Nuketown

Hoax Central

Open Thread: Hoax Debunking Requests

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Tue, 10/24/2006 - 8:23am

I need more hoaxes to debunk. From Nuketown's search logs, I can tell that people are looking for information about hoaxes, including many hoaxes that I haven't debunked. What they're not doing, however, is telling me about those hoaxes. And there's not a lot I can do debunking-wise if I don't have the text of a hoax to investigate.

This is an open call for hoax submissions. If you have one you'd like to see debunked send the complete text of the suspect e-mail to me by emailing me at nuketown@gmail.com,

snopes.com: Eagle Scouts

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sat, 06/12/2010 - 4:30am

An email making its way around the internet is claiming that President Barrak Obama turned down the traditional presidential role of leader of the Boy Scouts of America and refuses to sign Eagle Scout congratulatory letters. Snopes.com explains that the email is bunk.

snopes.com: The Lost Day

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sat, 06/05/2010 - 4:30am

The thing I love most about urban legends is how they mutate over time. Snopes.com has an excellent debunking of one such debunking: "The Lost Day." It recounts a tale in which NASA scientists doing orbital calculations are startled to discover a day of missing time ... which a Christian follower is able to quickly explain by recounting the day the sun stood still when Jesus was crucified.

One problem: this urban legend didn't originate with NASA. Indeed, they were only added decades after the fact; the legend began in the late 1890s and has spread via fax machine, books, and church newsletters ever since, eventually making the jump to the Internet in 1999.

Bad Astronomy: Is Betelgeuse about to blow?

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Wed, 06/02/2010 - 4:30am

Is the red supergiant Betelgeuse about to go supernova, giving Earth a second sun and half of its inhabitants a nasty burn? The short answer according to astronomer Phil Plait, is that yes, Betelgeuse could go tomorrow, but if it did it's greatest impact on the Earth would be to give us a new celestial phenomenon as bright as a full moon. It's too far away to do us any real harm.

I, for one, would love to see a nebula that brilliant in the night sky. Comets are nifty, but a naked-eye nebula as bright as the moon? That's a once a thousand life time opportunity.

snopes.com: Acid Rain Warning

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sat, 05/29/2010 - 4:30am

Snopes.com debunks the claim that a "dark ring around the moon" presages a cancer-causing acid rain storm. The myth starts off claiming that this is an event that happens once every 750 years but mutates to say that the volcanic eruptions in Iceland are to blame.

Revenge of the Mars Hoax

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sun, 05/24/2009 - 4:30am

Mars is invading. Or so claims a resurrected hoax that claims that the Red Planet will soon appear as large as the Moon in the night sky. It's a tweaked version of an earlier hoax from 2003, when Mars really was at its closest approach to Earth in thousands of years ... but remained a fuzzy red dot in the night sky. Read Space.com's new debunking or check out Nuketown's original one.

mcall.com: Fake AOL e-mail billing scam reported

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Tue, 09/30/2008 - 8:03am

First: I continue to be shocked that AOL is still around.

Second, it seems those old familiar scams continue to haunt the online service. My local newspaper has a debunking of an email billing scam in which an email claiming to be from AOL arrives in the victim's email box. It says there's a problem with their account ... and that they should immediately e-mail AOL back with their account information, bank account information, etc.

At this point, I think it's safe to say we should be highly skeptical of any incoming billing e-mail, even ones we're expecting. Phishing schemes like this play with people's expectations -- they work by getting you to see what you expect to see. That causes you to trust the e-mail, and do things like mail in your credentials. If you get an e-mail from someone like AOL, your bank, Netflix or some other company you do business with, it's always best to login to their web site directly (not through any of the links in the email). If there really is an important message or account update for you, it'll be on their web site as well as in your e-mail. If you can't find it after logging in, call the company's customer service line.

Attack of the Back(seat)-Stabbing Driver!

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 8:07pm

It's like a scene out of a horror movie: an unsuspecting woman pumps gas into her car, only to be summoned inside by a gas attendant who informs her that -- horrors! -- a knife wielding lunatic is lurking in the backseat.

In truth, it is a scene from a horror movie -- the horror movie Urban Legend in fact -- and it far from being a horrifying new trend, this old tale's been with us for decades.

Anti-Harry Potter Email Confuses Satire with Satan

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Tue, 09/04/2007 - 7:36am

It was a big summer for Harry Potter. The seventh and final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, as was the fifth movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. After reading the first and seeing the second, I was reminded of a hoax I've had sitting on my hard drive for a few years, just waiting to be debunked.

It's entitled "Magic Vs Jesus" and it claims that not only is are the Harry Potter books inherently Satantic, they are also causing a mass conversion to Satanism among today's youth. And it's got the quotes to back them up.

Unfortunately for the e-mail's author, the quotes it so feverishly believes in were taken from a fictional article in the satirical webzine The Onion.

Here's the original e-mail:

Subject: Fw: Magic Vs Jesus

"Jesus died because He was weak and stupid"; this is a quote from
6-year-old Jessica Lehman of Easley, SC, after reading the HARRY POTTER BOOKS!
"Hermione is my favorite, because she's smart and has a kitty,"

The following is an email sent for the American Family Association:

Dear friend:

This is the most evil thing I have laid my eyes on in 10 years ... and no
one seems to understand its threat. The Harry Potter books are THE
NUMBER ONE selling children's books in the nation today. Just look at any Barnes

Can Preshoolers Get Drunk on Hand Sanitizer?

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Tue, 08/28/2007 - 7:36am

Can a prescooler get drunk and even die from drinking hand sanitizer? The short answer is ... yes, they can. The following e-mail describes swallowing a squirt of hand sanitizer was enough to make a four-year-old loopy and while it gets some of the specifics wrong -- namely that the child couldn't have had an 85% blood alcohol level, since .10% is enough to kill you, and she probably had a lot more than one quirt -- the general warning is valid. Most hand sanitizer contains a large percentage ethyl alcohol, which can be intoxicating and even deadly if swallowed.