The history of the "okolomatocnah" hoaxes

The text of the Russian UFO digest M. Gershtein N 15 / may 2001 Part 2

Any UFO in my personal experience knows with what care it is necessary to approach to messages about anomalous phenomena. Especially if it's something written in the Newspapers and magazines with color pictures. To take for them to be very careful: in most cases printed is distorted or just another hoax...

By and large, akrotiriani hoax is poison, poison to the malleable brain, in which true and false mixed into some unrecognizable blend. Even worse is when the hoax taken seriously by even the most experienced ufologists, their authority to maintain the fake. The exposure in this case, it hurts not only their reputation, but also on UFOlogy in General.

"Perhaps UFOlogy more than any other area of scientific research, from the very beginning was surrounded by false reports, wrote newsletter ASSAP (Association for the scientific study of anomalous phenomena) in the first issue for 1983. - When studying the literature it becomes apparent that most of the time ufologists spent on addressing counterfeit material. Its fabrication is a serious problem, which may be of interest to psychologists and sociologists. For the ufologist it is only a side-interest..."

That killed the main time ufologists, is a very serious problem, rooted far in the past. After the first "akrotiriani" hoax about aliens and extraterrestrial life appeared long before the birth of the term "UFO"...

The new York sun in 1835 in 615-619 rooms put a report about an astronomical discovery of great importance. A series of articles with complete thoroughness and scholarship befitting the cold objectivity expounded a scientific sensation.

Herschel, the great English astronomer, the government was sent to South Africa to conduct astronomical observations. The official report was not yet ready, so reports the sun, but managed to get notes of Dr. Grant, a research assistant scientist. Since we are talking about the most fascinating discovery of the century, the "San" considered it his duty first to inform its readers.

Herschel under the greatest secret made a telescope, which had managed to distance between Earth and the Moon optical cut like up to a hundred yards. The telescope consisted of lenses with a magnification of 42,000 times, and the microscope and the projector, cleverly connected so that the given part of the moon you could project directly on the sheet hanging on the wall.

January 10, evening, about half past nine, the time came for observations of the moon. Why? On the screen opened a sight hitherto unseen by the human eye: a huge basalt mountains, on the slopes of the green forest and flowering meadows. So the moon surrounded by a layer of air! The affected society was covered by volneniem: because then here on a celestial body, is still considered a lifeless, should be living beings!

The moon is slowly rotated in front of the lens of the telescope. On the screen purple fire gleamed amethyst rocks, then came the peacefully grazing herd of Buffalo. Among them, the eel curled cute animals, like our goat, but only with one horn in the middle of the forehead. As this mythical beast is in the arms of the English king, Dr. Herschel called the charming plain of the valley of the unicorn. In the night from 11 to 12 January, the sky was cloudy and the observations had to be interrupted. (What a great idea to give events a taste of the diary!). 13, the disc of the moon appeared again, and then came the surprise of surprises, a great discovery on a global scale.

Surrounded by steep cliffs valley seemed greasy, wool sheep, hundreds of sheep, like a flock without a shepherd. Exactly-in-exactly such that the British breeders exported them to the moon. The audience excitement trembled stronger. If there is moon sheep, must be the moon people!

Higher amazement was not long in coming. On the edge of the rocks had appeared a human figure. But as they go to their flocks? The lunar people have spread their huge wings and slowly planned into the valley. There they could see better. Excessive beauty to boast of they could not as tall, they barely reached four feet, the body is covered with copper colored hair, and face was almost more noble orangutan. However, greater than the earthly man, the perfection of testifying growing from the back, when folded, reaching to the ankles, webbed wings. Dr. Herschel had immediately christened them the vespertilio-homo, that is flying Michaelovich. For a while they were spinning before the audience, eyes wide open: walking, swimming in the lake and gave the impression of a happy, innocent beings, although according to the article "among their favorite pastimes selected to compare with the earthly notions of decency difficult."

Then flying michaloudi spread her wings, flew away, and the report of Dr. Grant came to an end.

But there was no end of excitement that was contagious throughout America. When the whole edition of "dignity" is sold, the publisher brought out a special issue of the article. A few days sold out 60,000 copies. The audience acclaimed the message about the existence of lunar humanity. A tiny group of doubters dared not open his mouth. In vain, said Edgar Allan PoE, the idea of the article is taken from him, the audience booed the writer. Although do not need to prove anything: one could make that "southern literary messenger" is still three weeks before the release of the series in the "San" began to print with sequels is a fantastic story For "Hans Pfaall''s Journey to the Moon". It was all in vain, the American public is so liked scientific duck that she didn't want to doubt. New York and provincial newspaper stated that the article "San" perfectly valid and scientifically justified.

Then there came the very unique case, when intoxicated with opium sensation the audience just could not believe my eyes.

Enthusiasm cooled down only when profits reliable news from South Africa. It turned out that in all this there is no word of truth from the wonder of the telescope to flying musicalescom. Author duck was a new York journalist named R. A. loke. Fiction is so successful that the head of the newspaper consumer-American after decades loomed tale about the moon people, so much so that in 1876, "Chicago half" boldly launched the lunar duck number two, according to which in Paris has mounted a giant telescope and he discovered details of the lunar life. It seemed the building could even see the workers on the construction site, besides chained to each other, which indicates that the moon known the institution of slavery...

In 1864 the French newspaper "La Pay" reported that American scientists in the deep stone space ship containing the tiny mummified body of an alien. The duck was very tenacious: in 1877, Argentine Newspapers reprinted the same story, but placed the location near the findings of the Argentine river of Carqueiranne. The following year a "Serero A., chemist" wrote from Peru that he found the corpse of an alien in the facility, which from the outside looked like a stone meteorite.

A last glimpse of the elderly duck appeared in the April fools issue of the magazine "Neue Berliner illustrierte" (GDR) in 1960. It was a sensational report that scientists conducted x-ray radiography of the famous Muslim Shrine "the Black stone" of Kaaba Shrine, stored in Mecca. On the radiograph (she was given in the magazine) are clearly seen lying inside the stone skeleton of a humanoid and next to him some strange metal devices. As you know, "the Black stone" - a meteorite that fell once to the Ground. The study proved, they wrote in the journal that the meteorite buried remains representative of another civilization. For readers who took the message seriously, in the next issue published a retraction.

1 April 1877 the German magazine "Daheim" told about the man who invented a way to weaken the earth's gravity. The inventor came to the Board of the company "Borsig", described his invention and asked him to supply him with any heavy object. He was offered a casting weighing one hundredweight. Then he took from his pocket two rolls of wire, one unwound and tied with a wire bar, and the tip of the wire is attached to another ball. After that, according to the newspaper, he without apparent effort lifted the disc by pulling on the coil as the handle. His experiments he repeated in the presence of representatives of the army and Navy. A mysterious inventor has demanded for the secret of three million marks, but was refused, and went by steamer to England, but on the way the ship was destroyed by the explosion of the infernal machine.

This duck, is reprinted by American Newspapers, became the basis of one of the biggest deceptions of the XIX century, subsequently associated with UFOs. None of the ufologists never suspected that it resurfaced in the story "air ships" during the wave of UFO sightings in 1897. She told John keel, nothing doubting that outlines an incident in which "enlonavtami" deceived the people, not the people - each other. Notice the mention of wire you want to wrap around objects to control gravity...

"In all likelihood, well known and highly respected man named in the newspaper "ex-Senator Harris" said that on Wednesday 21 April 1897, he was awakened at about midnight by some strange noise and was astonished seeing the "famous" airship, which was slowly going to land near the Villa of the Senator near Harrisburg (Arkansas). The Senator left the house and was greeted by the crew with whom he chatted until they "restock fresh water." Harris said the crew consisted of two young men, girls and elderly gentleman.

"This elderly gentleman,- quoted words of Senator newspaper of the city of Harrisburg MODERN NEWS of April 23, 1896, had dark silky beard, reaching to his belt, piercing black eyes and generally made a strong impression."

It seemed that the crew was not informed, according to "elderly gentleman", on other occasions of contact that period. Himself "the older gentleman" was, as it seemed, familiar with the newspaper reports, in particular, he told a story published by the St. Louis newspaper the REPUBLIC about 26 years ago. Provide again the MODERN word NEWS that from the words of the Senator quotes "an elderly gentleman".

"If you remember, in this newspaper includes an article about the invention, is made by a certain gentleman, whose name does not matter.

The essence of the invention lies in the fact that he had fully learned to control the laws of gravity. Naturally, he received many tempting offers from many of the syndicates in our country and abroad.

While he was choosing which of the proposals is most acceptable, the invention was kept in the safe of a Bank in new York on an encrypted input. And then suddenly he was the victim of an incurable disease, which struck him before he decided what to do with his great discovery. After a few weeks he died, and the invention remained in a Bank vault. The late inventor was my uncle, and he partially filled me in on the secret of his discovery, but not so much that I was able to do anything without those papers that remained in the Bank. It took nineteen years before I managed to get the original invention, and with enough money, I for the last seven years have completely given experiments. My plane is already almost perfect, but I am continuing experiments by flying at night as we don't want to be discovered before fly to Mars. And then I will give the invention of my uncle and his work, to the service of humanity.

Ship weight for me absolutely nothing. A thin wire, wrapped around the ship, completely destroys the attraction. You see what I have on Board is the advanced artillery gun system Hotchkiss weighing 4 tons and 10 tons of shells. I was preparing to fly to Cuba to destroy the Spanish army, but now my plans have changed, I'm going to help the Armenians. The gun is very easy to operate: the shells are fed to the hopper and click the button. The rate of 63 000 rounds per minute.

I repeat, there is no burden for me is not an obstacle. I wrapped my antigravity wire around four tons of guns and raise it with one hand to aim. Oh, if I wanted to, I wrapped my wire around the Capitol and took him by the dome, takes him here in Harrisburg with such ease, as if it were ink. Distance for me is also nothing. Less than an hour ago, at 12.10, we were flying over Dallas, and was, I must say, very low speed. I can have Breakfast here, do the shopping in Paris, and without any difficulty to the dinner to get back as soon as I finish the production of my new propellers".

He invited Senator Harris to Board, but he refused. Then "an elderly gentleman" and three members of his crew got into the ship and he, rising, disappeared into the night.

Now this story sounds like another joke editor over the reader. Nowhere and never have anything resembling a weapon with a rate of 63,000 rounds per minute, and all the talk about antigravity favor is utter nonsense. However, this story contains very interesting details.

The mention of the Cuban crisis that led to the Spanish-American war, and the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks shows that a red thread runs through all the history of contacts about the awareness of these people about all the international events on any given day.

And if the whole story is not fabricated, "the older gentleman" accidentally or deliberately chose to know about it we, first-class witness, former Senator. Telling seemingly tall tales, he drew the attention of the Senator on the important fact that the ship is a secret terrestrial invention that would soon become the property of the society. Contactees in other areas said the same thing"

(D. Kiel. "Operation Trojan horse". SPb, 1992, pp. 89-91)

Yes, such dishonesty ("...contactees in other areas said the same thing") at the time of the excitement caused by the UFO sightings in the XIX-early XX century, the tens.

Once born, the term "UFO", the jokers were already there. Perhaps the most famous duck at the time - the "captured alien".

The first of April, 1950 "Wiesbadener tagblatt", the newspaper of the West German city of Wiesbaden, published a sensational photo showed the pilot "flying saucers", supposedly the victim before the accident near the city. In the article accompanying the photo explained that the captured alien has one foot with a disc at the end and moves in short jumps. On hand - four fingers with a peculiar claws. In the picture the stranger was shown in, accompanied by two officers of the American army of occupation, one of which held the oxygen apparatus to facilitate breathing of the alien.

joke.jpg

Since this picture more than thirty years I wandered through the pages of publications devoted to "flying saucers." He was considered by many enthusiasts as conclusive evidence of visits to Earth by intelligent beings from other worlds. Was created the whole legend about what happened next with the extraterrestrial pilot of an aircraft.

Only in 1981 Klaus Webner, snob from Wiesbaden, decided to get to the truth. He managed to dig into the archives of the newspaper, find the then its employees and find out that the sensation of 1950 is just an April fools joke, started and executed its editor, Wilhelm Sprankle and his friend, a news photographer Hans Suflera. For the stranger came five year old daughter schefflera, which is part of the joke brought a lot of fun. Under retouchers tassel photographer she has become quite the mysterious creature. But the American officers had to get permission from his superiors to take part in the draw. Webner found the photograph, taken before the whole company went for a shooting in a suburban dog, where the alleged incident occurred.

Not to say that joke Spruces and schefflera was done so cleverly that to get down to the truth then, thirty years ago, it was impossible. And if three decades have been people willing to believe her and to build on the old newspaper photo, printed the first of April, far-reaching theory, not because they wanted to believe it all.

The seriousness of the publication is not prepyatstvii for jokes. In 1974 the April issue of the scientific journal "Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau" published an article in which he argued that the prehistoric mural from the caves of Nerja in Spain, known as "Dolphin of Nerja" depicted is not a Dolphin, and the smallest detail of the ciliate-shoes, visible only in the modern electron microscope. For comparison, the frescoes and micrograph of shoes. Undoubtedly, the authors wrote, the area was visited by intelligent beings from outer space, and drawing - the trace of their stay on Earth. The article is decorated by all the rules adopted for the publication of scientific work. The joke has misled even some biologists.

Did not shy away from such deceptions and the largest Soviet scientific journals ("Nature", "Chemistry and life", "Knowledge is power", etc.)

However, all this pales before the fact that may appear in the log are not serious. Here's what he wrote in the Bulletin ASSAP:

"The most vulgar kind of fraud - one that is associated with the achievement of explicit objectives, usually with the purpose of obtaining money.

As example, the American magazine "Official UFO". When it was first released in 1975, it was an example of impartiality. The first authors were professionals: Raymond Fowler, Lucius Farish, Richard Hall and others. But in less than two years, as the magazine began to publish stories about how the aliens unrestrained cloned from Elvis Presley on the streets of new York. "Please help find Elvis!" - called publishers. "Soon all will be cloned and will live forever!" "Official UFO" has offered a reward of 100 thousand dollars for the return of the clone of Elvis."

The most extravagant story of the magazine talks about how UFO burned the city in Illinois. Without false modesty, the editor called it a "remarkable event that has ever happened in world history". From the publishers it was just old-fashioned lies on the needs of the readers. And readers were not discouraged. They continued to buy the "Official UFO" for another two years. Understand the readers that these stories are not that other, as falsification? Is there a limit to the gullibility of Americans?"

Editor of the "Official UFO" Myron Fass "destroyed" in its pages is very real town of Chester in Illinois. When it became clear that the city stands still, Fass said, that all was well, but then the aliens to rebuild the city and life to its inhabitants, at the same time erasing their memory!

Along with freedom of speech in the Soviet press appeared and the freedom to lie with impunity, under the guise of this freedom.

Here's a classic example. In the newspaper "Youth of Moldova" dated 30 December 1989, published an article "the Gift of a space visitor?", the colors painted a vile alien ulitkoobraznyj kind enough tentacles our girl and eventually dragged her to a UFO:

"I heard a quiet voice. What he said is unclear, but if called. The creature didn't scare me, the fear I experienced. It invited me to the field - I understand. We walked in. It was dark, I didn't see anything. Some bulbs lit up in the depths. I felt dizzy, it was a little sekoto and very easy. The voice continued to speak. Then I felt a hand put a cool object. Can't remember any more..."

And further:

"From Moscow the first plane arrived the authoritative Commission, its members - people from around the world, widely known in scientific circles. The Commission is headed by the largest Soviet astronomer, predicting in due time the appearance of our nebosklone the famous Halley's comet, doctor of Sciences, Professor, author of "Breathing the depths of space", "Astronomy as a model of the world," "Why the dinosaurs disappeared", the Creator of the theory inputing of the birth of stars M. M. Swagerman".

The whole joke here is not even in the stupid theory of the origin of stars and not what about this "largest astronomer" nobody has heard of, and that is to predict the appearance of Halley's comet is not necessary: in the mythical Soiderman the period of its revolution calculated the Halley. To this we must add that the "Youth of Moldova" in six weeks confessed to the hoax, but this does not prevent the appearance of reprints of the story about the arrogant alien in all sorts of other Newspapers and digests.

The article ends like this:

"We presented a very rich and unique material, - said in conclusion, M. M. Swagerman. - However, as we believe, found many witnesses to the extraordinary spectacle. We are asking anyone who witnessed the appearance of anomalous phenomena in the area of the route "Airport - Chisinau" on December 20 of this year, report on their observations of our Commission. The connection will keep through the editorial office of "Youth".

And "witnesses", to the horror of the organizers of the hoax, found...

Similar experience, but on purpose, in 1990, the year set by the journalists of "Moskovskiy Komsomolets". April 1 on the first page of the newspaper there was an article "500 meters to contact" illustrated a clear picture of the "plates". The editors were asked to respond witnesses...

About what happened, told the author of the drawing:

"At the end of March we took in the dining room, two plates and tied one to the other, hung on the MOP. Sunday, April first readers saw the front page photo of "UFO". In comments to the snapshot we were asked to respond witnesses of this, and no other plates...

In two months, the editors called about three hundred "witnesses" of this UFO, and about one hundred and sent the exact description that is practically not differed from the description in the newspaper. An unfortunate difference was only that on the plate seen by the readers in the sky, there was no word "Catering"... But the most striking were the three letters, whose authors argued that in the Kuntsevo district with his own eyes saw the pilots of the "same" dish - chunky and hairy humanoids. A forty year old Tatiana R. told about how barely strayed from their attacks..."

All of these publications there is only one, but the most important thing in common: they all sucked from the finger or get out of the ceiling and is intended only for the fact that no one will think of their content and will not to check anything.

Turn a suspicious newspaper and get a grasp of the end of the last page. You risk to stumble upon dialed in the fine print, like a fly crawled (this was done specifically to read as little as possible of the people) the sentence "One of the issue is a hoax". Found? You can be sure that a hoax is far more than one material. This so-called "insurance". Let's say a person comes to the editor to be indignant, he works in the subway is not the first year, but never saw mutant rats the size of a locomotive. Show him this sacramental phrase. Comes another man with the same number and resent another article - it will show all the same place.

Never prevent a careful reading of the text of the suspicious article. Journalists, inventors often leave (deliberately or accidentally) a so-called "hooks" by which it is clear that it is invented from beginning to end. "Hooks" may be the most unexpected and disguised anywhere. The simplest "hook" is loosely disguised fictional signature. It is clear that articles signed something like "E. Banko", "A. S. Modey" or "B. A. Vomit" (by the way, all these examples are taken from real life) should not be trusted.

Belgorod "Leninskaya Smena" for January 1, 1990, painted the story of how the whole team of the Russian trawler "Alexander Barkov" not without the help of UFO were turned into monkeys and lemurs.

"The aggressive actions on the part of the aliens - we read, - have induced Mr. G. Wells to seriously address this issue. In the next vacation he plans to write a book "war of the worlds" with which we will acquaint our readers".

I think that is not go here very thick hint of British science fiction writer Hg wells, author of the novel "war of the worlds", can unless illiterate.

But that's not all. The text of the article was reportedly translated from the magazine "a magazine fo fulas" that, among other things, in English means "the Magazine is for fools"... What?

Elderly "duck", "Lenin shifts" and then quacks in the Newspapers. The latest example: an article by A. Potapov, "Who turned sailors into monkeys?" ("Petersburg-Express" from September 18-24, 1997)

Another evergreen, or rather technogoly, the characteristic "duck" - cases where different editions of one and the same event is presented quite differently. Here Petersburg "Stalker-UFO" (1996, N 12) with the article "I cut off the leg and... kept it as a souvenir."

Damn aliens are sadists "...said you wanted to have men from the planet earth as a souvenir and even thanked me for it," said the theft victim. But Rostov "the flying Dutchman" article "the Spacers cut off my right leg" (1992, N 11). The same place, and the victim is the same, but here the aliens are, on the contrary, after the amputation, said, "We saved your life. Otherwise, you're dead." And everything finally becomes clear when we learn about primary sources - the newspaper "Scandals", which, in turn, borrowed the "sensation" the notorious hoaxes "Weekly World News".

If the text is replete with references to "nowhere" type "in one respectable canadian newspaper" or "as I said, one ufologist whose name I cannot name due to certain reasons" or "once upon a time..." (is any country), it almost certainly means that you cheat most ruthless manner. The constant references to "secrecy" cause only one logical question: where did the author know all this? In most cases, with cries of "concealing the truth" lies bare the emptiness and fiction...

What all of this output? Only one: look at both! Noodles it is better to have the plate and not on the ears!

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»