Episodes

14h ago

During the 18th century, as the industrial revolution picks up.... steam, people are dazzled by expertly constructed mechanical marvels: automatons. But Wolfgang von Kempelen brings something to the royal court in Vienna that people have never seen before: an automaton capable of playing chess. SOURCES: The Mechanical Turk by Tom Standage https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/debunking-mechanical-turk-helped-set-edgar-allan-poe-path-mystery-writing-180964059/ Maelzel’s Chess Player by Edgar Allan Poe Last of a Veteran Chess Player by Silas Weir Mitchell See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dec 8

When YouTube was barely a year old, the the site's users were gripped by the slowly unfolding tale of Bree, the sheltered, beautiful 16 year old girl whose parents kept her locked in her bedroom with no one but the internet and her only friend, Daniel, for company. As Bree's situation grew more dire, she became one of the first online obsessions, paving the way for hundreds of hoaxes to come. SOURCES https://www.youtube.com/@lonelygirl15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0-m-JXcppo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5S2Kdb8Io4&t=3s https://medium.com/@vocativ/the-strange-saga-of-lonelygirl15-an-oral-history-dd94687e9976 https://www.businessinsider.com/where-are-they-now-creators-of-lonelygirl15-turned-web-series-into-a-multi-million-dollar-company-2010-7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnjZzDeepE8 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/16/lonelygirl15-bree-video-blog-youtube https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-lonelygirl15-story.html https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/how-the-secret-identity-of-lonelygirl15-was-found/ https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/comments/154b603/how_did_people_of_the_2000s_fall_for_lonelygirl15/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nov 24

It's the Civil War, and the nation is in deep mourning. William Mumler of Boston has something to help: "spirit photographs" of you and a deceased loved one. Is it a scam, or is technology now capable of traversing the thin line between life and death? Eventually, it will be up to the court to decide. Sources: Special thanks to u/Naturalog on Reddit and Stephen Berkman 'The Apparitionists' by Peter Manseau https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/meet-mr-mumler-man-who-captured-lincolns-ghost-camera-180965090/ https://www.vox.com/22918581/mumler-victorian-spirit-ghost-photography https://reader.library.cornell.edu/docviewer/digital?id=sat2698811#page/33/mode/1up https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/when-cameras-took-pictures-of-ghosts/281010/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nov 10

At the height of the Cold War, a "leaked Top Secret Memo" from inside the government proposed a controversial and radical idea: the worst thing that could happen to humanity was worldwide ... peace. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/30/us/l-c-lewin-writer-of-satire-of-government-plot-dies-at-82.html Ghost of Iron Mountain by Phil Tinline JFK (1991, O. Stone) https://hvmag.com/life-style/a-history-of-iron-mountain-an-information-storage-facility-in-germantown-ny/ https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-many-lives-of-iron-mountain https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/16/iron-mountain-hoax-anti-vietnam-war-satire-conspiracy-theories See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oct 27

The court anatomist returned the King George I with astonishing news: a woman named Mary Toft has been giving birth.... to rabbits. Sources: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/07/05/an-extraordinary-delivery-of-rabbits/ https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mary-toft-gave-birth-to-rabbits https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/exhibns/month/aug2009.html https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article/80/1/33/665070?login=false https://academic.oup.com/past/article-abstract/238/1/43/4822513?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://www.godalmingmuseum.co.uk/articles/mary-tofts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oct 13

A painting purportedly by Leonardo Da Vinci himself is discovered at a little-known auction house in New Orleans in 2005; a decade later, it fetches the highest price for a work of art ever sold at auction. Sources: The Lost Leonardo Savior For Sale https://therenaissanceworkshop.com/leonardo-da-vinci/ https://www.mos.org/leonardo/biography.html https://www.rct.uk/collection/912525/the-drapery-of-a-chest-and-sleeve https://www.rct.uk/collection/912524/the-drapery-of-a-sleeve https://web.archive.org/web/20200524085434/https://www.history.com/news/how-a-priceless-da-vinci-masterwork-disappeared-from-view-for-centuries https://salvatormundirevisited.com/ https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/sep/09/lost-leonardo-da-vinci-film-solved-mystery-worlds-most-expensive-painting-salvator-mundi https://apnews.com/general-news-91be03753b7d4dbbacfc4bb0d1dcca3d https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mideast/how-saudi-royal-crushed-his-rivals-shakedown-ritz-carlton-n930396 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/arts/design/salvator-mundi-louvre-abu-dhabi.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/world/middleeast/saudi-crown-prince-salvator-mundi.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGsUFvwgvCo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P64rDJkX4HY https://artwatch.org.uk/two-developments-in-the-no-show-louvre-abu-dhabi-leonardo-salvator-mundi-saga/ https://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/menteleonardo/emdl.asp See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sep 29

People traveling through the west by train in the 1800s expected shootouts and danger and cowboys. The citizens of Palisade gave it to them. Sources: "Westward Hoax: The Secret History of Palisade, Nevada," Very Special Episodes. Fakes, Frauds & Other Malarkey by Kathryn Lindskoog. "Mark Twain's Nevada Newspaper Hoaxes" Andrew R. Giarrelli. Mark Twain's writing for the Territorial Enterprise (1851-1865) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sep 15

Two bored poets decide to prank their least favorite snobby magazine editor by submitting intentionally bad poetry to his literary journal and watching with mirth as he and his fellows delight in publishing it. Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m3bytB5ULw https://theconversation.com/the-greatest-poet-who-never-lived-ern-malley-at-80-234905 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4533011085 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-29/ern-malley-literary-hoax-angry-penguins-1944/100412208 https://www.ernmalley.net/ https://www.literaturelust.com/post/the-great-poet-ern-malley-who-never-existed https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/harris-maxwell-henley-max-29615 https://quirosonline.com/jindyworobaks-part-one/ https://time.com/archive/6821805/books-angry-penguins/ https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/33/wertheim.php https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mcauley-james-phillip-10896 https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stewart-harold-frederick-29423 http://jacketmagazine.com/17/fact2.html See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sep 1

Samuel Ireland was an avid collector, the type of man who boasted and tried to make himself look important. His son, William Henry, just wanted to make his dad proud of him. Sources: The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare, by Doug Stewart Shakespeare and Others by S. Schoenbaum 'The Poet's Hand,' Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Henry-Ireland https://www.npr.org/2010/06/19/127931669/william-henry-irelands-great-shakespearean-hoax See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Aug 18

For a few tense hours in October 2009, the entire world watched as a homemade aircraft purportedly carrying a 6-year-old boy drifted in mid-air on live television. When the balloon landed, there was no boy inside. Sources: Wife Swap Season 5, Episode 1: “Heene/Martell” Wife Swap Season 5, Episode 18: “Heene/Silver” The video that I showed Dana of the YourShakeDown invention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xAX2Y8-g4g Compilation of news coverage from the time of the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAlwBcvb9RA Internet Historian video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWhUvm8SunY&t=1s Richard Heene’s response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axgyj7g5XZY The gawker essay: https://www.gawkerarchives.com/5383858/exclusive-i-helped-richard-heene-plan-a-balloon-hoax Transcripts from 911 and CNN: https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ng/date/2009-10-21/segment/01 The Denver magazine that cracked the case: https://www.5280.com/the-balloon-boy-hoax-solved/ More reporting: https://people.com/human-interest/10-years-later-balloon-boy-dad-insists-saga-no-hoax/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2345497/Four-years-Balloon-Boy-aged-10-finally-set-worlds-youngest-heavy-metal-band-brothers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/us/19balloon.html https://nypost.com/2025/02/22/us-news/infamous-balloon-boy-starts-tiny-home-building-business-in-florida/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Aug 4

In 1917, two young cousins returned from the creek behind their house with thrilling news: they had photographed fairies! Their parents were skeptical, but soon the photos of the "Cottingley Fairies" were circulated, eventually finding a champion in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sources: ‘Fairies Photographed: An Epoch-Making Event.’ Strand Magazine, 1920 'The Coming of the Fairies' by Arthur Conan Doyle (London: Hodder & Stoughton) ‘That Astonishing Affair of the Cottingley Fairies,' by G. Crawley. British Journal of Photography https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/power-at-play-in-paranormal-history/ https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/father-and-son-who-believed-faeries See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jul 28

Hoax! is a new show from Dana Schwartz (Noble Blood) and Lizzie Logan (Vulture, Reductress). Listen to the first episode on August 4th. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.