World's Greatest Hoaxes: Secrets Finally Revealed - Review

Review of Fox Television's 'World's Greatest Hoaxes: Secrets Finally Revealed'

BENJAMIN RADFORD

On Monday, December 28, 1998, the Fox network broadcast "World's Greatest Hoaxes: Secrets Finally Revealed," part of a series of sensationalistic exposes. The Fox network is, of course, infamous for its high-rating but lowbrow specials and series programming hawking every manner of paranormal and pseudoscientific claim.

It is refreshing, then, to see Fox feature a skeptical take on paranormal subjects that the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal have been addressing for decades. The special was narrated by Lance Henrickson, who himself has appeared in many paranormal productions such as the film Omen 2: Damien and as a psychic detective in the television series Millennium.

The usual Fox staples of hyperbole, contradicting assertions, and flat-out incorrect statements were all present. For example, in the first five minutes, the claim was made that the 1938 "War of the Worlds" panic was the result of a hoax. Orson Welles's most famous broadcast was not a hoax at all; it was indeed a panic followed by mass hysteria, but there was no intent to deceive [see "The Martian Panic Sixty Years Later," SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 22(6), November/December 1998].

The special began with footage of alleged Bigfoot sightings. The first was the famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film (see also "Bigfoot's Screen Test," this issue), followed by two additional, even more highly suspect videos allegedly of other Bigfoot-type creatures. Later segments featured photos taken at Loch Ness in Scotland; UFO footage filmed by cult leader Billy Meier at his Swiss ranch; and of course the much-hyped "Alien Autopsy" segment (supposedly from the Roswell, New Mexico saucer crash) broadcast in 1995.

It takes brass, and a lot of it, for Fox to loudly tout the "Alien Autopsy" as a hoax when Fox itself was instrumental in feeding the fraud to the American public in the first place. Fox's role in promoting the faked footage on its special "Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?" on August 28 and September 4, 1995, was conveniently and repeatedly glossed over [see SKEPTICAL INQUIRER 19(6), November/December 1995].

Fox returned to its roots with two faked segments, one depicting a lake monster and the other a scene showing UFOs flying over a city and beach. They were broadcast, the narrator said, to show how convincing faked video footage can be. The point might have been more persuasive, however, had they asked a few teenagers on a limited budget to create the hoaxes. I don't think anyone was surprised that the multi-million dollar Fox network could create (or commission) such "impressive" fakes.

CSICOP was nowhere to be seen, but interviewees did include skeptic Kal Korff, who spoke about the Billy Meier photographs and also commented on the Patterson-Gimlin film. Korff's book, Spaceships of the Pleiades: The Billy Meier Story, was reviewed in the March/April 1996 issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. A special effects consultant for the film Jurassic Park was also on hand to discuss how videotape and film can be faked using computers and various techniques.

The program left its viewers with the impression that much of what was presented was newly discovered and examined by the vanguards of truth, Fox Broadcasting. Yet SKEPTICAL INQUIRER readers got stories on the hoaxes years or even decades earlier. The famous 1934 "surgeon's photograph" of a head and neck in Loch Ness was reported to be a hoax in 1994 [SI, 18(4), Summer 1994]; some of the other "Nessie" photos shown in the Fox special were examined and questioned in this magazine fifteen years ago [SI, 9(2), Winter 1984-1985]. And claims that Billy Meier's UFO photographs were hoaxes also first appeared in SKEPTICAL INQUIRER nearly twenty years ago [see SI, 4(4), Summer 1980]. As skeptical as the Fox special was, the network was a little late to the table.

Despite several flaws, the broadcast was generally well done, and the investigation of the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film, though cursory, was the best I'd seen. They also tracked down one of the actors in a forerunner film to the "Alien Autopsy" footage, who detailed how and where the scenes were filmed.

On balance, the Fox special probably helped skeptics much more than it hurt them. Although it was not of the same caliber as a special that appeared several months earlier on scams (narrated by Judd Nelson), it was nonetheless a valuable teaching tool for the public. What a shame that skeptical subjects must be packaged like sensational paranormal fare to gain an audience of millions.

Benjamin Radford is Managing Editor of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER.

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