WA hoax is a falsehood deliberately fabricated to masquerade as the truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences, and April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.
WThe 2012 phenomenon was a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events would occur on or around 21 December 2012. This date was regarded as the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, and festivities took place on 21 December 2012 to commemorate the event in the countries that were part of the Maya civilization, with main events at Chichén Itzá in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala.
WBloodline is a 2008 documentary film by Bruce Burgess, a filmmaker with an interest in paranormal claims, focused on the "Jesus bloodline" hypothesis and other elements of the 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
WThe Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa has had a large effect on the culture of most of the West African countries. In most instances, the effect is a rather negative one as it has disrupted many Africans’ traditional norms and practices. For instance, many West African communities rely on traditional healers and witch doctors, who use herbal remedies, massage, chant and witchcraft to cure just about any ailment. Therefore, it is difficult for West Africans to adapt to foreign medical practices. Specifically, West African resistance to Western medicine is prominent in the region, which calls for severe distrust of Western and modern medical personnel and practices.(see Ebola conspiracies below.)
WFamous Impostors is the last of four non-fiction books completed by Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. It features numerous historical impostors and hoaxes.
WThe Feraliminal Lycanthropizer is a psychotechnographic machine invented by American writer David Woodard, whose 1990 pamphlet of the same title speculates on its history and purpose. The brief, anonymously published work describes a vibration referred to as "thanato-auric waves", which the machine electrically generates by combining three infrasonic sine waves with tape loops of unspecified spoken text.This combination of drastically contrasting emotional trigger mechanisms results in an often profound behavioral enhancement which occurs strikingly soon after the user enters and remains in the auricular field of the machine.
WA humbug is a person or object that behaves in a deceptive or dishonest way, often as a hoax or in jest. The term was first described in 1751 as student slang, and recorded in 1840 as a "nautical phrase". It is now also often used as an exclamation to describe something as hypocritical nonsense or gibberish.
WMan-eating tree can refer to any of the various legendary carnivorous plants large enough to kill and consume a person or other large animal.
WThe Museum of Hoaxes is a website created by Alex Boese in 1997 in San Diego, California as a resource for reporting and discussing hoaxes and urban legends, both past and present.
WPolybius is an urban legend that emerged in early 2000, concerning a fictitious 1980s arcade game. It has served as inspiration for several free and commercial games by the same name.
WThe Poppy Fields were a fictitious teenage group, invented by the Welsh rock band, The Alarm. The Poppy Fields scored a hit with the release of "45 RPM" that would become The Alarm's first hit in over a decade. Mike Peters revealed the truth on live radio as Radio 1 was conducting a 2004 broadcast of their then current chart countdown. The story was highlighted by international news outlets with several headlines being published globally.
WURSAL is a jocular term coined in 2001 by Brazilian sociologist Maria Lúcia Victor Barbosa to mock criticism by left-wing politicians and intellectuals of the Free Trade Area of the Americas led by the United States. Subsequently the expression was taken seriously by Olavo de Carvalho and by Brazilian right-wingers, resurfacing on YouTube and other media as a conspiracy theory related to a supposed Latin American integration plan propagated by the São Paulo Forum.