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    History

    Hoax!

    Why do so many people believe things that aren’t true? In an era when claims of “fake news” come as natural as breathing, and social media allows lies to spread and multiply like viruses, the question feels more relevant than ever. From the teenage girls who convinced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that fairies were real in the 19th century to “Balloon boy” in 2009, Hoax! will explore the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history. And along the way, we’ll uncover the reasons people let themselves be fooled, and how we can live our lives and engage with the media with a more critical eye. Co-hosted by Noble Blood’s Dana Schwartz and pop culture writer Lizzie Logan, we’ll bring you stories of pranks and grifts throughout history so big and bold they make us question why we believe what we believe in the first place.

     

    **New episodes every other week**

    Advertise

    Copyright: 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc. © Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent from iHeartMedia

    • Apple Podcasts
    • Google Play
    • Spotify

    Latest Episodes:
    Van Meegeren's Vermeers Feb 02, 2026
    Show notes

    Arrested in 1945 for selling a Vermeer masterpiece to high-ranking Nazi Herman Goring, dutch painter Han van Meegeren had an innovative and shocking defense: he was guilty not of collaboration but of art forgery, faking half a dozen "Vermeers" over the previous decade. But under the reign of the Third Reich, where do you draw the line between opportunism and profiteering?

    SOURCES
    https://museumhack.com/anniversary-forgery-meegeren/
    https://www.essentialvermeer.com/misc/van_meegeren.html
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/10/27/dutch-master
    https://www.culturedmag.com/article/2023/03/16/han-van-meegeren-forgery-nazi-vermeer/
    https://www.salon.com/2016/11/27/faking-it-does-the-forged-vermeer-that-fooled-goering-belong-in-a-museum/
    The Man Who Made Vermeers by Jonathan Lopez
    How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnnkuOz08GQ
    https://www.npr.org/2008/07/12/92483237/how-mediocre-dutch-artist-cast-the-forgers-spell
    https://www.thecollector.com/han-van-meegeren/
    Van Meegeren: The Forger Who Fooled The Nazis (BBC)

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.


    The Piltdown Man Jan 19, 2026
    Show notes

    In December 1912, Arthur Smith Woodward, a paleontologist at the British Museum, presented something extraordinary to the Geographical Society: a "missing link" fossil, a species he named "Dawson's Dawn-man" after the Sussex solicitor who found the original fossil. It was the find of a lifetime, and a much-needed bit of national pride for the English. The only problem? It wasn't real.

    SOURCES:
    The Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed by Miles Russell
    Piltdown Man: The Secret Life of Charles Dawson by Miles Russell (Tempus, Stroud, 2003)
    https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/the-problem-of-piltdown-man/
    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/23/piltdown-man-remains-exposed-as-fake-1953
    https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2016/08/folklore-piltdown-man-hoax/
    'The Perpetrator at Piltdown' by J Winslow and A Meyer, Science (September, 1983)
    https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2016/august/piltdown-man-charles-dawson-likely-fraudster.html
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/piltdown-man-paleoanthropologys-april-fools-176401927/

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.


    I, Libertine Jan 05, 2026
    Show notes

    Midcentury New Yorkers who couldn't sleep found a friend in Jean Shepherd, the iconoclastic radio personality whose middle of the night monologues made him a cult comedy figure and leader of the underground Night People movement. When he proposed to prank the book world by demanding a novel that didn't exist, the title became so popular his followers more or less willed it into being.

    SOURCES
    https://web.archive.org/web/20020427051336/https:/flicklives.com/Articles/Wall_Street_Journel/8-1-56/8-1-56.jpg
    https://www.theawl.com/2013/02/the-man-behind-the-brilliant-media-hoax-of-i-libertine/
    Excelsior, You Fathead! By Eugene B Bergmann
    I, Libertine by Theodore Sturgeon
    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/25/handbook-for-mortals-by-lani-sarem-pulled-from-nyt-bestsellers-list
    https://www.pajiba.com/book_reviews/did-this-book-buy-its-way-onto-the-new-york-times-bestseller-list.php
    https://www.vulture.com/2017/09/handbook-for-mortals-lani-sarem-23-hour-new-york-times-bestseller.html
    https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/lani-sarem-blues-traveler-manager-novelist-bestseller-list-7957648/

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.


    The Mechanical Turk Dec 22, 2025
    Show notes

    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.


    Lonelygirl15 Dec 08, 2025
    Show notes

    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.


    Mumler Spirit Photography Nov 24, 2025
    Show notes

    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.


    Report from Iron Mountain Nov 10, 2025
    Show notes

    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.


    The Impostress Rabbit Oct 27, 2025
    Show notes

    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.


    Salvator Mundi Oct 13, 2025
    Show notes

    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.


    The Wild West in Palisade, Nevada Sep 29, 2025
    Show notes

    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.


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