190 posts tagged with hoax. (View popular tags)
Displaying 1 through 50 of 190. Subscribe:

Related tags:
+ (16)
+ (12)
+ (11)
+ (10)
+ (9)
+ (8)
+ (7)
+ (7)
+ (7)
+ (7)
+ (6)
+ (6)
+ (6)
+ (5)
+ (5)
+ (5)
+ (5)
+ (5)
+ (5)
+ (4)
+ (4)
+ (4)
+ (4)
+ (4)
+ (4)
+ (4)
+ (4)
+ (4)
+ (4)
+ (4)


Users that often use this tag:
mathowie (3)
mr_crash_davis (3)
goodnewsfortheinsane (3)
oneswellfoop (3)
amyms (3)
Trurl (2)
KokuRyu (2)
The Deej (2)
hortense (2)
Sticherbeast (2)
mediareport (2)
KirkJobSluder (2)
bonzo (2)
anastasiav (2)
crunchland (2)
lagado (2)
costas (2)
Steven Den Beste (2)
Donald Crowhurst (1932–1969) was a British businessman and amateur sailor who died while competing in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a single-handed, round-the-world yacht race. Crowhurst had entered the race in hopes of winning a cash prize from The Sunday Times to aid his failing business. Instead, he encountered difficulty early in the voyage, and secretly abandoned the race while reporting false positions, in an attempt to appear to complete a circumnavigation without actually circling the world. Evidence found after his disappearance indicates that this attempt ended in insanity and suicide. (previously: 1, 2)
posted by Trurl on Nov 17, 2011 - 11 comments

"Sybil Exposed": Memory, Lies and Therapy. Debbie Nathan's new book explains why "Sybil" probably did not have multiple personalities [nytimes link]. Did Dr. Cornelia Wilbur inadvertently create the condition she had intended to treat?
posted by Sticherbeast on Oct 18, 2011 - 38 comments

Video footage of the legendary Doctor Fox lecture. "The lecture that Myron L. Fox delivered to the assembled experts had an impressive enough title: 'Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physician Education'. Those responsible for running the University of Southern California School of Medicine's psychiatry department's continuing education programme had taken themselves off to Lake Tahoe in northern California for their annual conference and a continuing education program. There, Fox - who was billed as an 'authority on the application of mathematics to human behaviour' - presented the first paper. His polished performance so impressed the audience of psychiatrists, family doctors and general internists that nobody noticed that the man standing at the lectern wasn't really Myron L. Fox from the Albert Einstein School of Medicine but Michael Fox a movie actor who though having considerable experience in playing doctors in TV shows didn't know the first thing about game theory." [Via]
posted by homunculus on Sep 23, 2011 - 37 comments

The Observer ran a series of columns by Richard Geefe, a writer whose work was interrupted by his promise to himself and his editors that he would kill himself before the end of November 1999. First, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and the posthumous twelfth. Reaction in The Independent. [more inside]
posted by Sticherbeast on Sep 16, 2011 - 14 comments

Ten years later, one of the greatest mysteries arising from 9/11 has been solved: the guy who faked the 'tourist guy atop the WTC while the plane approaches' picture has come forward.
posted by oneswellfoop on Sep 11, 2011 - 72 comments

A very Victorian hoax! Greyfriars Bobby who kept vigil over his master's grave for 14 years was 'a publicity stunt'
posted by nam3d on Aug 3, 2011 - 69 comments

This is the story of one of the great lost experimental jazz/rock albums. But is it only a story?
posted by Trurl on May 29, 2011 - 16 comments

“Does anyone have confirmation that Osama was watching The IT Crowd in these home movies? Amazing if true. Don't know how to feel.”@Glinner [more inside]
posted by kipmanley on May 18, 2011 - 33 comments

Coal cares! "Puff-Puff™ inhalers are available free to any family living within 200 miles of a coal plant, and each inhaler comes with a $10 coupon towards the cost of the asthma medication itself." [more inside]
posted by cmoj on May 11, 2011 - 23 comments

The Yes Men pull one over on the AP, by convincing them that GE was going to donate their 3.2 billion dollar tax credit in response to public anger over the fact that they pay no taxes.
posted by Jon_Evil on Apr 13, 2011 - 66 comments

"There's confusion about where the line lies between being a bad person and being ill. Someone who's doing this, I'm afraid, could be both." The Guardian discusses 'Munchausen by Internet'. [more inside]
posted by Catseye on Feb 26, 2011 - 50 comments

After Nokia announced its strategic partnership with Microsoft (here), howls of protest came from various directions, with the one getting the most attention being 'nine young investors' proposing a 'Plan B'. But wait... [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop on Feb 17, 2011 - 42 comments

The Pufedorf Hoax [more inside]
posted by jtron on Jan 27, 2011 - 16 comments

Yesterday, reports leaked out that KFC was releasing a new sandwich, consisting of 5 layers of fried chicken skin between two (bread) buns. Sadly, it was later revealed to be a hoax. Undaunted, some people at the Chicago Tribune went ahead and made the sandwich anyway.
posted by reenum on Aug 19, 2010 - 99 comments

4th Grader wins National Science Fair competition--judged by Al Gore-- with her entry "Disproving Global Warming" ...or did she ? [more inside]
posted by Secret Life of Gravy on Jun 8, 2010 - 52 comments

"What you are now going to hear is a recording of the actual voice of Oscar Wilde ..." [more inside]
posted by Fiasco da Gama on Jun 2, 2010 - 25 comments

The “LSER” is a response to longstanding requests from subscription holders for a faster mode of self-ejection from the concert hall...The LSER will be a particularly comforting addition to the concert-going experience for patrons anxious about contemporary music, as in the case next month when music director Alan Gilbert will present “Le Grand Macabre” by the twentieth century master György Ligeti.

NY Philharmonic to install new Speedy Exit Ramp. via Hell Mouth, the blog of John Adams. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski on May 13, 2010 - 22 comments

THEORY, LITERATURE, HOAX (in the style of Borges)
posted by puny human on May 10, 2010 - 35 comments

Don't like those commercials that run before the movies in the theaters? Well, this weekend, Kraft Foods is introducing something new to screens across the U.S., "two- to three-minute branded-entertainment vignettes" that promise NOT to "knock you over the head with a bat as a brand commercial", but instead they... well... here's an example: Lunchables kids' meals present: Alien Field Trip* (Warning: more artificially cheesy than Cheez Whiz). Kraft and other big advertisers are betting that long-form ads will be "the Wave of the Future", and the perfect audience for them will be the folks who have already paid to see "Iron Man 2", "Sex and the City 2" or "Toy Story 3". What could possibly go wrong? [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop on May 5, 2010 - 74 comments

Jani, a hindu man in western India, claims not to have taken in any food or water for 70 years. He has been under 24 hour surveillance since April 22 by a hospital team. This video goes into a little more detail.
posted by mdn on Apr 29, 2010 - 82 comments

Your dreams of rapping superstardom are stymied by your Scottish sound, so what do you do? Simple: reinvent yourself as a West Coast wild boy, with American accent and history to match. Keeping it real might be murder, but even when it all falls apart, at least you got to tour with Eminem and D12 – and you can salvage something by writing a book about it all.
posted by Len on Apr 18, 2010 - 67 comments

Judith Thurman chronicles the fabricated literary interviews penned by Tommaso Debenedetti, an Italian freelance journalist. His subjects include Philip Roth, John Grisham, Gore Vidal, Günter Grass, Toni Morrison, and other famous authors. [more inside]
posted by The Mouthchew on Apr 4, 2010 - 6 comments

Exploring an Abandoned Hotel in Southern California [via mefi projects]
posted by dunkadunc on Mar 31, 2010 - 66 comments

It looked legit and not entirely out of the realm of possibility in today's heated political climate: an anti-gay resolution being introduced in Utah to expel homosexuals from the state. Except that it was an entire, elaborate hoax courtesy of the Yes Men.
posted by Leezie on Mar 9, 2010 - 28 comments

Today is the centenary of the Dreadnought Hoax, when a group of pranksters paid a ceremonial visit to the Royal Navy's flagship, HMS Dreadnought, pretending to be the Emperor of Abyssinia and his retinue. The organiser of the hoax was Horace de Vere Cole, an inveterate practical joker whose favourite trick was to 'walk with a cow's udder protruding from his flies and then cut it off with scissors before aghast bystanders'. But one of the other hoaxers went on to become famous for other reasons. Her name? Virginia Woolf.
posted by verstegan on Feb 7, 2010 - 21 comments

Bogus! Why do fakes get made? Why do people fall for hoaxes? Greed, pride, revenge, nationalism, pranks, and gullibility mix in an archaeological setting. Archaeology Magazine examines eight classic cases, and more.
posted by amyms on Dec 23, 2009 - 6 comments

During the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, The Yes Men put out a statement in which they purported to be the Canadian environment minister, Jim Prentice. The statement pledged to cut carbon emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. The statement was followed by a response from the Ugandan delegation, praising the statement, that was also faked. A fake statement was issued on behalf of Environment Canada celebrating the fake Ugandan statement. Another fake statement was then put out blasting the falsehoods of the original fake statement. A fake story in a European edition of the Wall Street Journal was also posted online. Jim Prentice (Canada's Environment Minister) described the hoax as "undesirable". [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu on Dec 15, 2009 - 90 comments

The public's opinion of the field of climatology has been shaken by the leaked CRU emails. While it's arguable that the messages show any wrongdoing, many pundits have now reached the conclusion that global warming is a hoax, coverup and conspiracy, years in the making with millions of faked datapoints. Sarah Palin has written an editorial saying Obama should boycott the Copenhagen COP15 summit.
posted by mccarty.tim on Dec 9, 2009 - 270 comments

Mass: We Pray is an exciting new project from Boston based game developer Prayer Works Interactive. Watch the trailer for examples of the 24 different services you and your family can participate in. Don't listen to the sites that claim this is a hoax. Preordering begins today!
posted by scrutiny on Nov 20, 2009 - 45 comments

Woman tries to go through metal detector at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson aiport with her infant son, only to have his pacifier set off the alarm. TSA did the only rational thing and took the woman's son
posted by cgs on Oct 16, 2009 - 653 comments

NY Post Special Global Warming Edition (courtesy of The Yes Men). Thousands of hard copies hit the streets of New York at the crack of dawn.
posted by hellbient on Sep 21, 2009 - 33 comments

Net Hoax Convinces Germany of Fake U.S. Suicide Bombing Attempt All of Germany was bamboozled Thursday by a bizarre scheme that tricked the country’s main wire service into reporting an attempted suicide bombing in a California town — an attack supposedly perpetrated by a non-existent rap group called the “Berlin Boys.” [more inside]
posted by chillmost on Sep 12, 2009 - 18 comments

China's latest Internet obsession began with an anonymous post on a computer gaming forum: "Jia Junpeng, your mom is calling you to come home and eat." [more inside]
posted by tapeguy on Sep 6, 2009 - 34 comments

Reports spread around the internet about an offer by a Russian company to do pirate hunting cruises off the coast of Somalia. The news garners a swarm of comments and outrage, and it looks like we have the beginnings of a snowballing controversy. [more inside]
posted by happyroach on Jun 26, 2009 - 36 comments

With the world buzzing about celebrity deaths, it was an opportune moment for hoaxsters. A rumour that Jeff Goldblum had died spread quickly on Twitter, and "'Jeff Goldblum dead' was at 11am the third-most popular search term on Google". The actor's agent quashed the rumour, but not before Australian TV broadcast it as fact, complete with a touching montage tribute. Still, now he knows what it will be like when he really goes: "A surprise funeral? For me?"
posted by robcorr on Jun 26, 2009 - 78 comments

The trailer for "After Last Season" quietly appeared on the Apple site recently. But what is it? Some suggest a hoax, others a parody. Apple lists it as a comedy, IMDB as a thriller. [more inside]
posted by outlier on Mar 28, 2009 - 82 comments

What if you wrote to Alpo to ask if they have a senior citizen's blend, or to the AARP to inquire about the living status of Abe Vigoda? And what if they wrote back? That's the purpose of Jackassletters.com, part mischief, part mayhem, from MeFi's own cjorgensen. History has demonstrated the fun of hoax letter writing, for instance Kitty Piddle Soda from Avery's Beverages. Someone has to carry on the tradition. Tweaking the noses of power and fame. (via MeFi Projects)
posted by netbros on Mar 3, 2009 - 59 comments

In 1989 Rob Pike, Penn & Teller, and Dennis Ritchie (one of the creators of UNIX), prank Arno Penzias, with a funky speech recognition demo.
posted by oonh on Feb 19, 2009 - 6 comments

Jennifer Figge a 56 year old mother turned adventurer is the first woman to swim across the frigid Atlantic Ocean!. Or so they thought...
posted by Mastercheddaar on Feb 11, 2009 - 36 comments

Has man really set foot on the moon? There have certainly been a lot of claims that the whole Apollo missions were one giant hoax. Adam and Jamie at Mythbusters examine the claims of the Hoax Believers one by one. Did they use a wire rig or slow down the film to simulate the 1/6 moon gravity? What would it look like in real 1/6 G? Would a footprint in the lunar regolith have maintained it's shape even if there was no moisture to keep the material together? Why was the flag waving so much if there was no wind on the moon? Why are the shadows on the moon not parallel if they are coming from a single light source? Why can we see the astronauts when they are in shadows if there isn't a second light source? To finish it all off they shoot a laser at the moon to see if the reflector they supposedly left there is actually there.
posted by Sir Mildred Pierce on Dec 18, 2008 - 105 comments

A false expert and phony think tank fool bloggers and the mainstream news media. [more inside]
posted by lalochezia on Nov 12, 2008 - 110 comments

Ghosts, apparitions, angels, spiritual visitations and views of the future "The relationship between photography and the spirit world of ghosts, apparitions and angels during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a blending of popular belief and scientific fraud. The lack of sophistication in the public in an age of deeply held religious values and the generally accepted belief that the camera recorded truth allowed the unscrupulous to exploit the situation for financial gain...This online exhibition explores the diverse interactions between mortals and the spiritual world..." [via Bouphonia]
posted by mediareport on Oct 31, 2008 - 6 comments

Nothing But The Truth: Internet Hoaxes [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Oct 6, 2008 - 42 comments

Master of the hoax finally goes straight. Clifford Irving, author of the now infamous Autobiography of Howard Hughes, publishes his own autobiography, Phantom Rosebuds. Irving has already covered the story of that Hughes forgery pretty thoroughly in his earlier book, The Hoax, and Lasse Hallstrom retold the story in a film starring Richard Gere. Phantom Rosebuds though makes a case for the rest of Irving’s life - f for fake, the subsequent novels, the jail time and the dramatic consequences of the hoax which draw him into a world of espionage, renegade presidents, and rogue hitmen.
posted by blimp77 on Jul 11, 2008 - 5 comments

Jean Shepherd has been mentioned before but WFMU's Beware of the Blog has finally dug out an mp3 of Shepherd himself telling the story of "I, Libertine" (mp3 link) (wiki). I, Libertine was a literary hoax that began as a practical joke. Shepherd asked his listeners ("the Night People") to go into bookstores and ask for a book that didn't exist. Fueled by bewildered bookstore owners and distributors, I, Libertine eventually did end up as a genuine bestseller, proving his point that the process of choosing bestsellers was flawed.
posted by krautland on Jun 29, 2008 - 11 comments

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835. During the last week of August 1835, the New York Sun published a six-part article about the discovery - purportedly by renowned astronomer Sir John Herschel - of fantastical life on the moon, including herds of bison, blue unicorns, "a primitive tribe of hut-dwelling, fire-wielding biped beavers, and a race of winged humans living in pastoral harmony around a mysterious, golden-roofed temple." The public's reaction was a mix of credulity and skepticism. Read the full text of the serialized articles: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.
posted by amyms on Jun 24, 2008 - 37 comments

A fairly convincing website for a fake airline added to the outrage some felt in Philadelphia when newspaper ads promised airfares based passengers' weights. "Philadelphia to L.A., $2.25/pound" read the ads.
posted by polysigma on Jun 11, 2008 - 90 comments

The Biggest Drawing In The World.
posted by Armitage Shanks on May 23, 2008 - 82 comments

Darko Maver: In 1999, An artist is killed in his prison cell in Podgorica.

Early works. Writings. Culminating exhibit. His arrest. His death. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston on Jan 17, 2008 - 13 comments

Alison Jackson takes paparazzi shots of celebrity lookalikes. (NSFW) [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Dec 19, 2007 - 8 comments

Page: 1 2 3 4