Page 25 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Jan-Feb 2018, Vol 27, No 1

10 Famous Paranormal Hoaxes 25

10 Famous Paranormal

Hoaxes

Continued from Page 24

7. 'Surgeon's Photo' of the Loch Ness
Monster

The legend of the Loch Ness monster has
captivated northern Scotland for over 1,500
years. Carvings of a flippered beast with an
elongated head are etched into the ancient
standing stones near the massive lake south of
Inverness [source: Lyons].
However, the hunt for "Nessie" reached
a fever pitch in the 1930s, when a newspaper
report of an "an enormous animal rolling and
plunging on the surface" prompted thousands of
tourists to flood the area hoping to catch a
glimpse of the Jurassic beast.
The most famous photographic "proof"
of the Loch Ness monster is a blurry 1934
image known as the "surgeon's photo." The
iconic image, supposedly snapped by respected
doctor R. Kenneth Wilson, shows the shadowy
profile of a creature, its long neck outstretched paranormalists across Europe have pointed to were man-made, but ardently defending the
above the water. The powerful image served as Fentz's miraculous appearance -- a 19th-century most elaborate and beautiful circles as
de facto proof of the mythical animal's existence man in 20th-century Times Square -- as proof of indisputably otherworldly creations.
since its original publication in London's Daily the existence of time travel.
Mail. But the true origin of the Fentz legend 4. The Feejee Mermaid
Not until 1994 did a series of revelations was a short story published in Collier's
bring the real story behind the "surgeon's photo" magazine in 1951 by science-fiction writer Jack P.T. Barnum may or may not have uttered the
to light. The creature was in fact a model built Finney. The tale was republished in a infamous phrase, "There's a sucker born every
atop a toy submarine, part of an elaborate hoax paranormal journal two years later without minute," but he certainly lived it. Barnum was
perpetrated by a big-game hunter named attribution to Finney and presented as fact the perhaps the best-known Victorian-era
Marmaduke Wetherell [source: Lyons]. [source: Aubeck]. From there, the case of the huckster to enthrall the public with outrageous
Wetherell held a grudge against the Mail, which accidental time traveler took on a life of its own. specimens of odder-than-life humans and
had hired him in 1933 to track down the
mythical creatures.
Scottish monster. He was publically humiliated
5. British Crop Circles One of Barnum's earliest sensations was
when he mistook phony hippo tracks for
the so-called "Feejee Mermaid," purported to be
Nessie's footprints.
In the 1980s, a series of increasingly intricate the preserved remains of a real-life mermaid
Wetherell's 93-year-old step-son
patterns emerged in the barley and wheat fields captured in the Bay of Bengal. In 1842, Barnum
confessed to building the makeshift model for
of surprised farmers in Wiltshire, England. displayed the creature in his American Museum
his father, who was able to convince the
Dubbed "crop circles," the breathtaking, on Broadway in New York City, where it drew
otherwise honorable Dr. Wilson to deliver the
unexplained formations drew crowds of crowds of onlookers [source: Ringling Bros.].
photo to the newspaper [source: Lyons].
gawking tourists and intense speculation about The Peabody Museum of Archeology
their origin. and Ethnology at Harvard University got its
6. The Case of the Accidental Time
Cerelologists -- as serious crop circle hands on a specimen called the Java Mermaid in
Traveler junkies are known -- hypothesized that the 1897; it's thought to be the "Feejee Mermaid"
circles, which always appeared overnight, were [source: Early].
One night in 1950, a strange figure appeared in either landing pads for alien spacecraft, coded The museum staff tracked down the true
the middle of a traffic-clogged intersection in messages from a higher intelligence or symbols origin of the shriveled, 16-inch (40-centimeter)
New York City's famous Times Square. He downloaded psychokinetically from the creature, which is not simply a monkey head
wore a high silk hat, a tight coat and vest, and collective subconscious [source: Jenkins]. It stitched to a fish body, as many had speculated.
boasted an admirable set of thick mutton-chop helps that Wiltshire is also home to Stonehenge, It turned out to be a souvenir handicraft made
sideburns. the original alien art project. by Southeast Asian fishermen and sold to
Witnesses said the man looked startled, Only Doug Bower and Dave Chorley tourists as a little mermaid. The body parts are a
gawking at his surroundings as if he'd never knew the real story. The drinking buddies and mix of paper-mâché and fish bones and fins but
seen a car or traffic lights before. He bolted for part-time watercolor artists had been making the no monkey skulls [source: Early].
the curb, directly in the path of a yellow cab, crop circles by hand -- or by foot, mostly --
which killed him instantly. since the late 1970s. Fueled by too many pints (Continued on Page 26)
When the police searched the mystery and a conversation about UFOs, the duo snuck
man's pockets, they found 19th century into a farmer's field and stomped out a circular
currency, a bill for the "feeding and stabling of pattern with iron rods, a flat wooden board and
one horse," and a business card for Rudolph some rope [source: Jenkins]. The rest is history.
Fentz on Fifth Ave. Tracking down the address, It wasn't until 1991 that Bower and
they found an old woman, who confirmed that Chorley confessed their role in the artistic hoax,
Rudolph Fentz was in fact her father-in-law, a which by then had grown to include legions of
man who had mysteriously disappeared in 1876 unaffiliated circlemakers across England and
[source: Aubeck]. around the world [source: Schmidt]. The
Such is the story of Rudolph Fentz, the cerelology community took the news in stride,
accidental time traveler. For decades, admitting the possibility that many of the circles