A 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. For instance, the hoaxes of James Randi poke fun at believers in the Paranormal . The many hoaxes of Joey Skaggs satirize our willingness to believe the media. Political hoaxes are sometimes motivated by the desire to ridicule or besmirch opposing politicians or Political Institution s, 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 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.
- '' The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion '', a major influence on contemporary Conspiracy Theories alleging Jew ish Global Domination , instrumental in the surge of Anti-Semitism during the last hundred or so years.
- The Polly Baker speech, often cited as the first American attempt to promote women's rights, was actually written by Benjamin Franklin .
- The Ems Telegram precipitated the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 {Link without Title}
- 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 murderer 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, committed 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.
- In 1944, in the months before Operation Overlord , the Allies built a fake military compound across the English Channel from Calais . This was intended to make the Nazis believe that the invasion would be there instead of at Normandy .
- The Bathtub Hoax , perpetrated by American journalist and satirist H. L. Mencken in 1918 , which was cited as factual even after the hoax had been revealed by the author.
- The northwestern US state Idaho was 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 published in a hitherto respected social sciences journal which revealed the uncritical total misuse of scientific terms and ignorance 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.
- In 1970, Clifford Irving and Richard Suskind contrived to write an Autobiography of Howard Hughes , believing Hughes would not come out of hiding to denounce it. Irving sent a manuscript to his publisher McGraw-Hill in late 1971. Authentication tests and Hughes's initial silence lead some to believe the manuscript was genuine, but Hughes eventually gave a Teleconference by phone denying both participation in the book and knowledge of Irving. Weeks later, Irving confessed to the hoax and was later convicted of Fraud . He served 17 months of a 2-1/2 year prison sentence. Suskind, sentenced to six months, served five.
- 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 , a series of trick photographs taken by two young British girls from 1917 to 1920.
- The Blair Witch Project , a film which, its promoters claim, records the final days of three documentary filmmakers researching an old legend.
- The Alien Autopsy , 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)
- In the late 1970s and early 1980s , photographer Robert B. Stein created convincing UFO photographs using only a Kodak Pocket InstaMatic camera and throwable discs.
- 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, an audacious scam perpetrated not once but twice by the master con artist Victor Lustig .
- The Helius Project , launched in 2003 and 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 , a hoax conceived by stage magician James Randi to fool psychic researchers.
- The residents of Palisade, Nevada , once earned 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.
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 , 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.
- Museum of Hoaxes
- idiosyntactix's culture jamming page
- List of miscellaneous Hoaxes & Pranks
- Commentary on Divine Intervention appearing in Food by Steve Castle
- TREND Micro(tm) Hoaxes
- Hoax
- Virus Hoax Busters
- US DOE Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) Hoaxbusters Web Page
- Snopes.com Urban Legends Reference Pages
- Save the Rennets hoax
- HOAX.CZ
- "Top 10 literary hoaxes" , '' The Guardian '', November 15, 2001, retrieved April 29, 2006
- "Top 20 Literary Hoaxes" , by Loren Rosson, http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com, October 25, 2005, retrieved April 29, 2006
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