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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This has nothing to do with Paris Hilton's friend Nicole Richie. Though it would be a benefit to mankind if the two of them would vanish into thin air. The title refers to the French actress Nicole Riche who in 1950 was starring in the stage production of No Orchids for Miss Blandish at the Grand Guignol theater in Paris. The play is about a woman who gets kidnapped by a gangster. Nicole Riche played the title character. She probably wasn't chosen for the part because of her great acting ability. More important was looking good in the flimsy white negligee she wore most of the time onstage.

On the evening of March 29, 1950, in between the second and third acts of the show, Riche suddenly disappeared. Kidnapping was suspected. Three days later she showed up -- strolling into a Paris police station at 3 a.m. (still in her white negligee), claiming she had been abducted by "Puritans" who kept her imprisoned in a room while lecturing her about her immoral lifestyle. According to her, the Puritans had finally dumped her in a forest, but luckily some kindly gypsies happened by who helped her get back to the city.

None of this was true. It turned out to have been a publicity stunt cooked up by the Grand Guignol's manager. The police had suspected as much from the start. Still, the stunt worked. The "kidnapping" made headlines throughout the world. More details, and a few grainy photos of Riche, in the hoaxipedia.

I have no idea what became of Riche. If you do a google search for her name you get a message saying "Did you mean: "nicole richie" and lots of links to people who have misspelled Richie's last name.
Happy New Years everyone! My apologies for the absence of posts for the past week. I was on vacation, visiting family on the east coast and in Arizona.

One month ago I posted about a group of female criminals from the 1950s called the "Brassiere Brigade." They stole money from the counting room of a telephone company, where they worked, by smuggling rolls of quarters out in their bras.

I only discovered the story of these women by accident when I came across a reference to them in an old newspaper. I thought I had stumbled upon an incredibly obscure story, and it occurred to me that it was perfect material for a movie -- one of those cute "chick-flicks" that Hollywood churns out. I had visions of writing it up as a screenplay and making a fortune.

But my hopes were dashed when I recently saw the trailer for a movie called Mad Money that's coming out on Jan. 18. The movie (which stars Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, and Diane Keaton) is the story of three women who steal money from a Federal Reserve Bank, where they work, by smuggling the money out in their underwear. In other words, it's basically the story of the Brassiere Brigade in a different setting (a bank instead of a phone company). Somebody got to my idea first!!!

I'm not sure if Mad Money actually was inspired by the exploits of the Brassiere Brigade, though it's close enough not to make a difference. The Mad Money site doesn't make any mention of the Brassiere Brigade. The movie seems to be a remake of a 2001 British made-for-TV movie called Hot Money, about a group of British cleaning women who steal money from the Bank of England. The British movie claims to be based on a real-life incident, though it provides no specifics about that incident. Perhaps there was a group of female British criminals who copied the modus operandi of the American Brassiere Brigade. Hiding money in underwear may be a far more common method of theft than I realized.

Mad Money doesn't look very good, so I'm not going to bother seeing it in a theater. Perhaps I'll rent it on DVD. I think it would have been much better if it actually was the story of the Brassiere Brigade, set in Miami in the 1950s.
Survivor Tale of Woe
A contestant on the TV show Survivor:China may have lied about losing her job as a janitor at an Elementary School. If I still watched Survivor I might care more about this, but I haven't seen it in years.

Princeton Hoax Exposed
A student at Princeton who was a member of an anti-sex club claimed he was beaten up by horny liberals who were enraged by his "brave stand against promiscuity." Turns out he beat himself up. Figures.

Gold Pills
Offered for sale at the New Store Museum. "Pure gold passes straight through the body and ends up in your stool resulting in sparkly shit!" Cranky Media Guy thinks this has to be a joke. But I bet it's real. After all, all it involves is putting some gold leaf, which isn't that expensive, in a pill. It doesn't even need FDA approval.
The rumor going around online is that in one of the previews for the new Disney movie Enchanted, you can hear someone say "Get the f*ck outta here."

The preview in question shows the Prince attacking a bus. The exclamation can be heard around 30 seconds into it, as the bus driver is walking out of the bus.

The first time I listened to it, it definitely sounded like "Get the f*ck outta here." But when I listened to it again, it sounded more like "Get that bus outta here." Basically, it seems to me it could be interpreted either way. Who's to say what the correct way of hearing it is.

I haven't seen the movie, but I assume this scene must occur in the theatrical version as well. It will be interesting to see if the ambiguous phrase makes it into the DVD version, or if it will be edited out. (via Cinematical)
Joe Littrell forwarded me this strange news story posted at scifidimensions.com. I can't tell if it's real or a joke.

Supposedly a man identifying himself as "Agent Egan," a California "undercover investigator," halted a performance of Ray Bradbury's play Dandelion Wine at the Fremont Center Theatre, half an hour into the performance. Bradbury himself was in the audience.

If this incident really happened, and if it's not some kind of publicity stunt, it seems incredible that a theater would halt a play on the word of some random guy claiming to be an undercover agent who refuses to show any kind of identification.
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.
The story of Sober Sue is one of the classic tales of a show-business scam. She was a woman hired by Willie Hammerstein back in 1907 to perform at New York's Victoria Theater. A newspaper account from mid-century presents her story as it's typically told:
So the scam was that comedians were being tricked into accepting an impossible challenge.

In my Hoaxipedia article about Sober Sue, I've collected all the info I could find out about her, but I've always wondered if it's really true that Sober Sue suffered from facial paralysis, or is it just one of those stories with such a good punchline that people keep repeating it. I can't find a primary source that verifies the claim.

One thing that makes me suspicious is that there has definitely been more than one female performer who has called herself Sober Sue and done the same act. They can't all have sufered from facial paralysis.

I know it should come as no surprise to learn that a reality TV show has been faked, but it still kind of sucks to hear this about Born Survivor (aired in America on the Discovery Channel as Man vs. Wild), since I've watched quite a few episodes of this show and enjoyed it.

The premise of the show is that Bear Grylls, a former soldier with the UK Special Forces, is dropped into various extreme situations (on top of a mountain, on a desert island, etc.) and has to survive on his own until he gets rescued. Obviously there's a camera crew with him constantly, so he's never in that much danger. Still, learning that he sometimes would surreptitiously check into hotel rooms overnight kind of ruins the effect.

From the BBC:
Yes, I realize that for most of you, explaining that "reality" shows are, shall we say, directed, if not outright scripted is as much of a revelation aas saying the Earth revolves around the Sun, but one doesn't often get a look at the actual casting process behind finding some of the people who appear on a "reality show".



Man blames health drink for unwanted erection (Bebelicious)
New Yorker Christopher Woods underwent surgery in 2004 for severe priapism – an erection that would not subside. Now he’s suing pharmaceutical company Novartis AG, claiming that their nutritional drink, Boost Plus, was the cause of his condition.

Can’t remember the name of a song? Try tapping it on your keyboard! (DJ_Canada)
This programme allows you to tap the melody of a song using your space bar to try to identify it. Results appear to be user-submitted, so they're a little hit and miss. No pun intended.

Yahoo’s list of sunscreen myths (Dily)
A Yahoo writer, Leslie Baumann, M.D., has posted a short list of common mistakes people make when considering protection from the sun.

Woman arrested for making faces at a dog (Slender Loris)
Charges have been dropped against Jayna Hutchinson from Lebanon after she was arrested for "staring at [the police dog] in a taunting/harassing manner."