You can't fool Alex
Alex Boese is a writer from Massachusetts who runs the Museum of Hoaxes website.
In issue 14 we asked Alex a few questions.
BM: How did the Museum of Hoaxes website get started?
AB: In the same way many good things get started – by procrastination. The site was my repository for all the strange bits of historical research I did while I was supposed to be doing other stuff (such as my academic studies). Eventually it took on a life of its own and completely overshadowed my studies. Now I work on the site almost full-time, so I like to think that I’ve made a career out of procrastination.
BM: Have you ever been taken in by a hoax or urban legend?
AB: Sure. No one is immune to being hoaxed. For instance, I recently came across a video on the Internet that demonstrated how to power your iPod with a lemon. It had me going for a while because I knew that, technically, it should be possible for a lemon to generate electric current. I was suspicious when they simply stuck the USB cable directly into the lemon, but I should have known right away, at that point, that it was a hoax. Luckily I didn’t try it out on my own iPod.
Read the full interview in issue 14.
