July 2020
July 31, 2020
$10,000 handshake
Must have been quite a handshake.
Redlands Daily Facts - June 30, 1977
Posted By: Alex - Fri Jul 31, 2020 -
Comments (1)
Category: Lawsuits, 1970s
Accidental Prophets
From 1966.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jul 31, 2020 -
Comments (8)
Category: Fashion, Technology, Telephones, Zeitgeist, Advertising, Anomie, Exhaustion, and General Malaise
July 30, 2020
Burger King’s Secret Ingredient
It's people!!!
Tallahassee Democrat Sun - Feb 28, 1999
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jul 30, 2020 -
Comments (6)
Category: Cannibalism, Advertising, Junk Food, 1990s
Chief Long Hair
The modern-day Vietnamese man named Tran Van Hay reputedly had hair "over 22 feet long."
Other modern record-holders are in the 18-ft range.
But they can't hold a patch to Chief Long Hair of the Crows.
Itchuuwaaóoshbishish/Red Plume (Feather) At The Temple (born ca. 1750, died in 1836) A Mountain Crow leader during fur trade days and signer of the 1825 Friendship Treaty. Traders and trappers called him Long Hair because of his extraordinarily long hair, approximately 25 feet long. At his death, his hair was cut off and maintained by Tribal leaders.
Now because Long Hair lived before photography, there is no visual record of this. However! Supposedly his tresses are part of the exhibit at Chief Plenty Coups State Park in Montana. (Plenty Coups was a descendant of Long Hair.)
Source of quote.
If any WU-vie is passing by the museum, perhaps he or she can confirm!
Here's a photo of another Crow tribe-member named "Curley."
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jul 30, 2020 -
Comments (1)
Category: Human Marvels, World Records, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Hair and Hairstyling, Native Americans
July 29, 2020
Mother Heart
Japan's "crazy inventor" Hiroshi Majima invented this odd device:The tot apparently feels secure and reassured, stops yelling and drifts off to sleep without another whimper.
Bed-wetting is also greatly reduced, inventor Majima finds.
"Mother Heart" now sells abroad, not just on Japan's domestic market alone. Ready-made markets, Majima says, have been found in the Mediterranean countries, like France, Italy, and Spain, where mothers are especially close to their infants, and vice versa.
Allentown Morning Call - Sep 16, 1965
We previously featured another one of Majima's strange inventions on WU: the Cat Mew Machine.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jul 29, 2020 -
Comments (0)
Category: Babies, Inventions, 1960s
Follies of the Madmen #484
Somehow not quite as humorous nowadays.
Source.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jul 29, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Death, Family, Photography and Photographers, 1960s
July 28, 2020
Farting in an operating room
If someone farts in an operating room, will he/she contaminate the room with germs? Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki and microbiologist Luke Tennent of Australia together devised an experiment to find out:Another source (below) claims that the 'colleague' who supplied the farts was, in fact, an eight-year-old boy:
Sydney Morning Herald - July 16, 2001
Incidentally, Dr. Kruszelnicki has been mentioned before on WU. See 'falling cats'.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jul 28, 2020 -
Comments (5)
Category: Hygiene, Flatulence, Experiments
Pronouncing the Scientific Names of Seashells of North America
You can download the MP3 files here. Note: clicking the link does not initiate the download. You choose to do so at the new page.
R. Tucker Abbott begins with a statement sure to dissuade us from listening further. "Actually, there are no official correct pronunciations of these Latin names..."
Source.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Jul 28, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Boredom, Languages, Nature, Oceans and Maritime Pursuits, 1960s
July 27, 2020
Porpoise in toilet
I've heard of alligators in the sewer, but not porpoises in toilets.I haven't been able to find out if there was ever a solution to the mystery of how a porpoise came to be in the toilet of the Glasgow train station. I'm assuming student pranksters were probably involved.
Ottawa Journal - Dec 7, 1965
Posted By: Alex - Mon Jul 27, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Fish, Bathrooms, 1960s
The Gone Away
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jul 27, 2020 -
Comments (0)
Category: Cryptozoology, Dreams and Nightmares, Food, Avant Garde, Pop Art, Surrealism, Absurdism and Dadaism
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| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
