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.

Web Hoax Museum

BLOG CATEGORIES Advertising | Animals | April Fools Day | Art | Birth/Babies | Body Manipulation | Business/Finance | Celebrities | Con Artists | Conspiracy Theories | Crop Circles | Cryptozoology | Death | eBay | Email Hoaxes | Entertainment | Exploration/Travel | Extraterrestrial Life | Food | Free Energy | Future/Time | Gnomes | Gross | Hate Crimes/Terror | Health/Medicine | History | Hoax Websites | Identity/Imposters | Journalism | Law/Police/Crime | Literature/Language | Mass Delusion | Military | Miscellaneous | Music | Pareidolia | Photos/Videos | Places | Politics | Polls | Pranks | Psychology | Radio | Religion | Science | Sex/Romance | Sports | Supernatural | Tall Tales | Technology | Urban Legends

BLOG ARCHIVE May, 2008 | April, 2008 | March, 2008 | February, 2008 | January, 2008 | December, 2007 | November, 2007 | October, 2007 | September, 2007 | August, 2007 | July, 2007 | June, 2007 | May, 2007 | April, 2007 | March, 2007 | February, 2007 | January, 2007 | December, 2006 | November, 2006 | October, 2006 | September, 2006 | August, 2006 | July, 2006 | June, 2006 | May, 2006 | April, 2006 | March, 2006 | February, 2006 | January, 2006 | December, 2005 | November, 2005 | October, 2005 | September, 2005 | August, 2005 | July, 2005 | June, 2005 | May, 2005 | April, 2005 | March, 2005 | February, 2005 | January, 2005 | December, 2004 | November, 2004 | October, 2004 | September, 2004 | August, 2004 | July, 2004 | June, 2004 | May, 2004 | April, 2004 | March, 2004 | February, 2004 | January, 2004 | December, 2003 | November, 2003 | October, 2003 | September, 2003 | August, 2003 | July, 2003 | June, 2003 | May, 2003 | January, 2003 | November, 2002 | October, 2002 | September, 2002 | August, 2002 | July, 2002 |

Becky Miller, Mayor of Carrollton in Texas, claims that she once sang backup for Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne, and was once engaged to Don Henley. Problem is, none of these people have ever heard of her.

She also claims that her brother was killed in Vietnam. However, her father says that her brother is still alive in Maryland and was never in the service.

And Western Kentucky University can't find any record of her attendance, despite her insistence that she was a student there.

Clearly Mayor Miller is developing a bit of a credibility problem, so it's a good thing she's in politics. She should go far. (Thanks, Joe)
From the March 19th edition of the Mahoning Valley Tribune Chronicle:


You have to wonder how a reporter could be that clueless. Did he seriously imagine that Hillary Clinton would be there answering the phones? Or maybe he knew it wasn't Clinton, but thought it would make the story sound better if he attributed the quotes to her, and that no one would ever know the difference.
Stephanie Pain has an interesting article in this week's New Scientist about Dr. James Barry, a nineteenth-century British doctor who may have been a woman. She writes:


The debate about Barry's gender has been going on ever since 1865. Short of exhuming the body, there was no good way to settle the debate. But new evidence was recently found which indicates, pretty conclusively, that Barry was a woman. The evidence consists of letters from 1809 in which Barry's family solicitor identifies Barry as "Miss Bulkley."

However, Barry's motives still remain unclear. Did she pose as a man purely for economic reasons? Or was she a transsexual who felt that her true identity was as a man?
One week after Misha Defonseca confessed that she didn't really grow up with wolves, as she claimed in her memoir of her childhood in war-torn Europe, another literary hoax has surfaced.

Love and Consequences, by Margaret B. Jones, purports to be a non-fiction memoir of the author's life "as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods."

In reality, as the NY Times reports: "Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in the North Hollywood neighborhood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed."

Seltzer offers the usual excuse: It's true in a vague, metaphorical sense. The things she describes really do happen. They just didn't happen to her.

Seltzer was outed by her older sister who saw an article about her in last week's NY Times. I predict there's going to be some awkward Thanksgiving dinners for that family in the future.

Seltzer's publisher has cancelled her book tour and is recalling all copies of the book.

What we can say with certainty is that Robert Irvine is the host of the Food Network's show Dinner: Impossible. I've watched this before and found it entertaining. Though Irvine comes across as pretty arrogant.

However, many other facts about Irvine's career have now been called into question. For instance, in the past Irvine has claimed that he was knighted by the Queen, that he owns a castle in Scotland, that he cooked at the White House, and that he created the wedding cake for Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

None of this, it turns out, is true.

A Food Network spokeswoman says, "It's unfortunate if Robert embellished the extent of his culinary experiences. We are investigating the matter and taking the necessary steps to ensure the accuracy of all representations of Robert on Food Network and foodnetwork.com."

I'm sure that'll be the extent of the Food Network's reprimand of him, since his show is too popular to cancel.

Links: sptimes.com; Daily Mail. (Thanks to Joe Littrell for the heads up about this.)
Remarries, to be exact. From Yahoo! News:


There's definitely an emerging trend of cardboard or inflatable spouses. Usually it involves military spouses who are stationed abroad.

For instance, back in Dec. 2005 I posted about the Husband Mannequin -- Suzy Walker's stand-in for her husband serving on the USS West Virginia.

Then in Sep. 2006 there was a story going around about Flat Daddys and Flat Mommys -- cardboard cutouts of deployed service members that the military was providing to families. (There are posts about it in both the main blog and the forum.)

I'd be curious to know how old this practice is. Did women back in World War II create husband mannequins?
A few days ago papers reported a weird news item about Charleston mayor Danny Jones who used a picture of himself in Charleston magazine to ID himself before boarding an airplane.

Turns out that "impromptu IDs" are a perennial urban-legend theme. The Legends & Rumors blog has collected a long list of them.

The examples include a case of a porn star who showed a nude picture of herself in a magazine to ID herself while cashing a check, as well as a nineteenth-century case of a man who used his name written on his shirt flap as ID in a bank.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the story about Mayor Jones is false. But it does make it a little more questionable.

Russian election draws eccentric candidates
Four empresses are running, as well as a tsar.

Fake tickets offer strange message
Police in Boulder are warning drivers to be on the lookout for fake parking tickets that bear this cryptic message: "The foregoing is falsely alleged upon personal initiative. This ticket hereby notes discredibility. Remember: Things could be worse. Get over yourself."

I'm Not Dead Yet
Polish resident Piotr Kucy is trying to convince officials that he isn't dead, but the bureaucrats are proving hard to convince.

Con Artist Poses as Heath Ledger's Dad
Soon after Heath Ledger died, a man claiming to be his father contacted Tom Cruise and John Travolta, seeking emotional support and free plane tickets. Why he contacted Cruise and Travolta, I don't know. Was Heath Ledger a scientologist?
Robert Ashton and Aisling Davis have been playing tricks on each other for years. But when Robert dyed Aisling's hair blonde while she was asleep, she decided she needed to come up with something big to get him back. What she eventually dreamed up was to legally change Robert's name... to "Ima Stapler." The Halifax Courier reports:



Apparently a "deed poll" is a legal document used in England to change one's name. It seems a bit scary that she was able to get away with this. Imagine what an identity thief could do.

But Robert, aka Ima Staper, says he thinks it's funny and has no plans to change his name back.

The Halifax Courier also reports that more than 40,000 people changed their name by deed poll last year: "New names issued included Jellyfish Mc-Saveloy, Toasted T Cake, Nineteen Sixty-Eight, Hong Kong Phooey, Daddy Fantastic, One-One-Eight Taxi, Ting A Ling, Huggy Bear, Donald Duck and Jojo Magicspacemonkey."
Kutv.com has an article describing a hoax perpetrated by Andy Warhol back in 1967. He had been asked to do a speaking tour at various colleges, but decided, at the last minute, that he didn't want to do it. So he sent someone else, Allen Midgette, who pretended to be him: "Midgette whitened his hair and face and adopted a Warhol persona, and, accompanied by Morrissey, went on tour. And most believed the forged artist was authentic."

People finally figured out that Midgette was not Warhol when they compared photos of the two men. Apparently the stunt was not an attempt to make any kind of artistic statement. Warhol just really didn't like public speaking. His friends say that he had undiagnosed Asperger syndrome.

Sending an impostor to an interview or lecture is a fairly common prank. Joey Skaggs has done it often. Though I don't think this type of prank has ever been given a name. Maybe it could be called the Impostor Interviewee Prank. Or the Substitute Speaker Prank. Or just the Impostor Prank. Or what about, the Official or Authorized Impostor Prank.

I have no idea what the earliest example of this kind of prank would be. Sounds like a good research project to waste some time on!