Urban Legends - The Art of the Prank

December 29, 2009December 15, 2023

Top 10 Urban Legends of 2009

Top 10 Urban Legends of 2009
by David Emery
About.com Guide

Here, in ascending order of popularity as gauged by reader interest and site traffic, are the Top 10 Urban Legends, Rumors, and Internet Hoaxes of 2009:

ladygaga-200 10. August ‘Mars Spectacular’
Circulating for the sixth year running, this email hoax describes a “once in a lifetime” celestial phenomenon “” the closest encounter between Mars and Earth for the past 5,000 years “” which already occurred in 2003. Read more…

9. Burundanga Drug Warning
“In Katy, Texas a man came over and offered his services as a painter to a female putting gas in her car and left his card,” begins this overwrought message. “She said no, but accepted his card out of kindness and got in the car. Almost immediately, she started to feel dizzy and could not catch her breath. She tried to open the window and realized that the odor was on her hand; the same hand which accepted the card from the gentleman at the gas station.” Read more…

8. Breast Infestation
“The picture is horrible but I felt that I should share with you. After anthropologist Susan McKinley came back home from an expedition in South America, she noticed a very strange rash on her left breast. Nobody knew what it was and she quickly dismissed it, believing that the holes would leave in time. Upon her return she decided to see a doctor after she started developing intense pains. To Miss McKinley’s surprise, they found larvae growing and squirming within the pores and sores of her breast.” Read more… Continue reading “Top 10 Urban Legends of 2009”

September 29, 2009December 15, 2023

Trumpets of Doom

Submitted by W.J. Elvin III as seen on Salon.com:

Especially liked the “Bozo cult”…

The Four Horsemen send their regrets
by Gabriel Winant
Salon News
September 25, 2009

A list of failed predictions of the end of the world, including a few current theories that probably won’t pan out

In a recent poll, 8 percent of respondents in New Jersey admitted to thinking that Barack Obama is the antichrist. As in, they think the president is the Beast of Revelation, he whose coming portends the rapture, the battle of Armageddon, and the end of the world as we know it. Thirteen percent weren’t sure, perhaps waiting for more and better evidence to arrive via chain e-mail.

If you’re shocked by those stats, remember just how many Americans think the apocalypse is right around the corner. In a poll from earlier this decade, 17 percent said they expected the world to end in their lifetime. Perhaps that’s why, even though Jesus may have admonished that no man knows the day and hour, so many people can’t resist making a pseudo-educated guess about the day and hour. Continue reading “Trumpets of Doom”

April 12, 2009December 15, 2023

The Truth About Easter Eggs

Submitted by Tim Jackson, as seen on LandOverBaptist.org:

Are Your Children Playing With Lucifer’s Testicles?

lt2-200 Are Your Children Playing With Lucifer’s Testicles? (The Truth About Easter Eggs) is a wonderfully informative and well-researched Christian book which consolidates a 2-month Adult Remedial Sunday School series into two-hundred exciting and easy to read pages along with memorable illustrations. Are Your Children Playing With Lucifer’s Testicles? or “PWLT” as the book is now referred to in the Southern Baptist Sunday School Teachers catalogue takes the reader on an unforgettable journey that traces the pagan (Satanic) origins of secular (Satanic) Easter, with a specific focus on the origin of “Easter Eggs.”, Hardcover 1st Edition (April 2009)

Ordering is easy. Click here for more info.

February 27, 2009January 15, 2019

LiteratEye #3: Really Great Sermon, Sir; Could I Have Your Autograph?

Here’s the third installment of LiteratEye, a new series, only on The Art of the Prank Blog, by W.J. Elvin III, editor and publisher of FIONA: Mysteries & Curiosities of Literary Fraud & Folly and the LitFraud blog.

And, as an added treat, here’s an article about author, W.J. Elvin III, from the Cumberland Times-News that appeared this week.

LiteratEye #3: Really Great Sermon, Sir; Could I Have Your Autograph?
By W.J. Elvin III
February 27, 2009

jesus-autograph-200

It began with an innocent question posed on one of the “ask the expert” sites. Someone wanted to know the value of a Superman autograph. The kindly expert explained that Superman was a fictitious character, and that there might be some value to autographs of persons who had played the role.

That got me thinking about fictitious autographs. Not fake autographs of real people but those of, say, Sherlock Holmes or Paul Bunyon or Nancy Drew. I wondered if anyone had tried to sell such a thing.

I asked around. Oddly, the name that came up most often from dealers was “Jesus.”

Now, that poses a dilemma. Continue reading “LiteratEye #3: Really Great Sermon, Sir; Could I Have Your Autograph?”

January 4, 2009January 15, 2019

Freaky Fish — You should have seen the one that got away!

From David Emery of About.com: Urban Legends

Freaky Fish Found on a Tampa Bay Beach

Summary: Emailed photos show the carcass of a very strange fish with monstrous teeth allegedly washed up on a beach in Tampa Bay, Florida.
Circulating since: July 2006
Status: Fake

Identified in some versions of the email as a “Devil Fish,” the gruesome specimen in the preceding photographs doesn’t really exist. It’s a fine example of what is called “gaff art” “” the manufacture of sideshow artifacts or fake oddities out of the preserved body parts of real animals using taxidermy and prop-building techniques. It was first sighted in an eBay auction dated May 2006, where it was described as a “mummified sea monster corpse.” The winning bidder paid $637.

It was created by Florida artist Juan Cabana, who was also responsible for the creepy “merman or mermaid carcass” allegedly found washed up on beaches from South Africa to south Florida. Continue reading “Freaky Fish — You should have seen the one that got away!”