The Internet Hoaxes of 2014

Brought to you by the nerds at Commerce Kitchen in Denver, CO.

[2014hoaxes]

Apple's Biometric EarPods: HOAX!

Word on the street is that Apple is developing earbuds that would track your health by measuring your heart rate and blood pressure.

Well, the people on that street are wrong.

Rumors about EarPods were sparked by a post on Secret, the anonymous sharing app. 

Hey, we're not quick to judge anybody that believed this one. We've been fooled in the past. But you know it's a believable hoax when Mashable took it seriously.

So, while it's nice that we live in an amazingly technological world that could spark a hoax so believable, we're not quite there yet.

[2014hoaxes]

Zero Gravity Day: *STILL* A HOAX!

Enough is enough, people.

Some how, some way, people are still believing that Zero Gravity Day is happening. We wrote about this hoax in January. And yet, people are still being fooled by it, four months later.

Yep, that's right. There's a rumor going around the Internet that April 4, 2014 is Zero Gravity Day. #ZeroGDay is popular on Twitter lately.

World, stop trying to make Zero G Day happen. It's not going to happen!

[2014hoaxes]

The Huvr Board Has Arrived: HOAX!

This one was just plain cruel! 

On March 4, 2014, a video of a huvr board - yes, the hoverboard featured in Back to the Future II - was released.

It looked pretty legit. The "creators" got Christopher Lloyd ("Doc Brown" from the movie trilogy) to deliver the board in a Delorean to the testers in a parking lot. Terrell Owens tested it. A random passerby (Moby, the "musician") tested it. Even Tony Hawk was amazed after trying out the board. 

The video featured inspirational music and lots of shots of the amazing huvr board in action. And we totally bought it.

Alas, Huvr is a hoax, created by those jerks at Funny or Die.

We believe we will get the true hoverboard one day, but that day is just not today.

[2014hoaxes]

Wolf in Sochi Hotel Hallway: HOAX!

You gotta hand it to Jimmy Kimmel: he really knows how to prank us and the entire U.S. media.

Kate Hansen, U.S. Olympic luger, posted this video of a wolf in her hotel hallway on February 19, and the footage became an overnight viral hit. Practically every major media station and news outlet in the U.S. ran a story on the wolf video.

After a day of watching the entire U.S. squirm, Kimmel finally admitted last night that the video was his own doing. In fact, Jimmy's art department spent 15 hours building an exact replica of Kate Hansen's Sochi hotel hallway in their Hollywood studio.

You can watch Jimmy and Kate's full confession from last night's Jimmy Kimmel Live! here.

[2014hoaxes]

Frozen Venice Photo: HOAX!

Maybe we're pining for summer. Maybe we're conditioned to believe most of the crazy, cold weather-related images coming from around the world this year. Maybe it's because most of the U.S. hasn't seen a full week of semi-normal winter weather in what feels like an eternity. But here we are, nearly getting fooled by this fake image of frozen-over Venice.

That's not to say that this never, ever happens. In fact, some of the canals in Venice did freeze over two years ago. However, they have not frozen over this year.

This hoax is just a simple case of Photoshop trickery. End of story.

[2014hoaxes]

Man Responsible for Olympic Ring Mishap Found Dead in Sochi: HOAX!

This hoax puts that "Don't mess with Mother Russia" idea into an entirely new category of scary.

When that fifth ring failed to open up during the Sochi Opening Ceremonies, we were pretty confused. Was this on purpose? Was it a tech problem? What was happening? And then, when a rumor that the man in charge of the rings was found dead in his hotel room in Sochi was spreading around the Internet over the weekend, Mother Russia became infinitely more terrifying.

Thankfully, this hoax was debunked pretty quickly. The Daily Currant, the "news" source that published the original story, only publishes fake, satirical news. However, that didn't stop the 31,000 Facebook shares and 6,000 tweets from continuing to fuel the fake flames of this story over the weekend.

[2014hoaxes]

The Super Bowl was Rigged and the NFL is Investigating: HOAX!

In light of the Bronco's crushing defeat on Sunday, this one is actually somewhat believable.

The original article, published by Huzlers.com (another one of those sites that is sometimes-satire, sometimes-true news), was making the rounds on the Internet after Sunday's underwhelming Super Bowl game. Over 27,000 people shared the article on Facebook on Monday. It didn't take long for another, more credible news source to dispute the claim.

Given the Bronco's devastating loss (the final score was 43-8, Seahawks), to argue that they threw the game on purpose wouldn't be the most outrageous claim in the world.

It would actually be a little comforting to think that the Broncos lost the game on purpose, and not just because they couldn't handle the Seahawks defense.*

*For the record, we're Broncos fans. We continue to feel emotionally drained by that hellish game.

[2014hoaxes]

European Babies Will Be Microchipped From May 2014: HOAX!

Microchipping babies. Sounds a bit dystopian, right?

That's because this claim is 100% untrue. We saw this story spreading around last week, but we're surprised that it's still going.

Several European online news outlets have been sharing their own versions of the story over the past week, but it was debunked several days ago. And yet, people in the U.S. are falling victim to this hoax, sharing the articles on social media.

This microchipping claim seemed to be a bit too much of a stretch for us to believe. Now we can all go back to our everyday lives in 2014, obsessed about the Gmail crash today.

[2014hoaxes]

Beijing is Televising Sunrises Because of Pollution: HOAX!

Oh Daily Mail, you deceiving little snake of a news source.

The UK-based news outlet published an article on January 16th, which stated that the heavy pollution in Beijing, China has led to televised sunrises.

Televised sunrises?!

While the air quality problem in China is certainly no secret, the country has not reached this strange point just yet. But that didn't stop other news outlets from spreading this image like wildfire. Time, CBS, and Huff Post were just a few of the many victims of this internet hoax, leading them to publish their own versions of the story.

The truth of the photo? The sunrise in the image is from a tourism ad in China's Shandong province. It was probably on the screen for several seconds at most.

[2014hoaxes]

Photo of Syrian Boy Sleeping Between the Graves of His Parents: HOAX!

Although heart-wrenching and emotional, this one's a fake.

Why is it a fake? Looks pretty real to me.

You're right, it does look real. And it is real. It was just taken out of context.

The photo was taken by photographer Abdel Aziz Al-Atibi for a conceptual art project. The boy in the photograph is the artist's nephew.

The photo went viral (because of its fake caption) on Thursday night, when it hit the front page of Reddit. It was still making the rounds on Friday morning.

So while we should be mad that we've been deceived once again by an internet hoax, for this one, it's probably best to be happy that it wasn't real.

[2014hoaxes]

Dialing 999 Will Charge Your Mobile Phone: HOAX!

This hoax is making the rounds again, and this time it's getting all of the gullible folks in the UK.

In several countries, 999 is number you call in an emergency, like 911 in the United States. The claim that dialing that number to charge your cell phone is completely false. The rumor was started last spring to burden the emergency lines in those areas with non-emergency phone calls.

So to clarify: dialing 999 won't charge your cell phone. Don't try it. You'll either get an angry emergency operator on the other end or it won't do anything. 

When you reach that terrible moment of 3% battery life left, just plug your phone in.

[2014hoaxes]

Saint Joseph Lighthouse Photo: HOAX! [Sort of]

This hoax is a bit of a disappointment, as far as hoaxes go.

In case you've been living under a big, warm rock, you know that the U.S. is going through a deep freeze right now. Here in Colorado, we're not dealing with the worst of it, which is lovingly named the "polar vortex." The East Coast and most of the Midwest have not been so lucky.

Photos from the affected areas have been spreading like wildfire. Today, for example, the above photo was making the rounds on social media. However, the picture in question (of the Saint Joseph Lighthouse in St. Joseph, Michigan) was actually taken by photographer John McCormick one year ago. 

And yet, last year's image isn't far off from the lighthouse's current look. The picture below, of St. Joseph's Lighthouse, was taken by another photographer, Joshua Nowicki, on January 7, 2014 (early this morning).

So we'll have to rule this one as a semi-hoax.

[2014hoaxes]

37 Marijuana Overdose Deaths in Colorado: HOAX!

Was this one really a surprise?

When the retail marijuana law came into effect in Colorado on January 1st, there was plenty of speculation about how (and even if) it could work. And that's when a satirical website came in and made all of the nay-sayers go bonkers.

The article in question stated that 37 people died on January 1, 2014 due to marijuana overdose, with more fatalities expected over the next few weeks. The Daily Currant quoted fake doctors saying that hospitals were in utter chaos.

And people believed it.

This overdose death toll rumor is completely false. Stay classy, Colorado.

[2014hoaxes]

Zero Gravity Day: HOAX!

It didn't take too long for 2014 to get its first Internet hoax.

There's a rumor around the Internet that at 9:47 AM on January 4th, 2014, the earth's gravity will be decreased for several minutes due to planetary alignment, which would allow people to jump higher. 

This is, if you can believe it, a false claim. The original story came from an April Fool's joke played by British astronomer Patrick Moore on BBC Radio in 1976. Moore passed away in 2012, but his prank lives on.

Sorry to disappoint you guys, but you won't be able to float on Saturday.