Conference hydra::dejavu

    One of the most elaborate and successful hoaxes was the famous
    Cardiff Giant.  I can't remember all the details, but at the
    risk of being wrong...
    
    I believe the hoax was staged in Cardiff, New York.  A giant
    statue was buried in a farm field and left for about a year.
    The hoaxers hired men to dig a well on their property and
    left town, conveniently returning after it had been discovered
    and a crowd had gathered.  Although the hoax was eventually
    found out, enough 'experts' were fooled for the perpetrator
    to make his point.  It was so well known by that time that
    it became legendary and was exhibited in places as diverse
    as New York City and Fitchburg.  I think it also traveled
    with a circus.  Quite a bit of money was collected by the
    original hoaxers and subsequent exhibitors.      MWR
    

    Promising what you can't deliver happens in the computer industry
    as well.  Unsophisticated managers hoping for a quick, cheap and
    easy solution to manufacturing problems get hooked into investing
    resources proving these claims false.  Last year I had a paid
    cross-country vacation checking out such an item.  Despite my
    protestations that the vendor in question had never delivered
    an example of the functionality they avertised, I was ordered
    to stop being negative and make the trip.  Myself and one
    technician had a real good time.  I came back and said "I have
    seen the machine and it doesn't exist".  I'll never know if
    they could have built one if we had ordered it, but I'm sure
    glad I didn't take the chance............MWR
    

    Steve's mention of the possibility of someone faking Bigfoot tracks
    with fake shoes is reminiscent of one of the classic hoaxes.  I
    believe it was in the 30's.  Tracks of "Nessie" were found on the
    shore of Loch Ness.  Quite a bit of attention was paid to them by
    scientists and the press.  Finally an expert in large tropical
    animals identified them as 1) Rhino (hippo?) tracks, 2) All the same foot,
    3) The skin was cured or mumified.  It seems that a fairly popular
    novelty (oxymorons, anyone? :-) of the time was umbrella stands
    made from dried rhino (hippo?) feet.  I believe the hoaxers eventually
    came forward.  This all set back any serious investigations of Nessie
    for years: Nessie was a hoax pure and simple and no other explanations,
    cryptozooic or prosaic, were tenable.
    
    					Topher

RE: .2
    
    I think you have to distinguish "hype" from "hoax".  The hypster
    presents things in the best possible light, exagerating, promising
    what (s)he only hopes can actually be delivered, etc.  The hoaxster
    knowingly commits fraud, pure and simple.
    
    The hypster says "We will ship next month and all the bugs will
    be out by then and these features will all work together," and hopes
    that that will be close enough to the truth to squeek by when the
    time comes.
    
    The hoaxter says "We're not quite ready to ship for legal reasons,
    but here is the program, it all works, I'll give you a demo."  And
    precedes to act his/her part in a prepared script where the program
    seems to be responding.  (I'm reminded of a demo of an AI natural
    language system that a friend witnessed.  "And," said the demonstrator,
    "we have a terrific error recovery system".  So saying he typed
    in a phrase with "country" substituted for "city" (the demo was for
    a demographic database).  The program immediately presented a message
    indicating that it recognized that the sentence would only make
    sense if city rather than country were meant and would the user
    like that query used instead?  Everyone was impressed.  A bit later
    the demonstrator legitimately typoed "population" for "income".
    The program came back with a message indicating that it recognized
    that the sentence would only make sense if *city* rather than
    *country* were meant and would the user like that query used instead?
    *That's* a hoax, though it was performed for reasons of hype: you
    see they really did hope to have that error recovery mechanism in
    by first customer ship.)
    
    					Topher
    

I believe someone in the early 1960's got several people to invest in a
brand-new, secret aircraft design.  The investors were taken to a small
room in a warehouse and shown, through a tiny window, a large saucer-shaped
aircraft (flanked by a couple men in lab coats, of course!).  Having doled
out their money, the unlucky investors discovered that the "developers"
had skipped town, leaving the "spacecraft" behind.  It was the mock-up from
the movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

A few years ago, an enterprising woman named Liz Carmichael was supposedly
developing a car called the Revette or the Dale.  LOTS of money was invested
and lots of publicity was generated.  A film of the Dale going around a test
track (at about 10 MPH) was even shown on national TV.  _People_ magazine
ran a story on Carmichael's struggle to compete with Detroit.

It turns out that "Liz" was actually an escaped MALE convict in drag and
the Dale was a Fiberglas mockup powered by a motorcycle engine!  "Liz is
now in jail, and the Dale is on display at a car dealership in California.
(BTW, only one door on the Dale worked: the other one was molded into the
body and didn't work.  It's a pity the car was a fake--it was really nice
looking!).

Leave us not forget one of the most money-making hoaxes of recent times:
The Amityville Horror.  I'm sure the book _Communion_ will be exposed
as the product of an imaginative author in the near future.

John M.

    It certainly points out our vulnerability. How many times have
    EACH one of us been taken "for a ride" ?
    
    It is a humbling experience and a reminder that we humans are
    sometimes not so smart as we would like to think !
    
    By the way, I've got this beautiful island for sale .....

                                  
    Given that trust is key to being able to open up to messages from
    both your self and others, it is so dissapointing and disheartening 
    when that trust is dashed to the ground by others who are self-
    centered, self-serving and sometimes even downright mean.  It is no 
    wonder why the first obstacle one has to overcome when progressing 
    on their journey is one of trust, and why most people get stuck
    in this very spot unable to let their guard down for fear of being
    hurt or used yet again.
    
    Re: _Communion_ - John, perhaps you should put that under DEJAVU 
                      predictions in your own clever way!  (;^)
    Cindy

    Hey guys, I guess I have been in a vacuum for about a bazillion years,
    but I haven't heard anything about the Amityville house being proven a
    hoax. I had an associate who lived less than 2 blocks away that swore
    strange things happened in the house, but that could have been
    anything. I did a "search amityville" here only to find that virtually
    HALF of the entries are set hidden (?!?) so if any of you could supply
    some info or point me in the direction of factual-type reports I would
    greatly appreciate it. Steve? Topher?
    
    Thanks.
    
    Steve