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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From the Archives: The Gold Accumulator
Status: Scam
Back in 1898 Rev. P.F. Jernegan claimed to have invented a device that could cheaply extract gold from sea water. He called it the "Gold Accumulator". He conducted a test of the machine in Narragansett Bay. The machine was lowered into the water, allowed to run overnight, and pulled up the next morning. Sure enough, there were gold flakes in the machine!The trick was that Jernegan had an accomplice who was a trained diver. This guy simply swam underwater and placed some gold in the Accumulator.
Jernegan and his accomplice eventually fled to Europe, but only after they had founded the Electrolytic Marine Salts Company, based on the success of the Gold Accumulator, and extracted millions of dollars from investors. They were never caught.
The full story is in the Hoaxipedia.