Hoax hoopla
Thank you for your superb issue on "The Art of the Hoax" [August 26-September 2]. So much money and time is wasted on nonsense like televangelists, crop circles, and pay-by-the-minute psychics. More often than not, television and news magazines play along, with editors who should know better consoling themselves that "we know it's nonsense, but the fact is that so many people believe in things like aromatherapy and Uri Geller etc., that it's news anyway. The constant coverage makes the problem worse, and people who see these things continually on the television and the newsstand begin to think that they must be real. The ability to debunk this nonsense, and to develop functional alternatives, is a great gift of western science. In an age when so many seemingly medieval factions have set themselves against this tradition, it becomes almost a patriotic obligation to drive the nonsense out of our lives.
Michael Stern
Brooklyn, N.Y.
With "the art of the hoax" you have engaged in a hoax of your own, or perhaps a slight bit of ironic deception. You've probably heard by now, but Gen. George Patton's photo in "The D Is For Deception" is reversed (military ribbons are displayed on the wearer's left breast, a man's coat's buttons are on the right side of the garment).
Ronald Lake
Fairfield, Calif.
West point graduate Gen. George Patton would not be pleased. The photo depicts him in an "Ike" jacket that appears to have been tailored for a female, his campaign ribbons on the wrong side of his chest, the swagger stick in the wrong hand, and even the U.S. insignia on his lapels appears reversed. Otherwise, the issue was great!
Harlan L. Gurney
West Point Class of 1954
Lompoc, Calif.
In "circular logic" Doug Bower, who with his chum Dave Chorley in 1991 admitted to 13 years of circle making in England, says that he devised the hoax in 1978 at a pub outside Southampton. Doug says the idea came to him after having spent eight years in Australia, where he'd come across newspaper articles about mysterious circles appearing in the crops down there. So my question is who made circles in Australia?
Erik Lindstrom
Gainesville, Fla.
"Circular Logic" gave an extremely superficial account of crop circles, and calling that worldwide phenomenon a hoax doesn't make it so. The attempt to prove that Doug and Dave made a circle in an hour falls flat because while their demonstration is documented, a simple circle cannot match the complex designs of hundreds of "agriglyphs" now found in many places of the world in some of the most unlikely spots. The people who are deceiving us must be really dedicated to hoaxing to venture into inhospitable areas, such as rice paddies and snow capped mountains. If it is a hoax, it must be that hundreds, if not thousands, of hoaxers are out there working late into the night. What is truly amazing is that those sneaky craftsmen of increasingly intricate designs have been able to fight the temptation to brag about their accomplishments! Artists who don't want to be known for their creations? Strange. Even some murderers can't keep quiet about their crimes; pride causes them to eventually slip up.
Mary Straub
Alsip, Ill.
Your feature on hoaxes was eye-opening and entertaining. However, I must take issue with one statement: "Czar Nicholas II is the man behind the forgery" of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ["Hooked On a Crooked Book"]. That is a gross oversimplification. Nicholas, admittedly of mediocre political ability, had more homely interests than sitting at his desk penning or contemplating conspiracy tracts. The imperial secret police, to whom you rightly attribute the creation of the Protocols, often operated on their own with opaque and contradictory agendas. The history of the Protocols is more complex than you indicate. Its specific origins can be traced to the French Revolution. It evolved through the reign of Napoleon III in France, passed through the hands of the Prussian secret police, and eventually wound up in Russia to assume the title by which we know it. Already under Nicholas the Protocols were being denounced as fraudulent. Of course, that wasn't the end. Your treatment shows how the Protocols has remained influential. However, to say that the Protocols merely echoes "whole parts of a French parody written three decades earlier" diminishes the extent, pervasiveness, and duration of antisemitism in western, central, and eastern Europe. To minimze that aspect of the Protocols by attributing it to Nicholas II as, "the man behind the forgery" merely confuses the issue and propagates a myth.
Alexander V. Muller
Professor Emeritus California State University
Northridge,Calif.
Except to note far-out evangelism examples like Aimee McPherson ["Chasing Aimee"], you failed to include organized religion as the greatest hoax of all. Religions are not based on actual historical facts, but on mythologies promising an afterlife.
Doris Gerhart
Spokane, Wash.
I was wondering if as part of the hoaxes you place some "facts" in a couple of the articles to test our abilities to be hoaxes. I am referring to the following: In hoax number 10, "Chasing Aimee," is it true that something on Earth can be seen 50 miles away? Even the highest mountain (Mt. Everest) cannot. I have tried it. Most objects can be seen from a maximum of 12 miles. In hoax number 16, "Meet the Missing Link (Wink, Wink)," I thought Australopithecus was first discovered in South Africa in 1924. Please further enlighten me on these "facts" so I will not be part of a further hoax.
Richard Kimball
Professor, Hsi Lai University
Rosemead, Calif.
What's a boring magazine like U.S. News doing writing about something interesting like hoaxes?
Joe Barone
Carrollton, Mo.
