Page 79 - July - August 2019 - v3_june_july_2009_Neat

10 Famous Paranormal Hoaxes 79

10 Famous Paranormal

Hoaxes

Continued from Page 78

07. '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.
paranormalists across Europe have pointed to 04. The Feejee Mermaid
The most famous photographic "proof"
Fentz's miraculous appearance -- a 19th-century
of the Loch Ness monster is a blurry 1934 image man in 20th-century Times Square -- as proof of
known as the "surgeon's photo." The iconic On the ceiling of the Viktor Wynd Museum of
the existence of time travel. Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History in
image, supposedly snapped by respected doctor
But the true origin of the Fentz legend London, is a Fijan Merman, which bears a
R. Kenneth Wilson, shows the shadowy profile
was a short story published in Collier's magazine strong resemblance to the Feejee Mermaid.
of a creature, its long neck outstretched above
in 1951 by science-fiction writer Jack Finney. Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
the water. The powerful image served as de facto
The tale was republished in a paranormal journal P.T. Barnum may or may not have
proof of the mythical animal's existence since its
two years later without attribution to Finney and uttered the infamous phrase, "There's a sucker
original publication in London's Daily Mail.
presented as fact [source: Aubeck]. From there, born every minute," but he certainly lived it.
Not until 1994 did a series of revelations
the case of the accidental time traveler took on a Barnum was the perhaps the best-known
bring the real story behind the "surgeon's photo" life of its own.
to light. The creature was in fact a model built Victorian-era huckster to enthrall the public with
outrageous specimens of odder-than-life humans
atop a toy submarine, part of an elaborate hoax
05. British Crop Circles and mythical creatures.
perpetrated by a big-game hunter named
One of Barnum's earliest sensations was
Marmaduke Wetherell [source: Lyons].
In the 1980s, a series of increasingly intricate the so-called "Feejee Mermaid," purported to be
Wetherell held a grudge against the Mail, which
patterns emerged in the barley and wheat fields the preserved remains of a real-life mermaid
had hired him in 1933 to track down the Scottish
of surprised farmers in Wiltshire, England. captured in the Bay of Bengal. In 1842, Barnum
monster. He was publically humiliated when he
Dubbed "crop circles," the breathtaking, displayed the creature in his American Museum
mistook phony hippo tracks for Nessie's
unexplained formations drew crowds of on Broadway in New York City, where it drew
footprints.
gawking tourists and intense speculation about crowds of onlookers [source: Ringling Bros.].
Wetherell's 93-year-old step-son
their origin. The Peabody Museum of Archeology
confessed to building the makeshift model for
Cerelologists -- as serious crop circle and Ethnology at Harvard University got its
his father, who was able to convince the
junkies are known -- hypothesized that the hands on a specimen called the Java Mermaid in
otherwise honorable Dr. Wilson to deliver the
circles, which always appeared overnight, were 1897; it's thought to be the "Feejee Mermaid"
photo to the newspaper [source: Lyons].
either landing pads for alien spacecraft, coded [source: Early].
messages from a higher intelligence or symbols The museum staff tracked down the true
06: The Case of the Accidental Time
downloaded psychokinetically from the origin of the shriveled, 16-inch (40-centimeter)
Traveler
collective subconscious [source: Jenkins]. It creature, which is not simply a monkey head
helps that Wiltshire is also home to Stonehenge, stitched to a fish body, as many had speculated.
One night in 1950, a strange figure appeared in the original alien art project. It turned out to be a souvenir handicraft made by
the middle of a traffic-clogged intersection in Only Doug Bower and Dave Chorley Southeast Asian fishermen and sold to tourists as
New York City's famous Times Square. He wore knew the real story. The drinking buddies and a little mermaid. The body parts are a mix of
a high silk hat, a tight coat and vest, and boasted part-time watercolor artists had been making the paper-mâché and fish bones and fins but no
an admirable set of thick mutton-chop crop circles by hand -- or by foot, mostly -- since monkey skulls [source: Early].
sideburns. the late 1970s. Fueled by too many pints and a
Witnesses said the man looked startled, conversation about UFOs, the duo snuck into a 03. The Salem Witches
gawking at his surroundings as if he'd never seen farmer's field and stomped out a circular pattern
a car or traffic lights before. He bolted for the with iron rods, a flat wooden board and some The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 represent one of
curb, directly in the path of a yellow cab, which rope [source: Jenkins]. The rest is history. the darkest chapters in the history of the New
killed him instantly. It wasn't until 1991 that Bower and World, when the false accusations of a handful
When the police searched the mystery Chorley confessed their role in the artistic hoax, of teenage girls led to the execution of 20 men
man's pockets, they found 19th century which by then had grown to include legions of and women, and the death of seven others in
currency, a bill for the "feeding and stabling of unaffiliated circlemakers across England and prison, on charges of witchcraft [source:
one horse," and a business card for Rudolph around the world [source: Schmidt]. The History.com].
Fentz on Fifth Ave. Tracking down the address, cerelology community took the news in stride, The panic began when the young
they found an old woman, who confirmed that admitting the possibility that many of the circles daughter and niece of Rev. Samuel Parris of
Rudolph Fentz was in fact her father-in-law, a were man-made, but ardently defending the Salem Village were struck with a mysterious
man who had mysteriously disappeared in 1876 most elaborate and beautiful circles as illness that triggered violent contortions and
[source: Aubeck]. indisputably otherworldly creations. hysterical screaming.
Such is the story of Rudolph Fentz, the
accidental time traveler. For decades, (Continued on page 80)