The truth vs.The hoax

The Media and Hoaxes
Pranksters and professional frauds have always and will continue to trick mass media into reporting false facts and outlandish stories. Whether in jest, or with intent to cause serious confusion,
hoaxes promote untruths.

This blog post will examine media coverage of three hoaxes throughout American history. The Great Mammoth Hoax of 1899, Alan Abel’s 1959 appearance on the Today Show, and most recently, the 2009 “balloon boy” hoax.

Deliberate deception of the media is an issue that continues to resurface throughout time and this article will attempt to examine how it has changed over time. I will also discuss some of the motives behind hoaxes and speculate on some of the valuable lessons that can be learned from the process of uncovering the truth.

Shit they believed in 1899
An article titled “The Killing of the Mammoth” by Henry Tukeman published in the October 1899 issue of McClure’s Magazine tells the story of a man named Henry Tukeman’s journey to Alaska and describes the killing of a known to be extinct wooly mammoth. Although the story was entirely made up, many people believed it to be true. Perhaps Tukeman’s realistic sounding descriptions of the scene made it sound real. Tukeman writes about the fictional beast:

“He is throwing water over himself with his long nose, an' his two teeth stand out before his head for ten gun-lengths, turned up, an' shining like a swan's wing in the sunlight. His hair is black an' long, an' hangs down his sides like driftweed from the tree branches after the floods, an' this cabin beside him would be as a two-weeks bear cub beside its mother”


Does that sound convincing?

The following video contains exclusive footage captured in late 2009 of an
actual live wooly mammoth found in the wild...


 (i told u mammathz exist)


To some, Youtube videos are very convincing.

To others, Tukeman’s magazine article was so convincing that they believed he had seen the beast in the flesh with his own eyes. In any hoax, associations with well known institutions, government agencies, or any other trusted sources can make the hoax seem more believable. For example, in the beginning of the article he claims that the remains of the mammoth now reside in the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C. Other examples from the article lead the reader to believe that the events described had actually happened:

“We run through the reeds to the willows, an' to the timber. But once I turn, an' I can see plainly a streak of red blood on the long nose of [the mammoth], as he throws it in the air an' fills the valley with his cry. The smoke of the gun has blown across the little lake between us, an' he turns to it, an' stops, an' whistles like a steamboat when the white steam is escaping.”

Although the story was labeled fiction in the table of contents, McClure’s Magazine and the Smithsonian received many letters from people who were outraged that a mammoth had been shot. It seems silly in today’s world that people would believe this story solely based on this one piece of writing. However, in this time period, magazines articles were once one of the most influential forms of media.

The internet is now the most influential form of media

How do you feel after watching this video?



How do you feel about this man?

Jim Rogers
East Coast Spokesman for C.A.B. (Citizens Against Breastfeeding)

wait...

monica lewinsky wuz breastfed till she wuz 4 yrs old?

Outraged? Shocked? Disgusted?

Perhaps one of the most well known American pranksters, Alan Abel appeared on the May 27, 1959 episode of NBC’s The Today Show as the vice president of The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals or SINA. The group’s mission is to clothe naked animals including “pets, barnyard animals, and large wildlife” Abel writes in his initial report on the group:

“There are now over 25,000 honorary members of S.I.N.A. who have taken the pledge to clothe all animals, including those of neighbors and any strays prowling backyards. These determined moralists carry emergency animal clothing in their cars, can spot a naked animal at fifty feet, and then clothe him in twelve seconds flat!”

SINA’s slogans are “Decency today means morality tomorrow” and “A nude horse is a rude horse”. President and founder of SINA, G. Clifford Prout was played by CBS employee, actor Buck Henry. While on the show, Prout provided a mailing address for which supporters could send letters of support and received an overwhelming response.

According to internet website “The Museum of Hoaxes”, “one woman in Santa Barbara reportedly tried to donate $40,000 to the cause. Abel politely turned down the money, insisting that the bylaws of SINA forbade him from taking any money from strangers.” In his journal, Abel writes about the SINA hoax:

“A hoax, yes, but I did not initially create it as such. What I perpetrated was a living social satire, an allegory cloaked with the absurd purpose of putting panties on pets, half slips on cows and Bermuda shorts on horses. Thus, while S.I.N.A. succeeded in becoming an often discussed subject around the house and in the office, its true intention failed because hardly anyone, to my knowledge, recognized it as satire. Almost everyone thought that S.I.N.A. was seriously concerned with the horrendous task of covering up animals.”




The SINA hoax came crashing down on August 21, 1962 when Prout appeared on CBS News with Walter Cronkite. During the show CBS employees identified Prout as a CBS employee, blowing his cover as the president of the controversial advocacy group. SINA supporters, opponents, and anyone else who believed it was actually a legitimate organization had been mislead through two forms of media. First, television programs, and more specifically television interviews, were a very influential form of media at the time. Finally, for several years after the hoax was exposed, Abel continued to mail SINA newsletters to loyal supporters.

The Balloon & The Boy
On October 15, 2009, amateur scientist Richard Heene reported to authorities that he believed his six-year-old son Falcon was inside a homemade weather balloon after it was mistakenly released from his back yard. Television news networks collectively shit their pants during the live broadcast of the balloon’s flight and anti-climactic landing. The possibility of a little boy flying around in a balloon tapped into a deep part of all of our imaginations. During this time of uncertainty, it was possible to believe that either 1) an innocent child has been put in danger or 2) a childhood dream was coming true. The fiasco caused planes to be re-routed and briefly shut down the Denver International Airport.



that wuz so believeable

I watched the heavily identified flying object on live television as it landed. First responders immediatley stabbed and tethered the balloon; they crack open the alleged cockpit and the boy is nowhere to be found...only to find him later hiding in the garage.

wtf?
It would be the interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s Larry King Live that exposed it all as an attempt to gain media attention for a planned reality show. When asked why he chose to remain in hiding, Falcon’s  response shone through his father lies as his innocent voice brought the truth to light:



“You guys said that, um, we did this for the show.”

Everyone chasing the unmanned (unboyed, if you will) balloon could have been saving an actual life instead of chasing some crazy guy’s inflated tarps held together with duct tape. The story of a boy in a balloon is newsworthy but to add to the speculation of a hoax is no more newsworthy than adding speculation to philosophical argument without fully grasping the content.

A major difference between the “balloon boy” hoax of 2009 and the great mammoth hoax of 1899 is that today’s media has greatly shortened the lifespan of hoaxes. The people that read McClure’s Magazine in 1899 who believed a mammoth had been shot were misinformed for much longer than the people watching “balloon boy” on TV who believed he was in the aircraft.

Unlike the SINA hoax or the mammoth hoax, “balloon boy” was done solely to gather attention for Richard Heene’s planned reality show. Henry Tukeman and Alan Abel were not innocent but almost necessary pranksters. Their misrepresentations of the truth were either solely in jest or clever satire that pointed out problems in our society.

Richard Heene knew he could gain attention from the media by taking advantage of 24 hour news networks live television coverage. His hoax was disgraceful because it had very little positive impact on society.

However, the “balloon boy” hoax can offer us valuable info about how hoaxes will be carried out in the future. As media evolves over time there will always be clever devils making up hoaxes that will suceed in misinformg the public. They are the enemy to any credible journalist.

Luckily there will always be seekers of the truth to set the record straight.

Sources:

Abel, Alan. “Society for Indecency to Naked Animals”. Chapter 3 Abel Raises Cain

Besse, Nancy L. "The Great Mammoth Hoax". Alaska Journal 1980 10(4): 10-16.

Tukeman, Henry. “The Killing of the Mammoth”. McClure’s Magazine October 1899

museum of hoaxes