The Deliberate Skeptical Hoax
Doubtful News ran the story about student in Edmonton who made a hoaxed video [1] of sky noises to show how easy it is to do such a thing. The video [2] soundtrack she used was, itself, a hoax. And, the original for that [3] was probably a hoax.In our piece, we praised Claudine Gladue for showing that “her critical faculties were in the right place”. Not everyone saw things that way. Some believers in the sky noise phenomena were angry with the article and Claudine’s hoaxing. They accused her of riding the wave of the popularity of sky noises and getting her own web hits on You Tube (she currently has over 100,000 views).
Astoundingly, commenters on the Strange Sounds in the Sky blog were more forgiving of the original hoaxers who NEVER admitted to hoaxing and garnered WAY more hits.
Claudine said she was prompted by concern that her friends believed the sky noises were real and were afraid. She did not attempt to make her hoax widespread for media attention and was not responsible for uploading the video to YouTube. It appears that its popularity grew on its own. The original videos, deliberately published to YouTube and spawning dozens of copy cats, propagated the idea far and wide (accompanied by ads) and made millions of people wonder and worry if end-of-the-world cataclysms were upon us.
Deliberate skeptic hoaxes
Jellyfish crop circle from Oxfordshire
Manipulating sounds, videos and pictures are easy these days. You can create your own UFO, even one that flies independently and looks realistic. Crop circles were hoaxed to make people believe aliens were sending us messages. Faking demon possession, illnesses or fantastic physical conditions (stigmata, crying tears of stone) convince many of their genuineness. Alien abduction scenarios, psychic powers, Bigfoot footprint casts have all been fabricated and the experts were fooled.
There are several reasons for undertaking a deliberate hoax. Hoaxes for personal gain are infamous but skeptical hoaxes are not about that. These are hoaxes to make a point about being skeptical about questionable claims.
Some people attempt to reproduce an effect, such as a paranormal event or a UFO, just to see if they can pass it off as real.
This is akin to hypothesis testing.
Hypothesis: X can be reproduced without unreasonable effort and will elicit a comparable effect from an observer. No appeals to paranormal or unknown variables are necessary in the explanation of X.