Author: W.J. Elvin III

W.J. Elvin III is known to many AOTP readers as author of the rollicking LiteratEye column exploring literary fakes, fraud and folly. His journalistic career focused on investigative reporting and feature writing for national markets. He wrote an award-winning Washington based \"insider\" column during the Reagan era, known on Capitol Hill as \"coffee-spilling time.\" While the column was accused of excessive reliance on a warped imagination, he asserts \"there was some truth to it.\" He has edited newspapers, newsletters and magazines, several of which survived the experience. In addition to investigative work, he has written extensively in fields ranging from antiques to national security. Despite his insistence that "I was nowhere in the vicinity at the time of the alleged incidents," Elvin has been outed as author of the anonymous "Ask the Fiddler" columns archived here. His two mystery novels, "Murder By Bay Breezes" and "Sherlock Holmes and the Eye of Mad Bear," were published by GunBoss Books and may be found on Amazon and other book dispensing sites. A second novel in the Andy Holliday mystery series is currently being hatched.
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Is Nessie an Expat?

From W.J. Elvin III: With Scotland about to vote on independence, the Loch Ness monster has fled to a more monster-friendly environment

Scots Referendum: Has the Loch Ness monster just left Scotland?
by Dave Snelling
DailyStar.co.uk
11th September 2014

Hi-tech camera spots sea creature in English lake, and it looks a lot like Nessie

Nessie in England? Photo by Ellie Williams

Scotland will decide on independence next week, but it seems one of the country’s most famous animals might have already made up its mind.

A creature, looking similar to the Loch Ness monster, has been spotted taking a dip in the Lake District.

The image was snapped on a hi-tech Autographer life camera, which automatically takes snaps throughout the day. Read the rest of this article here.

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Cicirelli Fake “Walk-about” Plays Out On Facebook

Crazy Facebook Hoax starts with unemployment, ends stranded in mexico
by Cody Permenter
The Daily Dot
August 21, 2013

Dave Cicirelli, an art director from New York City, posted on his Facebook profile in late 2009 that his life was at a standstill and something desperately needed to change. He announced his decision to quit his job and hitchhike across country, taking his laptop and cellphone to document his journey. Along the way, he fell in love with an Amish woman, joined a doomsday cult, got stranded in Mexico, and got inked up with a bowtie tattoo.

Amish1-425

Sounds like a pretty crazy adventure, right?

As with most things that sound too good to be true are, Cicirelli”s story was completely fake””an elaborate scheme played out on Facebook with the help of Photoshop. In his new book Fakebook, Cicirelli tells the story of his six-month hoax that fooled more people than he ever thought it could. Continue reading “Cicirelli Fake “Walk-about” Plays Out On Facebook”

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Eyeball-licking Craze? Really?

From W.J. Elvin III: An interesting study in mainstream media wiggling and waffling. They should have just said “We were suckered. Sorry.” But instead a lot of jabber about how they were just one of many, “maybe” dropped the ball as far as fact-checking and heeding warnings, blah, blah, blah…

The readers’ editor on”¦ how we fell into the trap of reporting Japan’s eyeball-licking craze as fact
bu Chris Elliott
The Guardian
August 25, 2013

The story was all over the web, but it was not especially difficult to cast doubts on the claim that there was an epidemic of tongue-induced pink eye

lick2-200The web is voracious. It gobbles up stories, themes and memes like a monster from outer space. With the merest puff of wind to launch them, a bewildering slew of tales take off, powered by the perpetual motion of repetition.

The Guardian was among a crowd that made the mistake of filling the sails of one of the weirder stories to take off in this way. The article appeared on the Shortcuts blog. It aims to be a fast-paced humorous column, which is described as “trending topics and news analysis”.

[Video from Huffington Post]

The headline on the story, posted on 14 June 2013, is: “Eyeball-licking: the fetish that is making Japanese teenagers sick”. The author explains that the article will be about “oculolinctus, an eye-licking fetish that is currently sweeping across the schools of Japan like, well, like a great big dirty bacteria-coated tongue sweeping across a horrific number of adolescent eyeballs “¦ oculolinctus is being blamed for a significant rise in Japanese cases of conjunctivitis and eye-chlamydia “¦ It’s apparently seen as a new second-base; the thing you graduate to when kissing gets boring.” Continue reading “Eyeball-licking Craze? Really?”

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War of the Worlds, Alabama Style

Alabama radio station”s hoax alien alert terrifies community, strains cops
by Michael Walsh
New York Daily News
September 2, 2013

Star 94.9″s prank, inspired by Orson Welles’ 1938 radio adaptation of “˜War of the Worlds,” caused some Tuscumbia to fear a takeover. The hysteria saw the police flooded with phone calls, and now the cash-strapped department has to pay officers overtime.

aliens3n-1-web-200The radio promotion was inspired by Orson Welles” radio adaptation of “˜War of the Worlds” in 1938.

Station Star 94.9 thought a mock warning of an extraterrestrial invasion would generate publicity for a programming change, but it spiraled out of control when listeners in Tuscumbia took it seriously last week.

“It’s a very innocuous promotion that got blown out of proportion,” Brian Rickman, program director for the Shoals Radio Group, told local news site AL.com.

Worried parents reportedly flooded the police with phone calls Thursday about a supposed bomb threat. Frightened children stayed home from school, and police were dispatched to several schools to calm fears.

“It may have started as something innocent,” said Tuscumbia Police Chief Tony Logan, “but it has gotten out of hand and turned into an issue concerning public safety.”

Logan said that the department needs to pay officers overtime wages for the extra time they put in even though there is not enough money in the budget, reported the Times Daily, a local newspaper.

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Anonymous No More?

Submitted by W.J. Elvin III:

High School Pals Targeted In FBI Hacktivist Probe
The Smoking Gun
August 10, 2011

Three teens eyed in “Anonymous” attack on Koch sites

A trio of high school buddies are among the targets of on ongoing FBI probe into an online “Anonymous” assault carried out earlier this year against web sites of Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, the influential Republican benefactors, The Smoking Gun has learned.

In simultaneous raids last month, federal agents searched the Long Island homes of three teenagers who have excelled academically at Bellport High School on Long Island”s South Shore. Agents removed an assortment of computer equipment from the respective homes in connection with the criminal investigation being run from the FBI”s Kansas City field office (Koch Industries is headquartered in Wichita).

As TSG reported last month, the FBI is probing a coordinated series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Koch Industries web sites in February and March. The assault–organized by the so-called hacktivist group “Anonymous”–flooded several Koch Industries web sites with so many requests that it left the sites unavailable for legitimate visitors. Continue reading “Anonymous No More?”

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