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by Marc Abrahams, Improbable Research staff
Some psychoanalysts can find meaning in the most ordinary-seeming bits of your life. Some discern it even in your intestinal rumblings. There’s a technical name for those digestive sounds: borborygmi. Several published studies tell how to interpret people’s gut feelings—how to translate those borborygmi into common everyday words.
In 1984, Prof. Dr. Christian Müller of Hôpital de Cery in Prilly, Switzerland, published a report called “New Observations on Body Organ Language,” in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomics.
“New Observations on Body Organ Language,” Christian Muller, Psychotherapy and Psychosomics, vol. 42, nos. 1–4, 1984, pp. 124–6.
Müller paraphrases a 1918 essay by someone named Willener that “concludes that the phenomenon generally known as borborygmi must be regarded as crypto- grammatically encoded body signals that could be interpreted with the help of [special] apparatus.” Müller laments that Willener’s “attempts to follow up on his theory were thwarted by the defects of recording techniques at that time.”
Happily, Müller himself had access to later, better equipment. “We have been trying at our clinic since 1980,” he writes, “to combine electromesenterography with Spindel’s alamograph, and in addition to use digital transformation for a quantitative analysis of the curves via computer.”
Müller reveals his greatest interpretive triumph:
The presence of a negative transference situation was not difficult to deduce from the following sequence: ‘Ro… Pi… le… me… 1o…’. The following translation is certainly an appropriate rendering: ‘Rotten pig. leave me alone.’
This lovely piece of deadpan, intentional nonsense, I am told, was swallowed whole by some readers, and perhaps also some journal editors.
A few years later, Guy Da Silva, a Montreal psychoanalyst, published several apparently quite serious papers about the psychoanalytical significance of borborygmi.
The most accessible (in my view, anyway) is his “Borborygmi as Markers of Psychic Work During the Analytic Session: A Contribution to Freud’s Experience of Satisfaction and to Bion’s Idea About the Digestive Model for the Thinking Apparatus.” This professionally dense monograph appeared in a 1990 issue of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. Freud is Sigmund Freud, the psychoanalysis pioneer who lived in Vienna, Austria. Bion is Wilfred Ruprecht Bion, director of the London Clinic of Psycho-Analysis in the 1950s, and later president of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.
“Borborygmi as Markers of Psychic Work During the Analytic Session: A Contribution to Freud’s Experience of Satisfaction and to Bion’s Idea About the Digestive Model for the Thinking Apparatus,” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. 71, 1990, p. 641–59.
“The Emergence of Thinking: Bion as the Link Between Freud and the Neurosciences,” Guy Da Silva, in M. Grignon (Ed.) Psychoanalysis and the Zest for Living: Reflections and Psychoanalytic Writings in Memory of W.C.M. Scott, ESF Publishers, Binghamton, NY, 1998.
“Le Modèle Alimentaire dans la Théorie de la Pensée de Bion: Suivi d’une Application de ce Modèle dans l’Analyse d’un Patient,” Guy Da Silva, Symposium of the Société Psychanalytique de Montréal, Spring 1992.
Guy Da Silva digested a little Freud together with a little Bion. He writes: “Borborygmi may signal the process and acquisition of new thoughts (symbolization) and the free associations derived from borborygmi often provide the key to the understanding of the session by linking the verbal flow of ideas to the underlying sensory and affective experience, thereby providing a ‘moment of truth’. Within the primitive maternal transference, borborygmi are often accompaniments to the fantasy or the hallucination of being fed by the analyst.”
The name Guy Da Silva will be familiar to some readers as the star of hundreds of psychologically gut-wrenching films, among them Beyond Reality 3, The Lube Guy, Attack of the Killer Dildos, and Porn-O-Matic 2000. But Guy Da Silva the actor and Guy Da Silva the psychoanalyst are not the same person, no matter how similarly stimulating their work may be.
(Title image credit: Flickr user threefatcats. Captioning via Speechable.)
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This article is republished with permission from the September-October 2009 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!
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A talking weasel on the Isle of Man was an international media sensation back in the 1930s. It was known as “the Dalby Spook” locally, but the weasel called itself Gef. The weasel -or possibly a mongoose- lived on the farm of James and Margaret Irving.
The strange events began in autumn 1931, when the Irvings noticed an unusual animal in their farmyard, being, as Price’s correspondent described: “similar in appearance to a weasel, with small body, long bushy tail, flat nose, and yellow in colour”.[3] Oddly, this animal did not appear to alarm the chickens. Later, it was seen inside the house, as James Irving described: “This eerie weasel, as I thought he might be, then began to keep us awake at night by blowing, spitting and growling behind the matchboard partition of the lower rooms…”[4]
The entity quickly progressed to something more sophisticated. Having learned to mimic various animal noises, it then began to repeat nursery rhymes, and within a short while – having built up a sufficiently wide vocabulary – it could converse with the family. Its voice is said to have been loud, clear, and one or two octaves higher than a human’s. Other witnesses describe it as a “very high, screechy sort”.[5]
Initial news reports spoke of the ‘man-weasel’ farm,[6] and indeed, the entity itself, when asked who or what he was, would frequently reply: “I am the ghost of a weasel, and I will haunt you with weird noises and clanking chains.”[7] It was only later on that he described himself as “just a little extra, extra clever mongoose”.[8]
Newspapers printed stories about Gef, although when reporters visited the farm, he tended to disappear. Some considered him a poltergeist or a shape-shifter. It was later thought that the Irving’s teenage daughter, Voirrey, provided the voice of Gef, but she never admitted to a hoax. Link
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader.
Have you ever participated in a séance or tried to contact the “spirits” using a Ouija board? You probably don’t realize it, but the modern conception of communicating with the dead only dates back to the late 1840s. Here’s the story of the hoax that started spirit-mania.
BUMP IN THE NIGHT
In 1848 a devout Methodist farmer named John Fox and his family began to hear strange noises in their Hydesville, New York, farmhouse. The noises continued for weeks on end, until finally on one particularly noisy evening, Mrs. Fox ordered the two children, 13-year-old Margaret and 12-year-old Kate, to stay perfectly quiet in bed while Mr. Fox searched the house from top to bottom. His search shed no light on the mystery, but afterward, Margaret sat up in bed and snapped her fingers, exclaiming, “Here, Mr. Split-foot, do as I do!”
“The reply was immediate,” Earl Fornell writes in The Unhappy Medium: Spiritualism and the Life of Margaret Fox. “The invisible rapper responded by imitating the number of the girl’s staccato responses.”
Mrs. Fox began to make sense of what she was hearing. “Count ten,” she told the spirit. It responded with ten raps. So she asked several questions; each time the spirit answered correctly. Next, Mrs. Fox asked the spirit if it would rap if a neighbor was present; the spirit said yes. So Mr. Fox ran and got a neighbor, the first of more than 500 neighbors and townspeople who visited over the next few weeks to watch Margaret and Kate interact with the spirit. As long as either Margaret or Kate was present, the spirit was willing to communicate.
MURDER MYSTERY
Using an alphabetic code that Margaret and Kate devised, “Mr. Split-foot” explained that in his Earthly life he’d been a peddler, murdered by the person who lived in the farmhouse. The spirit identified the killer as “C. R.” Some citizens tracked down a man named Charles Rosana, who’d lived in the house years earlier, but with no body and no evidence other than the testimony of a ghost, he was never charged.
more …
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Someone got hold of an Arizona Department of Transportation electronic sign on Fort Valley Road in Flagstaff this week, and changed the message about left turns to “Rogue Panda on Rampage.”
Authorities said there is no cause for concern.
“We want to assure all citizens of Flagstaff that there is no problem with rogue pandas,” said Lt. Ken Koch with the Flagstaff Police Department.
He does, however, encourage anybody who spots a member of the endangered species roaming Flagstaff streets to call the police department.
The sign, which had been altered in the middle of the night, was corrected by 11 AM. No suspects have been identified. The good news is that the publicity may cause motorists to read electronic signs more carefully in the future. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Jake Bacon/Arizona Daily Sun)
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.
The media’s power to “create” news has become a hot topic in recent years. But it’s nothing new. This true story, from a book called The Fabulous Rogues, by Alexander Klein, is an example of what’s been going on for at least a century. It was sent to us by BRI reader Jim Morton.
Most journalistic hoaxes, no matter how ingenious, create only temporary excitement. But in 1899 four reporters in Denver, Colorado, concocted a fake story that, within a relatively short time, made news history -violent history at that. Here’s how it happened.
THE DENVER FOUR
One Saturday night the four reporters -from Denver’s four newspaper, the Times, Post, Republican, and Rocky Mountain News- met by chance in the railroad station where they had each come hoping to spot an arriving celebrity around whom they could write a feature. Disgustedly, they confessed to one another that they hadn’t picked up a newsworthy item all evening.
“I hate to go back to the city desk without something,” one of the reporters, Jack Toumay, said.
“Me, too,” agreed Al Stevens. “I don’t know what you guys are going to do, but I’m going to fake. It won’t hurt anybody, so what the devil.”
They other three fell in with the idea and they all walked up Seventeenth Street to the Oxford Hotel, where, over beers, they began to cast about for four possible fabrications. John Lewis, who was known as “King” because of his tall, dignified bearing, interrupted one of the preliminary gambits for a point of strategy. Why dream up four lukewarm fakes, he asked. Why not concoct a sizzler which they would all use, and make it stick better by their solidarity.
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So it seems Susyj87′s briefly infamous Facebook friends tattoo was a hoax. Not only was the tattoo a fake (a transfer that only lasted a few days), but the video itself was a promo piece for a company called Pretty Social that makes custom gift items using your Facebook photos. As much as I hated the idea of a woman walking around with 152 faces permanently stamped on her arm, I hate this even more.
THE DREAM STUDENT
A store in Georgia Tech's student center is named for Burdell.
(Image credit: Wikipedia user Disavian)
George P. Burdell was a man born of a simple mistake. In 1927, someone in the admissions office at Georgia Tech accidentally sent student Ed Smith two registration forms instead of one. Sensing an opportunity for mischief, Smith filled out one form for himself and the other for George P. Burdell -a student he completely made up. When Smith arrived at the school, he kept the ruse going by enrolling Burdell in all his classes and even turning in assignments under his name. In fact, Smith did so much work on behalf of his imaginary friend that Burdell eventually graduated.
When other students found out about the hoax, they helped keep Burdell’s story going. According to his resume, Burdell flew 12 missions over Europe during World War II and served on MAD magazine’s Board of Directors from 1969 to 1981. In 2001, when Burdell was supposedly 90 years old, he nearly became TIME magazine’s Person of the Year after garnering 57 percent of online votes. Today, Burdell is one of Georgia Tech’s most celebrated alums. He even has a page on Facebook, where he keeps in touch with over 4,000 “friends.”
THE FANTASY HOCKEY PLAYER
Like many hockey players drafted in the 11th round of the 1974 NHL draft, Taro Tsujimoto never actually made it to the big time. But unlike the other players drafted with him, Tsujimoto didn’t exist. His name is in the record books because of Punch Imlach, the former general manager of the Buffalo Sabres. Imlach was so fed up with tedious late rounds of the draft that he decided to poke some fun at the league. He pulled a Japanese name from the local phone book and made up an imaginary team. Then, he simply told NHL president Clarence Campbell that his draft pick was Taro Tsujimoto of the Tokyo Kahanas. Sure, no one had ever heard of Tsujimoto, but that didn’t stop the NHL from making the selection official. Several weeks later, Imlach revealed his prank, but Sabres fans didn’t care. For years after the draft, Buffalo crowds would break into chants, demanding, “We want Taro!” (Image credit: twoeightnine design)
THE FICTION CRITIC
Very few film critics had anything nice to say about Rob Schneider’s 2001 comedy The Animal. One exception: movie reviewer David Manning of the so-called Ridgefield Press, who called the movie “Another winner”! In reality, Sony marketing executives created the fictional critic to promote the company’s worst films. In fact, The Animal was just one of many box office bombs that Manning enthusiastically praised. He also lent his critical support to Hollow Man, Vertical Limit, and The Patriot.
After reading about the deception in Newsweek, two California movie lovers, Omar Rezec and Ann Belknap, decided to sue Sony. They filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all filmgoers who saw the movies based on Manning’s “reviews.” In the end, Sony settled out of court, paying real money to anyone duped by the fake critic.
THE ELUSIVE ARTIST
Sometimes life imitates art, and sometime life mocks it. In 1998, Scottish novelist William Boyd wrote a book called Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960. The book was pure fiction but Boyd released it as a biography because he wanted to see how long it would take the art world to figure out that Tate never existed. To help sell the story, Boyd enlisted some powerful friends, including author Gore Vidal (who is liberally quoted throughout the book) and rock star David Bowie. When the book debuted, Bowie threw a huge party in Tate’s honor, inviting the most elite members of New York’s art scene. Journalist David Lister, who knew that Tate was fake, made the rounds at Bowie’s party and asked people what they thought of the artist. When they inevitably spoke of their familiarity with his work, Lister would hear them out, then let them in on the joke.
THE MYSTERIOUS ABORIGINES
In the early 1990s, two Australian artists had the same bad idea completely independently: to sell their work by pretending to be Aborigines.
One of the two artists was Leon Carmen, a cab driver living in Sydney. He invented a new identity for himself as Wanda Koolmatrie, an Aboriginal woman abducted from the bush in the 1950s and forced to live in white society. Carmen wrote an autobiography as Koolmatrie, and the book went on to win praise for its “distinctive new voice.” But when Carmen tried to write a sequel in 1997, the publisher caught on, and the incident became a national scandal.
The other artist, painter Elizabeth Durack, had more luck with her fake identity. In 1994, she began signing her work Eddie Burrup, supposedly a male, Aboriginal ex-convict. The paintings were selected for indigenous art exhibitions and won numerous prizes. But when the paintings began to draw serious interest from art collectors, Durack revealed herself as Burrup, claiming that she understood Aborigines well enough to paint as one of them. Aborigines disagreed, and they demanded that galleries stop selling her work. Strangely, the artist continued to paint as Burrup until her death in 2000.
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The article above, written by Adam K. Raymond, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the March-April 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!
Sir John Frederick William Herschel
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader.
No, not the one about the Hollywood studio and all that -the other one.
A WALK ON THE MOON
On August 25, 1835, the first of a series of front-page article was published in the Sun, a two-year-old newspaper in New York City. The subject was Sir John Frederick William Herschel, one of the most respected scientists of his day, especially in the field of astronomy. He’d already identified and named seven moons of Saturn and four of Uranus, and had received numerous awards for his work, including a British knighthood. The information for the article came from the Edinburgh Journal of Science and a Dr. Andrew Grant, who had recently accompanied Dr. Herschel to South Africa, where they were mapping the skies of the Southern Hemisphere. To do the job properly, Herschel had built a massive telescope -the lens was 24 feet in diameter- that operated “on an entirely new principle.” It was all very scientific and complicated.
The first article didn’t reveal much, but over the next six days readers received some amazing news. In the course of his investigations with the new device, Hershel had aimed his new telescope at the moon. The scope was so powerful that looking through it was almost like standing on the lunar surface, enabling Herschel to make an astonishing discovery: The moon was teeming with life. And not just plants -there were animals running all over the place.
EXPERTS AGREE
Extraterrestrial life was a hot topics in the early 1800s. Telescopes were getting larger, and astronomers were discovering more and more stars, moons, planets, comets, nebulae, etc. Along with these discoveries some claims -sometimes from respected astronomers- that it was only a matter of time before life was discovered on other planets. One especially popular book at the time was Christian Philosopher, or the Connexion of Science and Philosophy with Religion, by Scottish scientist and minister Thomas Dick, first published in 1823. In it, Dock estimated (somehow) that there were roughly 21 trillion inhabitants in our solar system -4 million of whom lived on the moon!
MOON BATS
Over the six days, the Sun’s readers learned even more new information about the moon. A few examples: The lunar surface is covered in forests, lakes, rivers, and seas, inhabited by spherical creatures that rolled across the beautiful beaches, blue unicorns that wander the mountains, and two-legged beavers that live in huts and use fire. But there was one even more outlandish claim: There are intelligent humanoids on the moon -about four feet tall, largely covered in hair, with faces that are “a slight improvement upon that of a large orangutan.” And they have wings. They spend their time flying around, eating fruit, bathing, and talking with each other. Herschel gave them the scientific name Vespertilio-homo, or “man-bat,” and said they were actually civilized.
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Some of these cases are more bizarre than others. People can fake illness, and can be pretty good at fooling family, friends, and medical practitioners. But the story of Mary Toft was totally over the edge.
Toft captured the imagination of England when she “gave birth” to several rabbits and parts of other animals in the presence of numerous physicians and skeptics. The charade went on for months, perpetuated by daily newspapers, which were still a novelty. And back then, every newspaper resembled the Weekly World News, in which Bigfoot attacks are every bit as newsworthy as local politics.
It’s true that physicians confirmed the story, although they were under political pressure to do so. Read this story and more at Cracked. Link
Herschel Geguzin was born in Lithuania, but he eventually became Prince Michael Alexandrovitch Dmitry Obolensky Romanoff, the toast of Hollywood. His extensive travels, friendships, and brushes with the law left him with enough experiences to pull the wool over the eyes of many wealthy Americans. However, many others saw through him or found out about his masquerade, and didn’t mind because he was so entertaining! Actor David Niven remembered the prince:
Niven, who was himself a man of preternatural charm and roguish tendencies, recognised a kindred spirit, and his account of Mike is notable for its penetrating insights. For Niven, the root of Prince’s unquestionable likeability was a humorous talent for the not-quite-plausible improvisation, the half-truth and the flamboyant gesture. When the British actor left Hollywood for Britain in 1939 to fight Hitler, Mike delighted in discussing his own alleged experiences of war, making him a present of a hand-knitted balaclava helmet (“Saved me near St Petersburg, old boy”) and a large blue and white spotted scarf with a burn in the centre (“mustard gas… Cambrai… silk is the only thing against it.”) The balaclava helmet Niven lost, but the scarf he kept long enough to consult a laundress about the mysterious mark of mustard gas it bore. “She told me that careless ironing was responsible for the burn.” [Niven p.154]
Eventually Romanov went legit and opened a restaurant in Beverly Hills that catered to his famous friends, many of whom invested in the business. How Romanoff achieved such acclaim is a fascinating story. Link
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Spanish police have arrested an unnamed woman who faked her own kidnapping. She sent a photograph of herself with her hands and feet tied, along with a ransom demand of 20,000 euros.
The ransom request was repeated in later text messages as well as warnings that the man not go to police, which he ignored.
Police launched a search and spotted her car, which they followed to a shopping mall in the town of Gandia on the Mediterranean coast.
“The woman, who was travelling alone and was in perfect health, was the supposed victim of the kidnapping,” the police statement said.
At first she told police that she had been released that morning but later confessed to faking her abduction “to find out what her husband would be willing to do for her”.
There’s no word on whether the perpetrator found her husband’s response acceptable. Link -via Arbroath
(Image created with Ransom Note Generator)
A soccer team from Togo traveled to Bahrain to play against the Bahrain national team. Bahrain not only won, they were surprised at their opponent’s lack of fitness. When the Togolese soccer authorities heard about the match, they were dumbfounded, because Togo had not sent a team to Bahrain!
Investigations were launched, and the nation’s sports minister muttered to the press about “shadowy handlers” and “mafia groups.” After what must have been a grueling piece of detective work, the investigators pinned their suspicions on Tchanile Bana, a former national-team coach who had recently been suspended for taking another fake team to a tournament in Egypt. Bana confessed, apologized, was banned from the game for three years, and insisted—maybe a little too fervently—that he had acted alone.
Of course, there’s a lot more to the story, which you can read at Slate. Link -via the Presurfer
Featuring a group of friends running on top of the water, "Liquid Mountaineering" was an international sensation on YouTube, getting more than 4.5 millions hits in just over a month. But this week it was confirmed a hoax by the shoe company prominently featured in the video. It’s a viral advertisement. But it looked so real! Popular Mechanics takes a look at the biomechanics of walking on water and why the Jesus Lizard can do it and we can’t.
Jamaican runner Usain Bolt, the current world record holder for the 100-meter sprint, ran 10.4 meters per second. But J.W. Glasheen and T.A. McMahon, two Harvard biologists who studied how the basilisk runs on water, found that in order to mimic the lizard, a human would need to run at almost 30 meters per second, “a velocity beyond human ability.” A man would also need “an average power output almost 15 times greater than the maximum sustained power output for humans.”
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by telegraph.
Get ready for a strange story of a lost Beatles album found on cassette on the other side of a portal to a parallel universe. James Richards brought the cassette back and is making all the songs available. Link -via YesButNoButYes
Adolph Hitler’s “outburst” scene from the 2004 film “Der Untergang” (“Downfall”) is an excellent example of how a cultural event can go “viral” as an internet meme. Because the original film was in German, complicated overdubbing is not required; creation of a parody can be achieved by the simple expedient of superimposing fake subtitles.
Dozens of such videos can be located with a quick search of YouTube, including ones in which Hitler reacts to sporting events, computer problems, Obama, Palin, Brett Favre, losing his home to foreclosure, the use of the term “grammar Nazis,” and even the existence of the parodies themselves. The most recent example, embedded above, has him ranting about another meme – the “balloon boy” hoax.
Link.
The following is reprinted
from The
Best of The Best of
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
Think everything you read in the newspaper or see on the news has been
checked for accuracy? Think again. Sometimes the media will repeat whatever
they're told ... and Joey Skaggs is the guy set out to prove it.
Photo: Joey Skaggs
MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO
Joey Skaggs' career as a hoax
artist began in the mid-1960s when he first combined his art training
with sociopolitical activism. He wanted to show that instead of being
guardians of the truth, the media machine often runs stories without verifying
the facts. And in proving his point, he perpetrated some pretty clever
hoaxes.
HOAX#1: A CATHOUSE FOR DOGS
In 1976 Skaggs ran an ad in New York's Village Voice for a dog
bordello. For $50 Skaggs promised satisfaction for any sexually deprived
Fido. Then he hosted a special "night in the cathouse for dogs"
just for the media. A beautiful woman and her Saluki, both clad in tight
red sweaters and bows, paraded up and down in front of the panting "clientele"
(male dogs belonging to Skaggs' friends). The ASPCA lodged a slew of protests
and had Skaggs arrested (and indicted) for cruelty to animals. The event
was even featured on an Emmy-nominated WABC News documentary. But the
joke was on them - the "dog bordello" never existed. (The charges
were dropped.)
HOAX #2: SAVE THE GEODUCK!
It's pronounced "gooey-duck" and it's a long-necked clam native
to Puget Sound, Washington, with a digging muscle that bears a striking
resemblance to the male reproductive organ of a horse. In 1987 Skaggs
posed as a doctor (Dr. Long) and staged a protest rally in front of the
Japan Society. Why? Because according to "Dr. Long," the geoduck
was considered to be an aphrodisiac in Asia, and people were eating the
mollusk into extinction. Although neither claim had the slightest basis
in fact, Skaggs' "Clamscam" was good enough to sucker WNBC,
UPI, the German news magazine Der Spiegel, and a number of Japanese
papers into reporting the story as fact.
HOAX #3: MIRACLE ROACH HORMONE CURE
Skaggs pretended to be an entomologist from Columbia named Dr. Josef Gregor
in 1981. In an interview with WNBC-TV's Live at Five, "Dr.
Gregor" claimed to have graduated from the University of Bogota,
and said his "Miracle Roach Hormone Cure" cured the common cold,
acne, and menstrual cramps. An amazed Skaggs remarked later, "Nobody
ever checked my credentials." The interviewers didn't realize they
were being had until Dr. Gregor played his theme song - La Cucaracha.
HOAX #4: SERGEANT BONES AND THE FAT SQUAD
In 1986 Skaggs appeared on Good Morning, America as a former
Marine Corps drill sergeant named Joe Bones, who was determined to stamp
out obesity in the United States. Flanked by a squad of tough-looking
commandos, Sergeant Bones announced that for "$300 a day plus expenses,"
his "Fat Squad" would infiltrate an overweight client's home
and physically stop them from snacking. "You can hire us but you
can't fire us," he deadpanned, staring into the camera. "Our
commandos take no bribes." Reporters from the Philadelphia Enquirer,
Washington Post, Miami Herald, and the New York
Daily News all believed - and ran with - the story.
HOAX #5: MAQDANANDA, THE PSYCHIC ATTORNEY
On April 1, 1994, Skaggs struck again with a 30-second TV spot in which
he dressed like a swami. Seated on a pile of cushions, Maqdananda asked
viewers, "Why deal with the legal system without knowing the outcome
beforehand?" Along with normal third dimensional legal issues - divorce,
accidental injury, wills, trusts - Maqdananda claimed he could help renegotiate
contracts made in past lives, sue for psychic surgery malpractice, and
help rectify psychic injustices. "There is no statute of limitations
in the psychic realm," he said. Viewers just had to call the number
at the bottom of their screen: 1-808-UCA-DADA.
In Hawaii, CNN Headline News ran the spot 40 times during the
week. When people called the number (and dozens did), they were greeted
by the swami's voice on an answering machine, saying, "I knew you'd
call." Skaggs later revealed that the swami - and his political statement
about proliferation of New Age gurus and ambulance-chasing attorneys -
was all a hoax. |
|
 |
The article above is reprinted with permission
from The
Best of the Best of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
The Bathroom Reader Institute handpicked the most eye-opening, rib-tickling,
and mind-boggling articles from everything they have written
over the last ten years and carefully crammed them into 576 pages of the
book.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute has published a series of popular
books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure
yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom
Reader Institute.
 |
| BONUS: BULLSH*T AND BALLS, a document about Joey Skaggs. [YouTube Clip] More: Joey Skaggs website | Art of the Prank | Article at Wikipedia | |
There’s a video clip making the rounds on the Net about a supposed school answering machine.
The story goes like this: When administrators of the Maroochydore High School in Queensland, Australia, implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for attendance and homework, parents of children with failing grades sued. The staff of the school recorded this answering message as a response:
The video clip is going viral, perhaps it strikes a chord, but unfortunately, it’s a hoax. Old Internet hands will remember a similar clip circulating back in 2002 with a different school name, the Pacific Palisades High School.
Snopes said:
In 1998 the sole high school in the Palisades Charter Schools group, the 2,400-student Charter High School, instituted an attendance policy mandating that any student absent without a valid excuse ten or more days per semester be failed, regardless of his academic achievements. One of the results of this policy was that in February 2002 forty Palisades High teachers assigned a total of 130 failing grades to students whose classwork would otherwise have merited passing grades, because those students recorded absences and tardiness in excess of the school’s stated attendance policy.
After vociferous complaints (and threats of lawsuits) from parents who contended they were unaware of, or didn’t agree with, Palisades High’s attendance policy (even though every student and parent had been informed of it), LAUSD officials said the failing marks might have to be voided because the attendance policy was not submitted to and approved by the school board. Without board approval, the school must follow the policies of the LAUSD, which states that students must be graded on the work they do and attendance may not be used as a reason to fail
them.
The staff of the Pacific Palisades High School did make the answering machine recording though it was never put on the school’s system.
Still. It’s funny. Thanks alientango!
National Geographic takes on conspiracy theorists over the Apollo moon landing. Each accusation is countered by spaceflight historian Roger Launius of the Smithsonian Institution or astronomer Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy Blog.
You can tell Apollo was faked because … only two astronauts walked on the moon at a time, yet in photographs such as this one where both are visible, there is no sign of a camera. So who took the picture?
The fact of the matter is … the cameras were mounted to the astronauts’ chests, said astronomer Phil Plait, author of the award-winning blog Bad Astronomy and president of the James Randi Educational Foundation.
In the picture above, Plait notes, “you can see [Neil's] arms are sort of at his chest. That’s where the camera is. He wasn’t holding it up to his visor.”
Tailors watch out! There’s a weird yet popular hoax going on in Saudi Arabia that set people rushing out to buy old-fashioned sewing machines for up to $50,000:
The Singer sewing machines are said to contain traces of red mercury, a substance that may not exist. But it is widely thought that it can be used to find treasure, ward off evil spirits or even make nuclear bombs.
It is believed that tiny amounts can sell for millions of dollars, the Saudi Gazette reported. The paper said that trade in the sewing machines was brisk across the country.
Now, if we can only convince them that Neatoramabot T-shirt contains the even-more-exotic purple mercury, then we’ll be set for life!
