From Abracadabra to Zombies | View All
topical index: frauds, hoaxes, conspiracies
0-92012 doomsday theories
9/11 conspiracies
A
alien abduction
Andrews, Lynn
anti-vaccination movement
Archaeoraptor
area 51
Apollo Moon landing hoax hoax
Aztec UFO hoax
B
belief armor
Ben Stein conspiracy
birthers
Blaylock, Russell (conspiracy involves Big Pharma, the WHO, and the US government)
Bridey Murphy
Rashid Buttar, D.O.
C
Cardiff Giant
"Carlos" hoax
Castaneda, Carlos
cattle "mutilation"
chelation therapy
chemtrails
Hulda Clark
climate change deniers
Cottingly fairy hoax
crop circle
D
Dianetics
Dixon, Jeane
E
electromagnetic fields (cell phones, Wi-Fi, etc.)
F
facilitated communication
firewalking
fluoridation
food allergy conspiracy
Ford, Arthur hoax
Fritz, Dr.
G
Geller, Uri (accused of being a fraud by James Randi, but he denies it)
Gerson therapy (Big Pharma conspiracy)
H
haunted house
herbal fuel
HIV/AIDS denial
hollow Earth
Holocaust denial
Horowitz, Leonard (many conspiracies but the best one is that the illuminati are behind the standards of the 12-note musical scale)
Hutchison hoax
I
Ica stones
Illuminati
Indian rope trick
Inset Fuel Stabilizer
J
Januarius
K
Knight, J.Z. (Ramtha)
L
Lenz, Frederick (Rama)
M
manufactroversy
medium
microacupuncture
mind control
multi-level marketing (MLM)
multi-level marketing (MLM) harassment
N
Nigerian scam
O
organic food (GM conspiracy)
P
perfect prediction scam
Piltdown Hoax
Philadelphia Experiment
Poe's Law
Project Alpha
Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Protsch (von Zieten), Reiner
psychic
Pufedorf hoax
pyramid schemes, chain letters, & Ponzi schemes
Q
quack Miranda warning
Quadro Tracker
R
Rader, William C., M.D.
Raëlian
Rama
Rampa, Lobsang
Ramtha
Rath, Matthias
Rivas, Catalina
Roswell
S
Sai Baba
Satanic ritual abuse
shroud of Turin
Soal-Goldney experiment
Sokal hoax
Steve Terbot hoax
T
Trudeau, Kevin
U
UFOs
Urantia Book
V
vaccine conspiracy
Velikovsky, Immanuel
W
Andrew Wakefield
Y
Yellow Bamboo
Other Sources
Clever Irrationality by R. Carroll
My review of The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons. The authors consider conspiracy theories to be examples of cogntive pareidolia or apophenia
Oprah's 3-ring circus (conspiracy to keep psychic research out of the hands of scientists)
Lifelock Shows Identity Theft Services Not Foolproof As a penalty for inflating guarantees that Lifelock could prevent identity theft from ever happening, the company has agreed to a $12 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
The Trashing of Margaret Mead How Derek Freeman Fooled Us All on an Alleged Hoax ...the hoaxing argument is easily challenged using Freeman’s own unpublished interviews with the Samoan woman on whose testimony Freeman so heavily relied....Freeman stated his argument so boldly and presented it with such certainty that it seemed believable. In fact, it seemed foolish not to believe him. Almost no one thought that it might be a good idea to look at the actual interviews with Fa’apua’a and to ask if Freeman’s certitudes about the value of her testimony were warranted. These unpublished interviews with her demonstrate that there is no compelling evidence that Mead was hoaxed. It was a good story — a story that many people wanted to believe. Alas, it was a story that was too good to be true.
note: the comments on this article make for good reading.
Brian Brushwood lectures on YouTube 1. How the shortchange con works 2. Science vs. Pseudoscience 3. How Astrology & Divinations Work 4. UFOs: What are the odds? 5. False Memory & Eyewitness Testimony 6. Bigfoot and Cryptozoology 7. Crop Circles 8. Spiritualism, Table Tipping & Dowsing 9. ESP & Probability 10. Homeopathy, Magnets, & Quackery 11. The Placebo Effect & Psychic Surgery
Too Good to Be True
Warning sounded on web's future
Michael Shermer and "the pigeon drop" con (YouTube)
"The Serpent’s" Tale by Kurt W. Burchfiel (Strange Magazine)
Alias Carlos Allende:The Mystery Man Behind the Philadelphia Experiment by Robert A. Goerman
Cliff Pickover's Internet Encyclopedia of Hoaxes
Eric's History of Perpetual Motion and Free Energy Machines
Fairy Tale An Untrue Story Fairy Photographs, Piltdown Man, and Faked Vermeer Paintings The Debunking of Three Hoaxes by James Opie
Federal Consumer Information Center
Federal Trade Commission Home Page
FTC: Miracle Health Claims - Add a Dose of Skepticism
Internet Crime Complaint Center
It's a Fake! by Lee Moller
Museum of Questionable Medical Devices
National Fraud Information Center
New "Shroud" Claims Challenged as Spurious
Piltdown Man by Richard Harter
Urban Legends Reference Pages snopes.com
What's Wrong with Multi-level Marketing?
Bernard-Henri Lévy a laughing stock for quoting fictional philosopher When France’s most dashing philosopher took aim at Immanuel Kant in his latest book, calling him “raving mad” and a “fake”, his observations were greeted with the usual adulation. To support his attack, Bernard-Henri Lévy — a showman-penseur known simply by his initials, BHL — cited the little-known 20th-century thinker Jean-Baptiste Botul.
There was one problem: Botul was invented by a journalist in 1999 as an elaborate joke
Recommended Reading
Abanes, Richard. End-Time Visions: The Road to Armageddon (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1998).
Camp, Gregory S. Selling Fear: Conspiracy Theories and End-Times Paranoia (Baker Book House, 1997).
Hofstadter, Richard. 1964. The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Harper’s Magazine, November. Some things never change. Forty-five years ago, the paranoid right planted the seeds that continue to produce a parade of parrots.
Judson, Horace Freeland. (2004). The Great Betrayal : Fraud in Science. Harcourt.
Keene, M. Lamar. The Psychic Mafia (Prometheus, 1997).
McConnachie, James and Robin Tudge (2008). The Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories 2 Rough Guides.
Randi, James. The Faith Healers (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1987).
Randi, James. Flim-Flam! (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1982)
Randi, James. The Truth about Uri Geller, (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1982)
Ronson, Jon. 2002. Them: Adventures with Extremists. Simon & Schuster.
Stein, Gordon. Encyclopedia of Hoaxes (Prometheus, 1993).
Stein, Gordon. Hoaxes!: Dupes, Dodges & Other Dastardly Deceptions (Visible Ink Press 1995).
Swierczynski, Duane. The Complete Idiot's Guide To Frauds, Scams, and Cons (Alpha Books 2002).
