Hoax

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A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. There is often some material object involved which is actually a forgery; however, it is possible to perpetrate a hoax by making only true statements using unfamiliar wording or context (see DHMO). Unlike a fraud or con (which usually has an audience of one or a few), which are made for illicit financial or material gain, a hoax is often perpetrated as a practical joke, to cause embarrassment, or to provoke social change by making people aware of something. Many hoaxes are motivated by a desire to satirize or educate by exposing the credulity of the public and the media or the absurdity of the target. Political hoaxes are sometimes motivated by the desire to ridicule or besmirch opposing politicians or political institutions, often before elections.

Governments often perpetrate hoaxes to assist them with unpopular aims such as going to war (e.g., the Ems Telegram). In fact, there is often a mixture of outright hoax, and suppression and management of information to give the desired impression. In wartime rumours abound; some may be deliberate hoaxes.

There is often considerable controversy about whether a given factoid is true or a hoax.

The word hoax came from the common pretend magic incantation hocus pocus. "Hocus pocus", in turn, is commonly believed to be a distortion of "hoc est corpus" ("this is the body") from the Latin Mass. Many etymologists dispute this claim.

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Historically significant hoaxes

  • The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a major influence on contemporary conspiracy theories alleging Jewish global domination, instrumental in the surge of anti-Semitism during the last hundred or so years.
  • The Ems Telegram precipitated the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71[1]
  • The Zinoviev Letter is thought to have been instrumental in the United Kingdom Conservative Party's general election victory in 1924.
  • Wearside Jack (John Humble) sent letters and an audio tape to West Yorkshire Police and the Daily Mirror claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper. Humble's Geordie accent convinced the police that the real murder was from the North East of England. Significant police resources were diverted from Yorkshire into trying to identify the Ripper in the North East, during which time the real Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, commited a further three murders. Over 25 years after he originally sent the letters, Humble was identified as the sender of the hoax letters by the examination of DNA recovered from the gum used on the envelopes from the letters.

Other well-known hoaxes

  • Orson Welles' Mercury Theater radio broadcast on October 31, 1938, entitled "The War of the Worlds" has been called the "single greatest media hoax of all time," although it was not intended to be a hoax. The broadcast was heard on CBS radio stations throughout the United States. Despite repeated announcements within the program that it was a work of fiction, many listeners tuning in during the program believed that the world was being attacked by invaders from the planet Mars. Rebroadcasts in South America also had this effect.
  • Bathtub hoax, perpetrated by American journalist and satirist H. L. Mencken in 1918, was cited as factual even after hoax had been revealed by the author.
  • Great Moon Hoax, which helped to establish the market position of the New York Sun.
  • Our First Time in 1998 was perhaps the first great Internet hoax (although some characterized it as a botched scam).
  • The northwestern US state Idaho is the only state to be named as the result of a hoax. Lobbyist George M. Willing suggested the name, claiming it was a Native American term meaning "gem of the mountains." It was later discovered that Willing had made up the word himself. As a result, the original Idaho Territory was renamed Colorado. Eventually, the controversy was forgotten and the made-up name stuck.
  • The Sokal hoax was a fake paper in a hitherto respected social sciences journal which revealed the uncritical total misuse of scientific terms and ignoranve of science in left-leaning philosophical texts of the so-called postmodern school.
  • The Piltdown Man fraud caused some embarrassment to the field of paleontology when apparently ancient hominid remains discovered in England in 1912 were revealed as a hoax some 41 years later.
  • The 1983 forgeries claiming to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler
  • In 1928 Margaret Mead published Coming of Age in Samoa, largely about the sexual practices of Samoan adolescents. In 1983, five years after Mead's death, Derek Freeman published Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, in which he said that he had interviewed the, now elderly, sources of Mead's information, and been told that they had hoaxed Mead. There is still controversy; either the Samoans hoaxed Mead, or Freeman is hoaxing us.
  • The Cottingley Fairies were a series of trick photographs taken by two young British girls from 1917 to 1920.
  • The Blair Witch Project is a film which, its promoters claim, records the final days of three documentary filmmakers researching an old legend.
  • The Alien Autopsy is supposedly film footage of the examination of an alien that died in the Roswell crash.
  • The Majestic 12 documents (Peebles, 1997:258-60, 264-268)
  • Rosie Ruiz finished first in the women's division of the 1980 Boston Marathon by riding the subway to a point near the finish line and jumping back into the race. Her marathon title was revoked when the hoax was discovered.
  • The sale of the Eiffel Tower for scrap was an audacious scam perpetrated not once but twice by the master con artist Victor Lustig.
  • American con artist George Parker made his living selling and re-selling public monuments in New York City.
  • Helius Project launched in 2003 and is still online. Many people who interacted with Helius argue that Helius is real. By the information submitted by visitors on the official website, you can see that some still take it very seriously.
  • Project Alpha was a hoax conceived by stage magician James Randi to fool psychic researchers.
  • The residents of Palisade, Nevada, once earnd their living by pretending to be the "toughest town in the West". The violence was actually an elaborate show put on for tourists arriving on the train.

Hoax traditions

During certain events and at particular times of year, hoaxes are perpetrated by many people and groups. The most famous of these is certainly April Fool's Day, which is open season for pranks and dubious announcements.

A New Zealand tradition is the capping stunt, wherein university students perpetrate a hoax upon an unsuspecting population. The Acts are traditionally executed near graduation (the "capping").

Many Spanish-speaking countries have Innocent's Day, on December 28, to make "innocent" a person with jokes and hoaxes. The origin for the pranking is derived from the Catholic feast day Day of the Holy Innocents for the infants slaughtered by King Herod at the time of Jesus' birth.

See also

References

External links

Copyright

"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 23, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."

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