📰 | Kein #Horrorhaus auf Long Island: „Amityville was a #hoax. Yes, to make money.“

Mit #Spuk lässt sich Angst erzeugen und die ist kein guter Berater für Immobilienkäufe. Bernd Harder schreibt im #SkeptixBlog zu #Amityville und eins ist klar: Das Einzige, das dort herumgeistert, ist Profitgier.

https://skeptix.org/2025/04/21/kein-horrorhaus-auf-long-island-amityville-was-a-hoax-yes-to-make-money/

The fake Hitler diaries that fooled the press

In April 1983, a British newspaper, The Sunday Times, claimed to be printing an extraordinary historical document. In fact, the forged diaries were an extraordinary hoax.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250414-the-fake-hitler-diaries-that-fooled-rupert-murdoch

#Hitler #diaries #hoax #UK

Suite à mon toot : https://tooting.ch/@khan_gnot/114361109036809445 je me suis demandé si l'inverse était possible.
En gros que Windows propose dans son environnement une session Linux avec tous ses avantages.
En plus Windows partagerait (pour une fois) leur code source et proposerait gratuitement cette solution appelée Lindows

Slogan : Lindows ! Un rêve abandonné faute de crédibilité

#logicielproprietaire #hoax #linux #windows

Pop Cryptid Spectator 14

Thanks for joining me for another edition of Pop Cryptid Spectator. This week I have some news and thoughts and we go in search of the legend of the Nahuelito, a lake monster whose popularity predated Nessie and which is a great example of a Pop Cryptid.

In this edition:

• Cryptid Check on Big Picture Science
• Update on Pueblo mystery creature
• Bigfoot museum spared from fire damage
• Faking a fake nightcrawler
• Nahuelito represents!

Cryptid Check on Big Picture Science

The Big Picture Science podcast featured cryptids this week. The episode kicked off with a flashback to the Georgia Bigfoot Hoax press conference from 2008. I remember that day. It was ridiculous. Lots of people had high hopes, and I admit I also was thinking this was going to be the big reveal. It was a big scam. Tom Biscardi spearheaded the press event that garnered worldwide attention. We watched on CNN as he referred to reporters as “yous” and showed images of a Bigfoot costume in a freezer, even a close up on the teeth. Biscardi was a Bigfoot enthusiast (not the football coach) but he will be forever remembered (not fondly) as more of a gambler and charlatan. Biscardi continues to make exaggerated and insultingly credulous Bigfoot content.

Then, the host interviews Chris Rogers, Assemblymember in the California legislature pushing the Bill to name California the state cryptid. (See PCS 8 and 10.) He gets a number of things wrong in his comments to reveal he doesn’t know much about cryptid history, but he is transparent that the goal of the bill now is a tourism ploy. No surprise there. At this point, the bill might just pass because of the public interest.

In addition, Benjamin Radford then appears to talk about Bigfoot and cryptids in popular culture. Michael Branch talks about the Jackalope (as reviewed in PCS 3), and Boris Worm discusses real life searches for new and bizarre animals. Make sure to check out this episode from a top science podcast.

Update on Pueblo mystery creature

Last week in PCS 13, I shared the news story from Colorado of an unidentified mystery animal that was captured on video in a residential area. Since then, the story expanded worldwide because people LOVE opining on what it could be. Their comments are painful to read. While ridiculous commenters said it was a chupacabra or a skinwalker (just STFU with that), wildlife officials said it may be a raccoon. I was leaning towards coati. However, a second video was posted that showed the animal outside the window eating cat food. Unfortunately, the video was obscured by the lighting and dirty glass, and not altogether clear. However, the animal has obvious injuries on its face indicating it may have escaped from a cage, been in a wildfire, or has some other misfortune. While the silhouette does resemble a raccoon, the coloring is odd, more uniformly dark brown, so the ID is still a mystery. I’ve heard nothing more about the animals being seen again, or captured. I hope the local interest does result in it’s capture so we can put this to rest.

Bigfoot museum spared from fire damage

A cabin behind the Bigfoot discovery museum in Felton, California suffered damage after a fire. The cause of the fire is unknown but did not spread to the main museum owned by Michael Rugg where the Bigfoot memorabilia was stored. The museum was recently sold.

https://www.goodtimes.sc/bigfoot-museum-property-fire/

Cryptid Event!
Washington, DC, May 5, 2025 6:00 pm-8:30 pm
Profs & Pints DC: Encountering Cryptids, featuring Joshua Barton, lecturer in English at Virginia Commonwealth University and scholar of horror. Go to Popville for more info.

Faking a fake nightcrawler

There was a bit of drama in the extremely online cryptid community this week as a budding filmmaker says he was the one who hoaxed the Yosemite video (Facebook) showing the pair of Fresno Nightcrawlers. Everyone knew this video was a hoax to play off the original FN video (that still remains mysterious as to its origin). Yet, some people are even doubting this guy was the real hoaxer. Instead, they claim he’s trying to just get attention. Personally, his YouTube channel was the original host for this video 14 years ago. He describes how he did it and where, so I think it really was him. It is interesting, though, that claiming responsibility for hoaxes is going to get noticed. It’s almost as if you can get a pass for hoaxing a cryptid because it’s already assumed to not be real. You will be recognized for your skills and how many people believed it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziB35K9shuI

The ubiquity of hoaxes weighs down the field of cryptozoology, making it difficult to take any of the creature claims that seriously. Hoaxes remain a viable explanation.

Nahuelito represents!

The city of Bariloche in Patagonia, Argentina will be getting a new tourist attraction – an iron sculpture of Nahuelito, the monster of Lake Nahuel Huapi. The large 6 x 4 meter statue will be placed near the water front and civic center so people can take a photo with it. It is expected to be in place by the town’s anniversary of May 3.

Bariloche has long embraced its local monster, first introduced to the wider world in the 1920s, even before the Loch Ness Monster. It’s most typically depicted as a plesiosaur, as is Nessie and many other lake monsters around the world. The town has used the creature as a tourism draw for decades: Nahuelito is its mascot in what they believe is an enchanted place.

Nahuelito assumed the common Nessie-shape over time (and also picks up some similar associated rumors). Like many modern cryptids, the Nahuelito’s existence is justified by relating it to a native folklore creature. But, as is almost ALWAYS the case, the historical view doesn’t match the modern view very well. Nahuelito is tied to a beast in the water known as El Cuero by the Mapuche people. However, El Cuero (the cow skin) was said to be like a “water tiger” or that looked like a piece of floating hide or leather. Except it ate people. Bizarre tales are used in all cultures to warn of dangers of the water and to be entertaining. It is hazardous to take those stories literally and use them to say that such a creature actually exists.

Culturally, legendary animals (which, as cryptids, are never clearly seen) tend to have evolving descriptions that coalesce around an iconic view for a while until the culture changes. The move from sea serpent to plesiosaur shape for lake monsters is a perfect example. (See PCS 7 for a review of A Natural History of Sea Serpents). We see other depictions of Nahuelito as a more of a thin, snakelike, loopy, sea serpent-type. But the plesiosaur shape became the default early on and has REALLY stuck, with the creature referred to as the Patagonian plesiosaur.

This doesn’t mean there are multiple animals of varying descriptions. The discrepancy suggests it isn’t a single type of animal (or two) at all; it’s a cultural interpretation of waves, logs, debris, or normal animals in the lake. The reported plesiosaur shape for lake monsters worldwide was influenced by literature and films from the early 20th century. Additionally, the land of Patagonia was commonly referred to as a sort of “lost world” where “antediluvian” (time before the Biblical flood) creatures still lived. This view also bolstered the common idea of a living plesiosaur.

Like Ogopogo, Champ, Nessie, and other lake monsters, the Nahuelito helps define the town of Bariloche. Its likeness is used in the town festivals and it has its own town park and documentary. People love their Nahuelito, particularly for the dollars it brings in for its association with the town. Its reputation is credited for the development of the town into the modern tourist location it is today.

The monster was featured on the TV show Destination Truth – an exaggerated show that promotes outlandish ideas to explain mysteries. For this cryptid, the show took up the concern by some that the creature is a result of nuclear experiments from the 1950s. Only in science fiction does a radiation event suddenly create bizarre mutant new species.

There are also claims that, like Loch Ness, geological conditions may cause some anomalies on the lake that are attributed to the monster. These natural claims also come with misinformation. For example, it is a common trope for people to believe that underwater caves connect the lake to the sea and the animals travel in and out. This is completely invalid – geology doesn’t work that way.

There have been hoax photos associated with the creature as well. Still, the creature is gaining in popularity as a pop cryptid. Some are pleased to call Nahuelito their favorite cryptid, but the dramatic sightings of old don’t occur much anymore.

For more, check out this Strange Magazine article. And here is a documentary on the town and its most famous hidden resident.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG64-e2sUe4

Thanks for reading! Send comments, questions, or suggestions to sharon(at)sharonahill.com. If you want to send some cryptid plushies or other merch, or books to review, email for my physical mailing address.

For more, click on Pop goes the Cryptid landing page. Make sure you subscribe to all the posts – it’s always free and I don’t send annoying spam. 

Pop Cryptid Spectator is also available on Substack. Please share this with cryptid fans you know!

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#1 #chupacabra #cryptid #Cryptozoology #deathOfAUnicorn #popCryptid #reddit #rollerCoaster #scientific #seaSerpents #Skinwalker #Wendigo

https://sharonahill.com/?p=9144

Finnish court convicted Indian whistleblower of aggravated embezzlement

Sanal Edamaruku had been living in exile in Finland since he exposed a religious "miracle" as a hoax in India in 2012, but he was arrested in Poland last month on an international warrant.

https://yle.fi/a/74-20154912

#SanalEdamaruku #exile #hoax #religiousmiracle #arrested