The Museum of Hoaxes: A History of Outrageous Pranks and Deceptions [Paperback]

I have to admit to being simultaneously disappointed and entertained by Alex Boese's The Museum of Hoaxes. While Boese certainly has researched many pranks, stunts and deceptions and writes in a breezy style, I kept wishing for more information about the hoaxes he reports (not more hoaxes, of which there are plenty). Had I come across this book in a brick-and-mortar store, I probably would not have bought it; and I have to admit that the Amazon reviewer does comment about the lack of detail. For example, the section on The Great Chess Automaton is only two rather small pages long, with no pictures. Look on James Randi's (the Amazing Randi) website for the James Randi Educational Fountation, dedicated to debunking hoaxes, physics, and the like, and you'll find two commentaries dedicated to the same topic, with several drawings which make the hoax perfectly clear. Randi's account is much more engaging, as its detail brings the story to life. Boese discusses the Loch Ness Monster and the "surgeon's photo"--but doesn't include the photo itself. The book makes good light reading, and perhaps it's greatest good is as a testiment to the fact that the media is less in the news and education business than in the entertainment business, a case which Randi also makes repeatedly. You'll probably encounter a few stories you've heard before and not realised were hoaxes or outright frauds, such as the sightings of sea monsters by the passenger ship Mauretania--a report first published in the New York Times and repeated ad infinitum in books on Cryptozoology and Fortean Phenomena, but which has entirely no basis in fact. You'll surely discover things of which you've not heard--my favorite is "The Great Monkey Hoax" hailing from my home state of Georgia, wherein a dead Capuchin monkey was doused in depiliatory cream and left in the road by two boys who claimed they'd struck it while two other "aliens" escaped in a glowing UFO. Boese has a gullibilty test in his book, which I, a confirmed skeptic, didn't do well on. And a number of famous or otherwise interesting hoaxes didn't make it into his book--including Mother Shipton, the psychic more accurate than Nostradamus but who unfortunately didn't exist, or the mermaid story which took place here in Hong Kong less than 10 years ago--a report was widely circulated in the media that a fisherman had caught a mermaid and his boat was bringing her into port. People flocked to the docks, but the boat was delayed and wouldn't be in until the next day. Still people came, but of course, no mermaid ever showed up--I don't remember what the excuse was--I think perhaps he freed the mermaid because she'd threatened him with a curse. Or the monkey man that was running around rooftops in India, supposedly assulting people, also within the last decade. Boese maintains a website where at least some of these hoaxes are written up; but like the book that site lacks detail and seems somewhat flat.

I've been waiting for this book, and now I'm delighted to have "The Museum of Hoaxes" to take with me everywhere. This is a wonderful collection of hoax stories from the Middle Ages to the Internet era, each an illustration of clever prankstering -- or astonishing gullibility. Well-written and easy to read at a page or two each, these hoaxes sometimes crack me up, sometimes make me feel smugly superior, and sometimes leave me afraid that I will soon get hoaxed myself. When I'm reading, I often find myself wanting to tell somebody about one of the incredible stories I've just found. Because the Museum is so comprehensive and thorough, there's almost a feeling of something useful about the knowledge I've acquired, all this trivia about centuries of hoaxes. It's just enough to make the pleasure entirely guiltless. This book is fabulous -- and that's no hoax!

Curator and author Alex Boese has the wide-eyed passion for discovering the curiosities in life and the scientific skepticism for finding the truth.

Amazing, unusual tales from supermarket tabloids, television, and comic books thrilled you, as a naïve kid. You lacked experience in life and failed to recognize the motives of others. As you grew wiser, you learned to hunt for the misinformation that separates what is real and what is not real, especially when you became a fraud examiner. The thrill and the hunt are well preserved and on exhibit in The Museum of Hoaxes.

Have you ever been fooled on April 1st? Do you know the name of the first female Pope? Did you ever hear a jackalope sing or a carrot whistle? Do you believe everything you read? Take the clever Gullibility Test before you start the museum tour.

Mankind has been deceived for centuries. The museum displays sensational hoaxes chronologically to offer an entertaining history of lies even your kids will like. Curator Boese explains how outrageous hoaxes attract attention and shape public opinions about democracy, religion, science, and business.

What you already know about many topics may not be the truth. Imaginative hoaxes involved Marco Polo, Benjamin Franklin, men on the moon, and Microsoft. Even Cassie Chadwick and Charles Ponzi, two "Frankensteins of Fraud," are immortalized in the museum. Find out how penny papers and Web sites caused financial disasters.

After you devour the book, explore the museum's Web site at ... . New exhibits are added daily. Enjoy the BBC broadcast of Swiss workers harvesting the pasta crop from spaghetti trees.

Established in 1997, The Museum of Hoaxes in San Diego attracts a million visitors a month. You'll want to visit more than once, and tell your friends.

Admission prices: $$$ for paperback, 288 pages, November 2003, Plume Books, New York, ISBN 0452284651; and $$$ for hardcover, 304 pages, illustrated, November 2002, Dutton Books, New York, ISBN 0525946780. Available at local bookstores and online booksellers.

Reviewed by Larry C. Adams, CFE, CPA, CIA, CISA, author of "Fraud In Other Words: Professional Jargon and Uncensored Street Slang."