Dare to Be Naive

There are some people that will believe in anything. (Cubs Fans) Others don't believe anything. (Jews) Some are in between. (Jewish Cubs Fans) Then there are those that try to exploit believers for their own gain. These people are called "heroes." Mine, at least. Hoaxes have been around longer than the fact of evolution. The best ones, some of which may have been lost to history, make you just go "Wow, that guy has balls. I mean, sure he's a douche but he really went for it." These are those hoaxes. The 6 Most Absurdly Badass Hoaxes. These people have a place in my heart, right next to Jewish jokes and impromptu White Castle runs.

6. Ponzi Scheme
The Man Behind the Greatness: Italian immigrant Charles Ponzi
The Hoax: Ponzi started telling people that postal coupons in Europe could be traded for 6 times the value in the U.S. He opened a business just for that and promised a return of double the money in 90 days. The trick was that there it would take millions of stamps and man hours to actually redeem all of the stamps, thereby losing profits. But he was just going to take their money. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Pyramid Scheme! Ponzi had over 40,000 investors and made $15 million in the mid-20s, which if inflated would be a ridiculous amount.
The Downfall: Naturally, people started investigating Ponzi and his criminal past. Once that came to light, he lost a ton of investors. Instead of just high-tailin' it out of there with the money, Ponzi was arrested and sentenced to 4 years in jail. Ironically, Ponzi lived the rest of his life poor and in Brazil going in and out of jail until he died.

5. Shattered Glass
The Man Behind the Greatness: Journalist Stephen Glass
The Hoax: Glass was a young, up and coming journalist for the liberal mag The New Republic. During his time there, little Stephen Glass wrote was truthful at all. He told stories of drinking and debauchery at a conservative action conference. He wrote falsehoods about meetings with George Bush, a DARE conference, and the Center for Science in Public interest. He had everyone so convinced that his his editor demanded apologies from those that accused him. Glass had his brother pose as a source for a story and Glass even made a website and newsletter to support his completely made up story about a hacker conference.
The Downfall: A Forbes.com reporter found the hacker article a tad bit sensational. He did his research and found that none of the people in the story existed, there was no company by the name Glass had used, and that there was never any mention of a conference. Glass told his editor he had been lied to by the hackers but his editor went to the supposed place where the conference was and found out it was closed on that supposed day. He called the source number in Palo Alto but found out that Glass had a brother at Stanford, in Palo Alto. Glass was fired immediately and a retraction was printed denouncing and apologizing for all 41 of his articles. (See more in the movie "Shattered Glass")


4. The Turk
The Man Behind the Greatness: Inventor Wolfgang van Kampelen
The Hoax: The Turk was a chess playing "machine" that could play a great game of chess against anyone. It was passed off as an automaton (robot) that could play by itself. Mind you, this was in 1770-1854. However it was really just a grand chess master controlling the pieces from underneath magnetically. That didn't stop the "robot" form beating Napoleon, Ben Franklin, and Empress Maria Theresa. It beat nobles all across Europe and even had the balls to use a letter board to communicate with its opponents. So not only was this thing beating nobility of all European countries, it was fucking trash talking too. Imagine a Queen playing and her seeing this: "Checkmate Bitch." Eventually the owner died but the machine continued to be improved by its next owners.
The Downfall: After 84 years of touring, the Turk's secrets were finally revealed in a number of newspaper articles by the son of a former owner. Although people were disappointed to learn how the machine worked, many were inspired by the machine when it was playing. Edgar Allen Poe wrote an article about it and marveled much greater men then almost any other hoax was able to accomplish. Napoleon even got livid when the machine called him a "fat stack of pancakes." Think of the unlimited insults available!

3. Dreadnought Hoax
The Man Behind the Greatness: Prankster William Horace de Vere Cole
The Hoax: Cole had 5 friends get together in London and had them put on robes as well as skin darkener and turbans. He sent a telegram to the ship stating that 5 Ethiopian princes were to visit the ship with a forged signature of the Foreign Office Secretary. Then Cole managed to get them a VIP train to take them near the ship. When they arrived at the ship, an honor crew was there with a Zanzibar flag and playing the Zanzibar national anthem. (they couldn't find an Ethiopian flag) The group of "royals" handed out cards with Swahili on them and talked in broken Latin. The royals even gave out fake military honors to the British Navy commanders. One of the members even sneezed off his fake mustache but put it back on before anyone noticed.
The Downfall: Well, Cole got away with it. The story was published in British newspapers and no doubt embarrassed the British Navy. They called for Cole's arrest but he had broken no law. The Navy did send someone to cane him for the action but Cole's response to that was, displaying signs of badassery rarely seen, that it was the Navy officer who should get caned for being fooled so easily. Bravo.

2. Howard Hughes Bio
The Man Behind the Greatness: Journalist Clifford Irving
The Hoax: Billionaire Howard Hughes was a bit of a recluse who led a very intriguing life. However, nobody was ever able to get an autobiography, as he would just buy them off. Clifford Irving, believing that Hughes was so detached from public life that he wouldn't sue, began forging letters in Hughes name and sent them to McGraw Hill Publishers. McGraw Hill gave him $765,000 for the project, with $100,000 going to Irving. Irving got expenses paid trips to all over the world to conduct "interviews" with Hughes. In reality, he was visiting his mistresses and writing the interviews himself. He handed in the manuscript with "notes" with Hughes' handwritings, which were declared authentic by forensic analysts. He also passed a lie detector test and went through many public interviews.
The Downfall: Eventually, Hughes climbed out of his hole and called the outside world, declaring he had never met Irving, who said the voice was an impostor. A day later, Irving and McGraw Hill were sued by Hughes. Also, Swiss authorities found a bank account under "H.R. Hughes" that was used to embezzle the money. He was indicted for fraud and served 17 months in prison, where, according to Wikipedia "He stopped smoking and started weightlifting." Good for you, Irving!

1. Strip Search!
The Man Behind the (in this case) Creepiness: Correctional Officer David Stewart
The Hoax: For about a decade, Stewart was calling restaurants posing as a police detective and convincing the managers to strip search their female employees. He did this successfully 70 times in 30 States. Usually they were fast-food restaurants in small towns, where there was more trust. Let me just give you some examples here, otherwise you might not grasp how insane this actually was: A McDonald's in Georgia had the janitor perform a body cavity search (all holes, people) on a 19-year old cashier. A Taco Bell in Pheonix had a customer strip searched for drugs. A CUSTOMER! A McDonald's manager in Kentucky striped herself down in attempt to lure a sex predator customer into molesting her and having undercover agents arrest him. Um, yeah, all the customer did was get to see some titties. An McDonalds employee celebrating her 18th birthday in her first hour on the job was forced to strip, jog naked, and assume embarrassing nude positions like getting down on all fours and bending over. An Applebee's employee went through a 90-minute search of her body (nude, of course) by the manager after the "regional manager" called and ordered it. The manager of the Applebee's had received a memo warning him about it a week before, still did it, and is now presumably begging for change in Iowa, which is like begging for food in Africa.
The Downfall: After all these, and many many more, a McDonald's incident in Kentucky got the perpetrator caught. The caller got the manager to strip an employee down to only her apron in attempt to find stolen goods. The manager left her office and tried to get other employee's to watch her, but even McDonald's employee's have more integrity than that and all refused. The manager called her fiance in to watch the girl. Alone with her, the caller told Nix to remove her apron and assume degrading positions. The 90lb girl refused, but was slapped on the butt leaving welts to get her to comply. The caller got him to force her to kiss her and then perform oral sex on the man. The manager, his FIANCE, kept entering the room but left without any attempt to stop it. The manager called the store manager, who denied any knowledge and a employee, thinking on his greasy feet, dialed *69 to try and get the number which they did. The police found surveillance video of the caller and identified him. The fiance received 5 years in jail for sexual assault, the manager received probation (using the Nuremberg defense), and the caller, David Steward, was found not guilty. The victim received $6 million in a lawsuit and the manager, for some ridiculous reason, received $1.1 million which is like retirement for a McDonald's worker.
WHAT. THE. FUCK!
This just goes to show that people will obey authority out of fear, no matter how bad (or good, in the case of the oral sex) it makes them feel.



Whoo. Quite ridiculous. Some hoaxes are really genius, even if it is in a extremely twisted and creepy way. Since that last one was a bit of a downer, to say the least, I'll try and lighten up your mood before I leave you for a while. With that said, I'll leave the man himself, Gus Johnson to sign (or sing) me off to the only band I'd want a black basketball announcer to sign me off to: ABBA. Later, messieurs et mesdames.