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A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. Generally there is some material object involved, which is actually a forgery. Unlike a fraud or con (which usually has an audience of one or a few), which are made for illicit financial or material gain, a hoax is often perpetrated as a practical joke, to cause embarrassment, for personal aggrandizement or to provoke social change through awareness. Many hoaxes are motivated by a desire to satirize or educate by exposing the credulity of the public and the media or the absurdity of the target. Political hoaxes are sometimes motivated by the desire to ridicule or expose politicians or political institutions.

The status of a given factoid as reliable or hoax is often the subject of considerable controversy.

The word hoax came from the common pretend magic incantation hocus pocus. "Hocus pocus", in turn, is commonly believed to be a distortion of "hoc est corpus" ("this is the body") from the Latin Mass. Many etymologists dispute this claim.

Contents 1 Historically important hoaxes 2 Hoax traditions 3 See also 4 External links

Historically important hoaxes

• The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a major influence on contemporary conspiracy theories concerning global domination, instrumental in the surge of anti-Semitism during the last hundred or so years.
• Orson Welles' Mercury Theater radio broadcast on October 31, 1938, entitled "The War of the Worlds" has been called the "single greatest media hoax of all time," although it was not intended to be a hoax. The broadcast was heard on CBS radio stations throughout the United States. Despite repeated announcements within the program that it was a work of fiction, many listeners tuning in during the program believed that the world was being attacked by invaders from the planet Mars. Rebroadcasts in South America also had this effect.
• Bathtub hoax, perpetrated by American journalist and satirist H. L. Mencken in 1918, was cited as factual even after hoax had been revealed by the author.
• Great Moon Hoax, which helped to establish the market position of the New York Sun.
• Our First Time in 1998 was perhaps the first great Internet hoaxes (although some characterized it as a botched scam).
• The northwestern US state Idaho is the only state to be named as the result of a hoax. Lobbyist George M. Willing suggested the name, claiming it was a Native American term meaning "gem of the mountains." It was later discovered that Willing had made up the word himself. As a result, the original Idaho Territory was renamed Colorado. Eventually, the controversy was forgotten and the made-up name stuck.
• The Sokal hoax was a fake paper in a respected social sciences journal mean to reveal the abusive use of scientific terms in left-leaning philosophical texts of the so-called postmodern school.
• The Piltdown Man fraud caused some embarrassment to the field of paleontology when apparently ancient hominid remains discovered in England in 1912 were revealed as a hoax some 41 years later.

Hoax traditions

During certain events and at particular times of year, hoaxes are perpetrated by many people and groups. The most famous of these is certainly April Fool's Day, which is open season for pranks and dubious announcements.

A New Zealand tradition is the capping stunt, wherein university students perpetrate a hoax upon an unsuspecting population. The Acts are traditionally executed near graduation (the "capping").

Mexico and many Spanish-speaking countries have Innocent's Day, on December 28, to make "innocent" a person with jokes and hoaxes. The origin for the pranking is derived from the Catholic feast day Day of the Holy Innocents for the infants slaughtered by King Herod at the time of Jesus' birth.

See also

• List of hoaxes
• Famous April Fool's Day jokes
• Forgery
• Counterfeit
• Impostors
• Anomalous Phenomenon
• Conspiracy Theory
• Urban Legends

External links

• Museum of Hoaxes
• idiosyntactix's culture jamming page
• List of miscellaneous Hoaxes & Pranks
• TREND Micro(tm) Hoaxes
• Hoax
• Virus Hoax Busters
• US DOE Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) Hoaxbusters Web Page
• Snopes.com Urban Legends Reference Pages
• Save the Rennets hoax
• Identity theft prevention

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