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The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) Areas of the site include the Hoaxipedia (the museum's online encyclopedia of hoaxes), the Hoax Forum, and the Hoax Photo Database.


Prankplace.com
RUDE ROVER
The Christmas dog with no class! He sings and toots Jingle Bells.
INFLATABLE TREE
Who needs the hassle of a real Christmas tree?
FARTING SANTA
Go ahead and pull his finger!

Web Hoax Museum

Planet-Dissolving Dust Cloud Headed Toward Earth
Status: Fake; an example of the Weekly World News Effect.
I've received a couple of emails about this article on Yahoo! News detailing a cosmic "chaos cloud" that will obliterate the earth in 2014:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Scared-stiff astronomers have detected a mysterious mass they've dubbed a "chaos cloud" that dissolves everything in its path, including comets, asteroids, planets and entire stars -- and it's headed directly toward Earth! Discovered April 6 by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the swirling, 10 million-mile- wide cosmic dust cloud has been likened to an "acid nebula" and is hurtling toward us at close to the speed of light -- making its estimated time of arrival 9:15 a.m. EDT on June 1, 2014.

If it's not immediately obvious by its subject matter that the story is a joke, then it's source (the Weekly World News) should be a giveaway. It joins the time-traveling insider trader and the bogus japanese-to-english phrase book as examples of WWN stories mistaken as news, thanks to Yahoo!'s policy of not listing them as satire in their news feed.
Posted By: Alex | Date: Tue Sep 20, 2005 | Comments (14)
Category: Journalism