Hoaxes

[Earthnut]

This is the most recent hoax. Would love to have others post information on hoaxes from the past. I will also be posting information on Orson Welles' famous radio broadcast "War of the Worlds" that created mass panic.

Here's one link to the NASA hoax with article below ~

https://rt.com/usa/200279-nasa-darkness-hoax-debunked/

Earth to face a 6-day blackout, viral hoax cites NASA as saying

The latest space hoax claiming NASA confirmed six days of 'total darkness' in December has been debunked – but not before it had been spread worldwide via Twitter.

The original report was published on a satirical news site Huzlers.com, citing NASA administrator Charles Bolden as the source.

Titled ‘NASA Confirms Earth Will Experience 6 Days of Total Darkness in December 2014,’ is said the space agency “confirmed” that there will be six days of darkness on Earth from December 16 to 22.

It argued that this was due to a solar storm, which would block 90 percent of sunlight with dust and debris.

Bolden’s emergency preparedness video was taken out of context to add weight to the report.

VIDEO ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECzjhSDD_kM

When viewed as a whole, however, it becomes clear that Bolden was discussing emergency preparedness in case of an earthquake or hurricane, in order to help US families to be ready for such scenarios.

Still, many people reacted in panic, as the story went viral on Twitter.

[Earthnut]

Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" didn't actually start out as a hoax, but many accused him of it being one. Both the original movie with Gene Barry (1953) and the remake with Tom Cruise (2005) are very entertaining.

Wikipedia source ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio_drama)

The War of the Worlds (radio drama)

"The War of the Worlds" is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It became famous for causing mass panic, although the extent of this panic is debated.

The first two thirds of the 62-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to some listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a sustaining show (it ran without commercial breaks), adding to the program's realism, and that others were primarily listening to Edgar Bergen and only tuned in to the show during a musical interlude, thereby missing the introduction that proved the show was a drama.

In the days following the adaptation, there was widespread outrage in the media.The program's news-bulletin format was described as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers (which had lost advertising revenue to radio) and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast and calls for regulation by the Federal Communications Commission. Despite these complaints—or perhaps in part because of them—the episode secured Welles's fame as a dramatist.

Here's the actual broadcast for those of you who can access the U S YouTube site. Hopefully someone will find links for other countries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6YNHq1qc44