About the Museum of Hoaxes
The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about whatever dubious-sounding claims come across our path on a day-by-day basis. In our archives we have hundreds of articles about the most fascinating and notorious deceptions throughout history, from the middle ages to the present.
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Electric Kite Hoax
MAJOR HOAX NEWS: Historian Tom Tucker argues in a recent book that Benjamin Franklin's story about flying a kite in a thunderstorm to prove that lightning was a form of electricity was actually a hoax. Franklin never did the experiment. I'm going to order a copy of Tucker's book (which will be released in a week or so) to read the full argument for myself, but if true, then I guess I can add the 'electric kite hoax' to the list of Franklin's other hoaxes.