Some of the Greatest Hoaxes of All Time
The Birth of the Bathtub! — H. L. Mencken
December 28, 2017, is the 100th anniversary of the false news item, the hoax column written by curmudgeonly newspaperman H. L. Mencken, that lamented the unmarked passing of the anniversary of Millard Fillmore’s “greatest accomplishment,” the placing of a plumbed bathtub in the White House!...
So Mencken was quite tuned in to false reports which, he
lamented, got picked up by newspapers and spread across the
nation. Partly to make a point that news organizations needed to be more careful, and partly because he was on deadline and didn’t have another idea, Mencken created out of thin air a story of the “first” bathtub in the White House, placed by Millard Fillmore (Mencken said) over the objections of experts like the American Medical Association (Mencken claimed).
All hoax…
Content with his private joke, Mencken remained silent about the hoax until a follow-up article, “Melancholy Reflections,” appeared in the Chicago Tribune on May 23, 1926, some eight years later. This was Mencken’s confession. It was also an appeal for reason to the American public.
His hoax was a joke gone bad. “A Neglected Anniversary” had been printed and reprinted hundreds of times in the intervening years. Mencken had been receiving letters of corroboration from some readers and requests for more details from others. His history of the bathtub had been cited repeatedly by other writers and was starting to find its way into reference works. timpanogos.wordpress.com/...
The Great Moon Hoax
On August 25, 1835, the first in a series of six articles announcing the supposed discovery of life on the moon appears in the New York Sun newspaper.
Known collectively as “The Great Moon Hoax,” the articles were supposedly reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The byline was Dr. Andrew Grant, described as a colleague of Sir John Herschel, a famous astronomer of the day. Herschel had in fact traveled to Capetown, South Africa, in January 1834 to set up an observatory with a powerful new telescope. As Grant described it,
Herschel had found evidence of life forms on the moon, including such fantastic animals as unicorns, two-legged beavers and furry, winged humanoids resembling bats. The articles also offered vivid description of the moon’s geography, complete with massive craters, enormous amethyst crystals, rushing rivers and lush vegetation….
The articles were most likely written by Richard Adams Locke, a Sun reporter educated at Cambridge University. Intended as satire, they were designed to poke fun at earlier, serious speculations about extraterrestrial life, particularly those of Reverend Thomas Dick, a popular science writer who claimed in his bestselling books that the moon alone had 4.2 billion inhabitants. Readers were completely taken in by the story, however, and failed to recognize it as satire. www.history.com/…
A Math Whiz Horse
Is a hoax still a hoax if the perpetrator doesn’t know it? Wilhelm von Osten would likely say no. At the turn of the 20th century, the German math teacher was determined to prove the intelligence of animals. After trying (and failing) to teach a cat and a bear how to add, he finally found a sufficiently studious beast. With years of training, a horse named Hans could add, subtract, multiply, and read German.
Von Osten held regular displays of his star pupil’s intelligence.
Hans would calculate sums and convert fractions by tapping a hoof to indicate numbers. He became a national sensation, made headlines in the United States, and earned the nickname Clever Hans. To prove that the horse’s skills were real, Von Osten allowed a group of experts to examine his equine genius. They found nothing fishy, and Germany embraced Hans as a marvel until psychology student Oskar Pfungst came along.
Unsatisfied with the work of the experts, Pfungst examined Hans and figured out how the horse was doing its calculator act. Von Osten was sending him subconscious signals. Each time Hans was presented with a math question, he’d tap away until a subtle cue on his owner’s face told him to stop. The cues were so subtle that Von Osten didn’t even know he was giving them. Indeed, the horse got problems right only when they were simple enough for Von Osten to solve, and his percentages plummeted when he wasn’t allowed to face his master. When Pfungst exposed the truth, Von Osten denied it, insisting that Hans really was clever, and he continued to parade his horse before happy crowds. Today, animal psychologists know to write off these cues as the “Clever Hans effect.” www.mentalfloss.com/...
The Elusive Northwest Tree-Dwelling Octopus — Zapato
There is a truly startling new study [Feb 7, 201] from the University of Connecticut and the U.S. Department of Education. Researchers decided to see just what web-savvy, albeit gullible students would take as fact, without checking said facts.
According to the International Business Times, the researchers, led by by Dr. Donald Leu, created a web-campaign to save a fictitious octopus from extinction; the Pacific Northwest tree octopus. They set up a fictitious website about the fictitious creature that travels on tree tops, and made up threats to its survival….
The researchers purported that the octopus was on the verge of extinction, in part because of the fashion industry, which used the octopi to create ornamental decorations for hats. Here's where the story gets really frightening. Most people who took part in the study, fell for it, hook, line and tentacle. In fact, not only did the students believe that the tree octopus was real, they actually refused to believe researchers when they told them the creature was fake.
Following the experiment, Dr. Leu said, according to the International Business Times that most students "simply have very little in the way of critical evaluation skills...They may tell you they don't believe everything they read on the Internet, but they do." Going beyond that, Dr. Leu said students simply don't know how to critically search the web and will often just "click on the first listing at the top of the search results page and take a quick look at that, then continue down the list without looking closely at the source of the website to determine if it is the best provider of the information they need." www.nbcconnecticut.com/…
Here’s the actual hoax tree octopus website (No octopi/octopii, nor octopuses/octopodes were harmed in the making of this hoax.) zapatopi.net/...
Although the tree octopus is not officially listed on the Endangered Species List, we feel that it should be added since its numbers are at a critically low level for its breeding needs. The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment; building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning; predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch. What few that make it to the Canal are further hampered in their reproduction by the growing problem of pollution from farming and residential run-off. Unless immediate action is taken to protect this species and its habitat, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus will be but a memory. zapatopi.net/…
Mood of the Room—
Because I miss them.
Photobomb!
Thunder Bunker!
Curiosity Seekers!
Come back on April Fools Wednesday to learn the hoax origins of April Fools Day, the Spaghetti Tree, and other April Fools Day trick stories. Maybe.