suite number is given, so it's impossible to tell which business there registered it, but most of the stores in that area are in the 'adult entertainment' business. I suspect that SeeMeRot.com is a weird promotional gimmick dreamed up by someone selling porn. In other words, it's fake.
(By the way, the idea of a decomposition cam isn't unique to seemerot.com. Joey Skaggs included this concept in his FinalCurtain.com cemetery hoax. Skaggs's fantastical cemetery theme park was going to include a grave constructed by an artist named Joseph Sullivan that would show Sullivan's decomposing body on an above-ground monitor.)

The Fake Death of Andy Kaufman — Most people think that the comedian Andy Kaufman died of lung cancer on May 16, 1984. But Enrique P. believes that Kaufman faked his death. And he's put up a website where he argues his case. (Thanks to Julie H. for the link).

The Death Clock — The Internet Death Clock will calculate the time of your death, telling you exactly how many seconds you have left to live. But Chris has written in noting that there's something fishy about it because every time you click the button to calculate your time of death, you get a different number. I would add that I once had a fortune teller read my tarot cards and tell me when I was going to die, and the internet death clock doesn't agree with this reading... so it must be a hoax. (note: sarcasm intended).

Death by Lizards — I'm not sure whether or not this is a hoax, but it's definitely strange. Back in 1910 a young woman died in Akron, Ohio and the local doctor reported that the cause of her death was lizards living in her stomach. Common sense would say that this couldn't have been the case. Lizards couldn't survive for an extended period in the acid of a person's stomach. So did the doctor really believe lizards were the cause of the woman's death, or was he purposefully trying to make an outrageous claim? I don't know.

Hell on Earth’s Suicide Stunt — Hell on Earth promises that its concert in St. Petersburg this weekend will include an onstage suicide. A terminally ill patient will be the one departing this world. I guess if you wanted to go, doing it at a rock concert wouldn't be a bad way to do it, but in my opinion this is a pure publicity stunt hoax. In the same vein as Hunting for Bambi, Or Freck's New Feet (in which Freck claimed he was going to cut off his legs for a live audience... that never happened, of course). What will happen in this case is that the police will show up, and the concert will never take place. But Hell on Earth will have achieved lots of publicity. I'd never heard of them before, after all, but now I have. They can also claim to have legitimately raised awareness about the subject of euthanasia. The beauty of this stunt is that it definitely could happen. But I would wager money that it won't. These stunts never deliver on their promises. They're all about the publicity.