facts + logic = truth
In Soviet Russia, Game Boys play you. The collecting-worthless-items-for-charity hoax strikes yet again. A nun in Pennsylvania has been collecting plastic bottle caps for about a year, in the belief that every 1000 caps would go towards chemotherapy for children with cancer. Conspiranoid quote of the week: “All Americans are low-level Satanists; the philosophies of... Continue Reading →
Martian plesiosaurs, Mossad sharks, and teleporting dolphins. Oh my. Felicity Lowde, convicted in 2007 of harassing 7/7 bombing survivor Rachel North, has now turned her cybertongue against Pagans and Freemasons in Bristol, speculating they may have abducted and ritually murdered Joanne Yeates in a macabre Solstice initiation ceremony. Circumstantial evidence includes the fact that some... Continue Reading →
In the world of anti-occult zealotry, Kurt Koch is something of a legend. A Lutheran pastor in Germany, he traveled the world addressing churches of nearly every denomination for over half a century, and claimed to have counseled about 20,000 people by the late '70s.I was *lucky* enough to score a copy of his most... Continue Reading →
-A peculiar website, thisman.org, is asking everyone if they have ever dreamed of a certain unknown man (pictured below in an artistic rendering). The story goes that in 2006 a psychiatrist's patient - name and location not given - dreamed of this man several times and created a picture of him for some reason and... Continue Reading →
"The Wikipediatrician", Nataliedee.com "The 10 Biggest Hoaxes in Wikipedia's First 10 Years". I like the one where the founder of Orange Julius created a shower stall for pigeons, but I notice that the really big hoaxes (like the Essjay thing) aren't mentioned. That's okay, though, because you can find most of them on Wikipedia itself.... Continue Reading →
Perpetual adolescence may sound like hell, but these folks went to astounding lengths to make it happen... Part I: James Hogue, self-educated cowboy and Ivy League track star Part II: Brian McKinnon and other fake students Part III: Predatory Fake Teens Part IV: Serial Teen Treva Throneberry, the female Peter Pan Part V: Frederic Bourdin,... Continue Reading →
I'm sure you've heard all the Arizona shooting theories by now, but here they are anyway: Jared Loughner was a Manchurian Candidate, he's a white supremacist, he's a right-wing nut, he's a left-wing nut, and he sacrifices oranges to Satan. What's weirder than Ken Kesey insisting most of his neighbors were aliens? Damned if I... Continue Reading →
Before moving on to 2011, I have one last fake teen tale for you. I've saved the most unsettling one for last, probably because I don't even like thinking about it. Please proceed with caution.Place: Kurim, Czech RepublicTime: May 10, 2007In some ways, Moravia is the perfect setting for a tale of Gothic horror. The... Continue Reading →
Spoiler warning: This post contains complete spoilers for the film Catfish. Caught The Truth 2.0 In 2007, 22-year-old New York photographer Yaniv "Nev" Schulman received an adorable Myspace message from a young girl in Michigan. Abby Wesselman, 12 years old, wanted to show him some of her paintings, including one based on one of his... Continue Reading →
One of the following two stories ends in tragedy. The other ends somewhat happily for everyone. But both shine a bright light into the depths of online deception. I see these cases not so much as suspense thrillers (like the documentaries made about them), nor cautionary tales (as the media presents them), but as reminders... Continue Reading →
Swallowing The Camel 