Hoax Museum Blog: Paranormal

Seance Hoax — On Monday illusionist Derren Brown performed a seance live on Britain's Channel 4, successfully channeling the spirit of 'Jane,' the victim of a mass suicide. Only after the show did he admit it was all a hoax... an attempt to debunk seances by showing how easily people can be manipulated into believing that they're real. Still, the show managed to attract more complaints than almost any other show in British history, although most of the complaints were lodged before the show aired (evidently because those complaining... church groups mostly... had seen into the future and knew they wouldn't like it before they saw it). Darren Brown is the same guy who pretended to play Russian Roulette on British TV back in October 2003. But for my money, it doesn't sound like Brown's faux-seance quite rivalled the drama of 1992's Ghostwatch Halloween seance.
Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004.   Comments (6)

The Teleparanormalphone — image Do you ever answer the phone only to discover that there's no one on the other end... just the faint whisper of static? You could actually, without your knowledge, be receiving a call from a ghost. But how can you tell if it is a genuine 'ghost call' or just Uncle Fred up to his usual tricks? The answer: The teleparanormalphone. It's built-in electromagnetic field detector will tell you with 100% accuracy if that dead line is, in fact, a direct connection to the land of the dead.
Posted: Thu May 27, 2004.   Comments (1)

Paranormal Potato Chip Gallery — image "Found a Nixon in your bag of Barbecued? Spotted an Elvis in your Salt 'n Vinegar?" Then send them in to the Paranormal Potato Chip Gallery. Actually, I'm not sure if the chips currently on display are real or not. Surely with finds of this magnitude they should have recorded the time, date, and place of discovery. (via Liquito)
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004.   Comments (3)

Paranormal Photo Hoax Contest — image Stephen Wagner, over at About.com, is sponsoring a contest to create a paranormal photo hoax. You have until April 30 to submit your entries. The prize is a copy of Monsters: An Investigator's Guide to Magical Beings.
Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004.   Comments (3)


Coffee Pot Ghost — image In May 2001 Charli Claypool, who lives on Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay, began to hear voices coming from her Krups coffee maker. After listening to these voices for many, many hours she concluded that they were voices of ghosts. And lucky for us, she recorded the 'voices' and made a large number of them available on her website, CoffeePotGhost.com. A visitor (Elizabeth A.) sent me the page and asked me whether I thought it was for real. At times it's tempting to think the entire thing is a joke, especially when you come across sections of the site such as the Ghost Pot Dance. But all in all, I'd say it's just too elaborate to be a joke. This is not to say that I think the coffee pot is really possessed. To be honest, I can't really hear what Charli Claypool claims to be able to hear in the squeaks and whistles of her coffee maker, but I'm pretty sure the voices are clear to her.
Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2004.   Comments (1)

Trapped By Zombies — Roy and Mitch are trapped in a cabin in King's Canyon National Park, surrounded by zombies. Luckily they have access to the web, allowing them to maintain a weblog describing their situation. But for some reason, no one is coming to their rescue because no one believes their story. Meanwhile they're entertaining themselves by reading Harry Potter Books, downloading movie trailers off the internet, and lobbing javelins at zombies. Maybe this is some kind of blog tie-in for a movie (Dawn of the Dead?). I'm not sure. But whatever it is, it's amusing. (via Metafilter)
Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2004.   Comments (7)

Kingdom Hospital — image Kingdom Hospital. It's the 'Hospital that brings out the best in you.' From its website you would think that it's a real hospital, until you start poking around it a bit. Then it gets creepy. It's a tie-in, of course, with ABC's Kingdom Hospital miniseries. But it's pretty well done. (submitted by Brian Flynn).
Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2004.   Comments (3)

Coke Can with Spirits — image We've seen ghosts in jars being sold on eBay, as well as ghosts in toasters. Now you have a chance to buy a ghost in a Coke can. And while you're at it, don't pass up the opportunity to bid on this videotape of a meeting with an 'interdimensional alien.' Minimum bid is only $1,300,000.
Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2004.   Comments (5)

Is John Edward a fake? — image It seems like whenever I turn on the SciFi channel, there's John Edward talking to the dead. I don't really care if he actually can talk to the dead or not (I assume he can't). I'm more concerned by the fact that his show is boring. But on the start of his Australian tour, a man has sued him, claiming that Edward's show violates the Trade Practices Act which stipulates that suppliers of goods can't make claims that they can't substantiate. In this case, Edward claims he can talk to the dead, but the guy suing him is pretty sure he can't. It'll be interesting to see how the case is resolved.
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004.   Comments (91)

Satanic Toaster — image In the tradition of the Ghost In A Jar, but not as funny or clever, we recently had a Satanic Toaster offered for sale on eBay. The toaster first began to burn the toast. Then, when the seller tried to throw it away, it mysteriously reappeared back in his kitchen. Like I said, a pale imitation of the ghost in a jar. (Submitted by Bob Pagani)
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004.   Comments (2)

Brains for Zombies — image It looks like Amazon.com is branching out into a lucrative new market: brains for zombies. They're offering celebrity brains and tasty brains in addition to the more generic brains. In reality, the site is a spin-off of goats.com, the 'tasty yet morally ambiguous' webcomic. (Thanks to Charles Martin for the link).
Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004.   Comments (2)

Mexican Ghost — sweet dreamsI just received this spooky photo from Katherine DeLong who explains that it's been making the rounds via email. The photo is accompanied by the following text:

This picture was taken in one of the rooms of "Our Lady of Charity" hospital in Toluca, Mexico while one of the patients was asleep, the patient had been involved in a multiple car accident and the lady under the bed was the only one person who died in the same accident and taken to the morgue, the brother's patient captured this image with his own camera and the picture has been seen around the world and has been authenticated by the research center in Chicago,Illinois

While I haven't seen the photo before, my first guess would be that it's a scene from a movie, though I have no idea which movie. The picture looks too well composed to be a casual snapshot. And whenever an email claims that something has been authenticated by a 'research center in Chicago,' while neglecting to mention which research center, you know that it's got to be a hoax.
Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004.   Comments (11)

The Indian Rope Trick — rope trickA new book by Peter Lamont chronicles the history of the Indian rope trick. According to him the trick is a hoax, not just in the sense that it's an illusion. Rather, in the sense that the trick never existed. It was never performed. In fact, it began its life in 1890 as the fictional creation of a Chicago reporter. The book is reviewed by The Guardian.
Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2004.   Comments (1)

Jim Morrison — Is this an image of the ghost of Jim Morrison? Or is it just a stray beam of sunlight?
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2004.   Comments (6)

Hampton Court Ghost — hampton ghostQuite a few people have sent me links to this: a ghost captured on film exiting Hampton Court Palace (where Henry VIII once lived). Or maybe it's just a guy wearing a bathrobe and a mask.
Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003.   Comments (16)

My Son Peter — my son peter Here's a spooky site. It's called 'My Son Peter.' I'll use the text from the site itself to describe it: "My son Peter has always loved to play hide and seek. In fact, he loves it so much that he will wake me up in the middle of the night to play. The only problem is that Peter has been dead for eight years. This website documents the hell I've lived and continue to live every night." It's a fairly simple site, and it doesn't look like it's been updated for quite a while, so maybe Peter has discontinued his hauntings. But it does have a ghost video of Peter that's worth checking out. (Oh, and apparently the site was created by an advertising agency called Yarnbird that specializes in viral content).
Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003.   Comments (10)

Vampire Sites — Here's a couple of vampire-themed websites sent in by visitors. First we have the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency. According to the blurb on the site, "From 1868 to 1975, the Federal Vampire & Zombie Agency (FVZA) was responsible for controlling the nation's vampire and zombie populations while overseeing scientific research into the undead. This site is a tribute to the men and women who served in the FVZA, especially the over 4000 Agents who lost their lives fighting to keep our country safe." And next we have The Temple of the Vampire. If you want to live forever, then all you have to do is join the temple. The catch is that in order to join you have to buy their book, The Vampire Bible. That's a good sales gimmick. I should try something like that for my book, such as if you want to achieve a state of absolute enlightenment, then you have to buy my book.
Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003.   Comments (2641)

How to Ride a Broomstick — Here's an interesting item sent to me by Geoduck, just in time for Halloween. Apparently a rumor has been going around suggesting that the image of witches flying on broomsticks, with the brush behind them, is wrong. Back in the old days witches always flew holding the brush in front of them. It was only in modern times, as we came to understand aerodynamics, that we flipped the broom around. This rumor can be traced back to Kevin Carlyon, a self-proclaimed Witch King. But this website, Pagan Prattle, has studied the issue by looking at images of witches dating back as far as the 15th century, and has determined that Carlyon doesn't know what he's talking about. The proper way to ride a broom IS with the bristles behind you.
Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2003.   Comments (2)

Indian Ghost, Part II — Kentaro Mori managed to unearth the source for that ghost photo that scared so many people in India (see below). Click images for larger versions.

  ghost
Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2003.   Comments (3)

Indian Ghost Hoax — indian ghost A newspaper in the Indian city of Tiruchirappalli published a picture of a boy with an eerie ghost hovering behind him. They claimed the boy had encountered the ghost while on a school picnic, and went into a coma. Now the ghost was stalking other boys. As a result, families throughout the region started keeping their kids home, out of school. The photo, of course, was a photoshopped fake. More details here.
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2003.   Comments (0)

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