Pop culture has long been the home of ... hoaxes

By RACHEL LEIBROCK
Friday, November 10, 2006

There's a sucker born every minute _ or so the adage goes.

But sometimes being a sucker is fun, or, at the very least, offers a revealing glimpse into who we as a society are today.

After all, in an era of YouTube, runaway bloggers and 24/7 celebrity gossip _ we can't even determine if Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn's relationship is real or simply a marketing campaign, and really, why do we care?

The question must be posed: Are we gullible or just looking for ways to be amused?

Both, experts say.

"We're easily fooled, but we just move on to the next thing," says Tracy Langlands, who teaches marketing at the University of Phoenix in Sacramento.

"Our attention span is small because there's such a mass of information available."

Alex Boese, author of "Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes," agrees.

"(Mass media) makes this a ripe time for getting fooled," Boese says, on the phone recently from San Diego.

The good news?

Mass media "also makes it easier for us to debunk (hoaxes)," he says.

So, here are six of our picks for top pop-culture hoaxes, from alien invasions to lonely girls to _ gasp! _ Paul is dead?, and how we were tricked and occasionally treated by them.

"War of the Worlds"

_ The story: On Oct. 30, 1938, CBS Radio broadcast a "radio play" based on the H.G. Wells novel about an alien invasion in 19th century England. As played out by Orson Welles and his staff, the 55-minute dramatization had Martians attacking New Jersey and New York before moving on to the rest of the United States.

_ Sticking to it? At the beginning of the Halloween eve broadcast, Welles told listeners that his adaptation was set in the future. And at the close, Welles reminded his audiences that the broadcast was fictional. Such disclaimers, however, were often ignored. Reports of outright panic and mayhem have been largely debunked since then, although newspaper reports from the time confirm that scores of confused, alarmed listeners called in to CBS Radio and the police.

_ File under: "Reality, blurred."

_ Won't get fooled again? Now, more than 65 years later, the boundaries between mass media, entertainment and "reality" are consistently blurred. See also: television programs such as "Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica," "The Simple Life" and "Joe Schmo."

Paul is dead

_ The story: A widespread urban legend in the late '60s claimed that Paul McCartney died in 1966 after crashing his car into a light pole, forcing the Beatles to replace the singer-songwriter with a look-alike. The band's landmark record "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was considered by many to be a road map of clues about McCartney's "death," as was the "Abbey Road" cover.

_ Sticking to it? There are still scores of Web sites claiming to show proof of McCartney's demise.

_ File under: "Conspiracy, theories of." It's a field day for fans and wannabe detectives who continue to comb through Beatles songs, album art and interviews in search of "the truth."

_ Won't get fooled again? McCartney is alive, as is our appetite for celebrity death rumors. "You can't really classify these kinds of hoaxes as 'great entertainment,' " Boese says. "Usually (they're started) by some prankster who wants to scare fans."

"Alien Autopsy"

_ The story: In 1995, Fox broadcast the film "Alien Autopsy _ Fact or Fiction." The film, promoted by London-based video entrepreneur Ray Santilli, purported to depict footage of a 1947 alien autopsy performed after a UFO crashed in Roswell, N.M.

_ Sticking to it? Fox initially promoted the film with an air of ambiguity, heightening intrigue among UFO buffs and conspiracy theorists. Later, however, the network did air a second program that declared the video a sham. Then, in April, in a British documentary called "Eamonn Investigates: Alien Autopsy," Santilli admitted that "most" of the footage was indeed fictitious.

_ File under: "Footage, faked or manipulated." Since the invention of the camera, we've been subjected to various types of such footage. Fans of Bigfoot and "Nessie," the Loch Ness monster, have built an entire mythology using such technology.

_ Won't get fooled again? Alien enthusiasts still want to believe. There are numerous Web forums with discussions examining how Santilli's documentary could actually be the real thing.

"The Blair Witch Project"

The story: This 1999 horror flick initially was presented as a documentary. The low-budget film claimed to chronicle the story of three filmmakers who, in 1994, became lost in a forest while shooting a documentary about the subject of a local legend, the Blair Witch.

_ Sticking to it? The line between truth and fiction became blurred as the film's promotional Web site _ and a corresponding Sci-Fi Channel "documentary," "Curse of the Blair Witch" _ covered the story as if it were real, ushering in a wave of what would become known as viral marketing. " 'Blair Witch' revealed the potential of the Internet," Boese says.

_ File under: "Entertainment, harmless." "The Blair Witch Project" grossed more than $160 million in the United States.

_ Won't get fooled again? "As long as people are entertained, they don't care if they're being fooled or having a joke played on them," Boese says. "Such (hoaxes) are effective if they're funny or scary or creepy, and they get people to interact in new ways."

J. T. LeRoy

_ The story: A young transsexual author of books such as 2001's "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" earns critical acclaim and celebrity fans, including Courtney Love, Winona Ryder and Marilyn Manson. LeRoy's works also were published in Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope magazine and Oxford American magazine. In January , The New York Times revealed that there was no J. T. LeRoy and that the book was written by Laura Albert. Albert's half-sister, Savannah Knoop, was in on the deceit as well, dressing up as LeRoy for appearances.

_ Sticking to it? Doubts about LeRoy's identity surfaced early and persisted throughout the writer's "career." In 2005, the LeRoy persona was questioned by New York magazine, Women's Wear Daily and The Washington Post.

_ File under: "Truth, stranger than fiction."

_ Won't get fooled again? LeRoy wasn't the first author to be invented. Still, Boese calls the LeRoy ruse "one of the biggest" modern literary hoaxes. "To get someone to physically pose as a nonexistent author takes it to a whole new level," Boese says.

LonelyGirl15

_ The story: "Bree," a 16-year-old home-schooled teen, posts video-diary segments on YouTube and MySpace. Taped in her bedroom, Bree talks about her love life and growing up in a strict religious household.

_ Sticking to it? In September, amateur cyber- sleuths and, eventually, the Los Angeles Times figured out that Bree was actually portrayed by a 19-year-old New Zealand-bred actress named Jessica Rose. According to Rose, the actress worked with a filmmaker and screenwriter to create her Internet persona.

_ The goal? To snag a Hollywood movie deal.

_ File under: "Details, the devil is in the." Although Bree's interactive, confessional-style video blog was compelling, many in her audience eventually grew skeptical, thanks to inconsistencies.

"People were intrigued with her from the very beginning," Langlands says. "But there was something not right about her, and someone was able to trace her (origins) on MySpace. There's no anonymity on the Web."

_ Won't get fooled again? Rose already has returned to her Bree persona in a public service announcement for the United Nations' anti- poverty Millennium Campaign.