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Friday, August 22, 2008

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Hoaxes and Fakes. Answers here.

1. At which place in Long Island were there supposed hauntings at 112 Ocean Avenue, which an attorney later claimed were a hoax? The place inspired a book and several films about the house.
2. Which Scottish loch or lake at the northeastern end of the Great Glen is reputedly inhabited by a famous monster? The ornithologist Sir Peter Scott gave the monster a Latin name which turned out to be an anagram of "monster hoax by Sir Peter S".
3. Some conspiracy theorists dismissed the "Y2K problem" as a panic promoted by the computer industry. What was the supposed problem?
4. In 1983, the English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper was the victim of an elaborate hoax, when he was deceived into authenticating whose forged diaries?
5. What name is given to the shroud in which the body of Christ was supposedly wrapped after the crucifixion, although Radiocarbon dating suggested that it dated from the 14th century?
6. A poll taken by Knight Newspapers in July 1970, a year after the event, revealed that 30 percent of those polled doubted that the event was real. What was the event?
7. What is the "Indian rope-trick"?
8. For four weeks in 1969, there were unfounded rumours of the death of one of the Beatles. Which one?
9. What name was given to fossilized remains found in 1912 at Sussex in England, which seemed to be the "missing link" necessitated by evolution but were uncovered as a fraud in the 1950s?
10. What name was given to perhaps the most widespread bogus computer-virus warning of the mid-1990s?

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