Archive topic
Fabrications, mistaken identifications and media-driven stories, examined through the evidence that created, spread or corrected them.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
The Cock Lane Ghost became a public test of spirit claims, murder accusations and experimental controls. Contemporary investigators ultimately exposed deliberate production of the knocks.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
Mary Toft’s rabbit-birth claims were a documented medical hoax. The case reveals unequal power, weak observation and the speed with which professional authority can magnify a spectacle.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
The Mad Gasser episode combined sincere symptoms, ordinary odours, rumour and alarming press coverage. A coordinated chemical assailant was never established.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
Cattle-mutilation claims became a national mystery through alarming field appearances and uneven investigation. Forensic work explains many features without proving a single cause for every report.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
The 22 November 1987 intrusions interrupted WGN briefly and WTTW for about ninety seconds. An attacker probably overpowered microwave programme links; the FCC inquiry found no culprit.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
Claims made after the Lutz family’s 1975 stay became a bestselling book and film franchise. The murders in the house were real; evidence for the subsequent haunting is not reliable.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
The Black Knight is a composite legend assembled from unrelated radio experiments, Cold War tracking stories and STS-88 photographs of lost thermal insulation.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
A classic media panic case showing how a drama, late tuning and newspaper repetition turned a radio play into a durable legend.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
In 1835, newspaper readers met moon forests, lunar animals and winged people in a celebrated lesson about media, science and appetite.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
Piltdown Man fooled parts of the scientific world for decades because forged evidence appeared to fit a story people were ready to hear.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
The famous Loch Ness image became a visual shorthand for lake monsters, then a lesson in scale, cropping and media appetite.
Hoaxes, Misidentifications & Media
Two Yorkshire cousins, a camera and a set of fairy photographs became one of the most instructive image hoaxes of the twentieth century.