If you have any pictures of your dog, please share. He sounds like an adorable little terror. The worst chewing animal I had was my pet cockatiel. He ate my homework, which was very embarrassing to try and explain to my teacher.
Concerning Hoaxes
Lately, Iâve been thinking about hoaxes a lot, partly out of curiosity, partly out of my desire to mock other people, and mostly because they seem particularly prevalent today, what with people claiming to have shot Bigfoot, scientists painting rodents to prove they can transplant things without the use of immunosuppressant drugs, and others claiming to have cloned humans.
For some reason, it seems as though we humans love to deceive ourselves. Some people have theories about this, about the everlasting gullibility of humanity and how we will believe
anything provided we think that other people believe it. (See Ash Conformity Experiments). Personally, I have my own beliefs, namely this: reality is fucking BORING most of the time. Sure, we know that something exciting is happening to someone somewhere (and by âexcitingâ, I should explain, I mean winning the lottery, or something good like that; not bad-exciting with bombs and death. That is certainly more exciting and a good deal more colorful, but it makes life much shorter.), but it never seems to happen to
us.
So, they turn to hoaxes, which really do make things a lot more interesting. Other times, they just make people go, âWTF JUST HAPPENED HERE?â
I have gathered some of those cases for your enjoyment. Presenting, Shit It Took Us Far Too Long to Figure Out.
Naked Came the Stranger
I admit, this is one of my personal favorites, because of the supreme literary value. People are fond of saying things about the falling literary value of this country (by which I mean USA.) This is not a new concern, going back to at least 1966 (and probably much, much further). It started when Newsday columnist, Mike McGrady, became fed-up with how the best-sellers list was dominated by less-than-stellar writers, whose sole ability was to pick up a pen and not crush it. They were like the Stephanie Meyers of their age, to put it in todayâs terms.
But Mike was not happy to just write a strongly-worded letter. He wasnât even going to write a strongly-worded column. No, he was going to do something even better. To make his point, that any book could be published and declared a success so long as it had enough random sex thrown in, he decided to write a book that was just fucking awful and contained an awful lot of fucking. There would be no plot, no literary value, no insight into the minds of people, no character development, and certainly no skill. Just lots and lots of kinky sex scenes.
So, like Twilight porn, basically.
He got together twenty-four other columnists for Newsday and gave them a short outline, claiming, âTrue excellence in writing will be blue-penciled into oblivion. There will be an unremitting emphasis on sex.â Each âauthorâ would write a different chapter. To get an idea of how jarring that would be, pick twenty-four people at random and read their posts here.
Yeah. That badly. Several chapters had to be edited heavily, because they were too well-written at first. The basic plot of the novel was, âa suburban housewife who hatched a plan to sleep with all the married men in her neighborhood in order to get back at her husband for having an affairâ. I really, really hope that the male readers of this thread did not just stop to go out and buy this book now.
The resulting book was named
Naked Came the Stranger. And now Iâm SURE most of my male readers----if there are any; this is just a journal, for fuckâs sake----put in an Amazon order for it. Note: thereâs also a porn based on it.
The book was on sale by 1969, which Iâm fairly sure McGrady planned, possibly while giggling like a stoner over 69. I know I would be. McGradyâs sister-in-law played the role of the fake author, Penelope Ashe, with gleeful accuracy.
To absolutely no oneâs surprise, the book sold very well, selling over 20,000 copies. After a while, the writers began feeling guilty, possibly about the money, but more likely for releasing this monstrosity on people. They came forward about the hoax and expected that the popularity would die down once people realized they were being mocked.
It didnât. If anything, the book became more popular than ever. McGrady was approached to write a sequel and, after weeping for the lost appreciation of good literature for a while, turned down the offer.
The History of the Bathtub
So, have you heard that people used to think that bathtubs were unhygienic? And that, in 1845, Bostonians actually illegalized using bathtubs (unless you had a doctorâs note) and this law was never repealed? Come on⦠who hasnât heard that?
If youâve been paying attention, you know where this is going. You have Henry L. Mencken to thank. On December 28, 1917, he wrote The History of the Bathtub, describing the supposedly slow acceptance of that favored bathing article. Many newspapers picked up the story and ran with it, which seems pretty fucking weird considering this was 1917 and they surely had more important things to report (or maybe they just thought those were fireworks going off over Europe; certainly, the Europeans were merely celebrating. A lot. With explosives).
Soon after it was published, people desperately wanted to believe it was true. Scholars of hygiene (yes, there are such people; I assume that they are really, really passionate about cleanliness) swore up and down that it was based on fact. Doctors cited the article as well, perhaps because they didnât want to be left out by goddamn scholars of hygiene.
Mencken claims that he just wanted to have a bit of fun, what with that boring olâ war going on and all. In reality, his motives were far more dastardly and, somehow, more human: he just wanted to see if he could get away with it and, damn, did he ever! He let this hoax go on for eight years before he admitted, âSo, yeah, I kinda-sorta-lied. You guys are fucking MORONS.â
And it refuses to die. Even today, you can find people who honestly believe this.
The Cottingley Fairies
Ahh, 1920! What a delightful time to be alive! Women were finally getting the right to vote in the USA (alright, so it wasnât really put into effect until 1921, but the Amendment had passed, so Iâm counting it), hydrocodone (thatâs one of the ingredients in Vicodin, for those not in the know) was synthesized in Germany, and the first dog-racing track to use an artificial rabbit opened. Truly, a lot of awesome stuff.
Iâm inclined to think that a whole lot of codeine was involved in this next hoax.
Elsie Wright (13) and Frances Griffiths (10) lived in Cottingley, England. (Bit of background; Elsie and Frances were cousins and living with the Wrights; Griffithsâ father was off fighting in the war). The girls loved playing in the garden and spent much of their time there. One day, in 1917, Elsie asked her father if she could borrow the camera so the girls could take photos of the fairies they had been playing with. Instead of assuming that his garden had been taken over by flamboyant homosexuals (which, admittedly, would probably be my first assumption), Arthur Wright just laughed and handed over the camera after showing the girls how to work it.
Later that evening, when he developed the photos, Mr. Wright noticed the odd figures with his daughters, but assumed it was a trick of the light. He stored the photos. But Polly Wright, Elsieâs mother, had a stronger belief in the supernatural. In 1919, after attending a lecture on spiritualism and similar subjects, she brought the photos to the speaker and asked if they âmight be true after allâ.
The pictures were eventually brought to the attention of Edward Gardner, who then brought them to a photographer, Harold Snelling, to take a look at them. Snelling practically got an orgasm on the spot and, after changing his pants, declared the pictures to be, âgenuine unfaked photographs of single exposure, open-air work, show movement in all the fairy figures, and there is no trace whatever of studio work involving card or paper models, dark backgrounds, painted figures, etc.â
The fairy pictures circulated England, where the Englanders promptly stopped throwing tea parties and solving mysteries long enough to be intrigued. In particular, Sir Conan Doyle (who you may better know as the author of Sherlock Holmes) saw them and, yes, popped a spiritualist boner. You see, Doyle was actually a very ardent follower of the supernatural and latched onto these photos as absolute proof.
Still think Sherlock is such a genius NOW?
Doyle urged the girls to take more pictures and they happily complied (of course, these days, if a grown man asks a few girls to âtake picturesâ of themselves, things would be considerably different).
Keep in mind that Arthur Wright himself had asked the girls, why there were âbits of paper in the photosâ.
Picture One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Who knows? Maybe by the end of World War One, England was just fucking sick of fighting and decided it didnât much care if some people believed in fairies.
Amazingly, these bits of paper werenât debunked until 1978. If youâre keeping count, youâll notice that this is over fifty years later. Thatâs an awfully long time to not notice the obvious. James Randi noticed that the fairies looked an awful lot like the fairies in the book
Princess Maryâs Gift Book, which was published in 1915.
In 1981, Elsie Wright admitted that the pictures were fake. She had sketched the fairies using the book as âinspirationâ. Curiously, Frances continued to argue that the fifth photo was real, thus proving that she was an idiot who may or may not believe that she was invisible so long as she covered her eyes.
Mother Shipton
In 1488, Janet Ursula Southiel was born. According to legend, she was the result of a union between the Devil hisself and a mortal woman. The sky above was a world of hate, with black, silver, and dark blue all bruising it. Electricity hadnât been tamed, so only brief flashes of light were visible through the cracks of lightning. Then Ursula was born, a horribly deformed baby. She began to chuckle and, suddenly, the skies calmed.
Her nursemaid (who apparently had far more power than she should, all things considered) cut out Janetâs first name and renamed the girl Ursula, which is probably the basis for all of her trouble. I mean, seriously. You donât name a girl Ursula and expect her to be perfectly normal. Ugly or not, Ursula got herself married and became Mother Shipton.
Throughout her life, she would spout off prophecies, such as that the âEnglish Lionâ (referring to King Henry the VIII) would defeat the âLilliesâ (French) and the âPrincely Eagleâ (Maximillion of Habsburg) would join Henry in battle. She claimed that Cardinal Wolsey would hide from King Henry VIII in New York, but he would never reach the city. Since his relationship with the king was pretty shaky, the Cardinal (referred to as the Mitred Peacock by Shipton) sent some spies to Yorkshire. The spies were the Duke of Suffolk, Lord Darcy (unrelated to any popular fiction character; sorry ladies), and Lord Percy. They were in disguise, but apparently their disguises really sucked because Ursula spotted them on sight.
Or, you know, she was psychic.
The Duke of Suffolk warned Mother Shipton, âWhen he comes to York, he will surely burn thee,â because people came down really hard on âwell, youâll never see that cityâ in those days. Tough crowd, amirite?
Ursula responded by throwing her handkerchief on the fire and proclaiming that âif this burns, so shall I.â
Do I really need to say what happened next? Of course the fucking handkerchief didnât burn. The noblemen were suitably impressed despite the lack of bunnies being born, and asked for their fortunes. Ursula told the Duke of Suffolk, âMy love, the time will come when you will be as low as I am and I am a low one indeed.â
Years later, he was beheaded. Jesus Christ, Mother Shipton. Why didnât you just make a âDonât get ahead of yourself!â joke to the guy. Or tell him something USEFUL.
Lord Percy was even worse off, since he was told what would happen to his body. âShow your horse in the quick, and you do well, but your body will be buried in York pavement and your head will be stolen from the bar and carried into Franceâ. I guess this was popular with Frenchmen at the time. Lord Percy was beheaded in 1572 and his head was mounted on a spike at York. It was later stolen by the French.
Finally, Lord Darcy got his turn and was told: âYou have made a great gun! Go and shoot it off, for it will do you no good. You are going to war and you will pain many a man, but you will kill none.â No, she wasnât flirting with the man, or insulting his manhood (although Iâd definitely be a little pissed if some woman insulted my âgreat gunâ which is plenty great, Iâll have you know). Lord Darcy was a soldier. He participated in the Pilgrimage of Grace, also known as a really big fucking revolt of northern England against economic and religious reform of King Henry VIIIâs government. 230 men were beheaded. Darcy was one of them.
As for the Cardinal? Well, he did try to get to York, but he was stopped eight miles away and arrested instead. He was charged with high treason and taken to London but died along the way. After her death, Shiptonâs prophecies were published, supposedly because people really dug this stuff. They were published several times, in various editions.
Most disconcertingly of all were Shiptonâs deathbed words:
Carriages without horses shall goe,
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling of an eyeâ¦.
Under water men shall walk,
Shall ride, shall sleep and talk;
In the air men shall be seen,
In white, in black and in greenâ¦.
Iron in the water shall float,
As easy as a wooden boat.
The world to an end shall come,
In eighteen hundred and eighty one.
If youâll look to your left, then to your right, then in nine other directions, youâll realize that the world is
still here.
After 1881, other people also noticed this and quickly amended Shiptonâs books of prophecies to read 1981. Iâm not completely positive, but in 2081, weâll probably still be giggling over this.
You see, it turns out that her prophecies were made
after the thing they predicted had already happened. For instance, her prophecy about the Cardinal? It was first recorded in 1641 which, you will note is after the Cardinal died in 1530). Her prophecies about the future coming to an end were printed in 1862. Charles Hindley, the editor of the 1862 edition, later admitted to making up that one. And several others.
In fact, it could be that Mother Shipton herself never existed at all. Her biographer, Richard Head, invented many details of her life himself.
So, yeah. Donât stress too much about it, alright?
Mary Toft and the Rabbit Babies
No, youâre reading that correctly. I did not accidentally reverse those two nouns. Rabbit babies. Not baby rabbits, so you know that this is getting off to a particularly fuckworthy start.
On one September evening (because thereâs no way she tried to pass this off in daylight, Iâm sure) in 1726, Mary Toft reported that she was giving birth to rabbits. As in small furry mammals with big floppy ears and a tendency to hop around. The local surgeon, John Howard, (possibly because he had nothing better to do or was somehow convinced that this really was actually happening) rushed over and was amazed to find out that, yes, the woman really was pushing out parts of rabbits through her vagina.
Iâll repeat that. She had
parts of rabbits in her crevasse. John Howard, instead of proclaiming âBullshittery on the hoof!â and then going off to do doctory things, practically wet himself with excitement. I mean, this was pretty awesome in 1726 (or any time, really). He wrote to some of the best scientific minds at the time, who similarly got holy!shit boners over Mary Toft and her rabbit babies. And other animal bits as well, including bits of cats, eels, and only God knows what else. Basically, anything she could possibly shove into herself.
Mary claimed that she had recently miscarried and that, while pregnant, she had really, really wanted rabbit meat (also known as Guilt for the feeling one gets after one realizes that one just ate a cute and fuzzy creature). She was unsuccessful in this venture and, later that night, dreamt that there were rabbits in her lap. Later on, she started giving birth to them. At the time, it was commonly believed that a pregnant motherâs experiences could be implanted on the unborn baby. Pregnant women were discouraged from becoming too attached to family pets, out of the worry that their babies would come to resemble the aforementioned pets.
It gets weirder. While in the presence of several doctors, she went on to give birth to
more rabbits, which must really be raising questions now. Instead of questioning things (like how many fucking rabbits there were in there and how there could possibly be room enough for all of them), the doctors continued pissing about. One doctor did perform a test on one of the rabbit lungs; he placed it in water to see if it floated. Since it did indeed float this meant that the rabbit must have breathed air at some point and thus could not have been in the womb.
Naturally, the doctors ignored this because it just wasnât as awesome as rabbit babies.
In November, when Mary was brought to London, she was kept under close surveillance (because, shit, she was popping out RABBITS; no one wanted to miss a thing, you know?). Suddenly, she stopped giving birth to little abominations and people began wondering why (which is really something they should have been wondering a while back, honestly, but hey, they were being ruled by a man who refused to learn English).
Eventually, people began coming forward and saying that they had brought rabbits to Mary. After one doctor told her that he really wanted to see her uterus, Mary decided, âHoshit, Iâmma tell the truth nowâ.
She claimed that her desire for fame and fortune had possessed her to shove rabbit parts into herself, but surely there mustâve been easier ways. Later on, she gave birth to a healthy baby who was most definitely not a rabbit, but was most assuredly ashamed of his mother.
Sources include:
The Museum of Hoaxes
And
Strange But True: Mysterious and Bizarre People by Thomas Slemen. (Itâs really hilarious)
And Dr. Wik. E. Pedia.
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