Cracked.com: 5 Myths That People Don't Realize Are Admitted Hoaxes

[SemiCharmedQuark]

Note to the History Channel

#3: The Priory of Scion

The Priory of Sion, a secret society founded by crusaders at Jerusalem's Mt. Zion, was pretty damn cool. Existing since the 11th century, it boasted members such as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo and Master Splinter. The organization's goals were to restore the ancient Merovingian dynasty to the throne in France, and also to be hardcore secretive and have members that were so famous people would still recognize them 900 years later.Really, the only uncool thing about the Priory of Sion was that it didn't exist.

In court in 1993, Pierre Plantard, a convicted con artist and Frenchman, confessed that he had created the organization in 1965 and named it after Mt. Sion near Annemasse, France, presumably as part of a pitch to ABC for a new prime time action series.He went to extreme lengths to perpetuate his lie, hiring people to create medieval-looking documents and plant them in France's national library. Why? Well, there was no Society of Creative Anachronism back then and Star Trek didn't go on the air until 1966, so people had to make their own fun.

And Yet...

Nobody paid attention to Plantard's confession. The forgeries had, by this time, been picked up and repeated in a 1982 book called The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, whose authors were fooled by the fake documents planted in the French library.They insisted that the Merovingians were related to Jesus himself, an idea in turn picked up by Dan Brown for his novel The Da Vinci Code. One inexplicable Tom Hanks haircut later and there was no turning back.

So Why Do They Still Believe?

This sort of thing has the same attraction as any good conspiracy theory: the "I am special because I have secret knowledge the common sheeple never will!" principle. How better to impress your dull traditional friends than revealing to them the suppressed truth that will totally blow their closed suburban minds? And you only had to spend six bucks in an airport bookstore to get it!
And, like any conspiracy theory, it's difficult or impossible to disprove. After all, if you were a secret organization of the Priory's caliber, couldn't you just fake the fact that the documents were faked?

Also includes:

Loch Ness Monster
Fox Sisters
Crop Circles
Mummy's Curse

http://www.cracked.com/article/157_5-myths-that-people-dont-realize-are-admitted-hoaxes/

[uriel1972]

1. What good is a secret society that everyone knows about?

...Unless it's a cover! *grabs tinfoil hat*:tinfoilhat:

[mr blur]

2. I'm afraid it's:

[TZ]

3. Okay so speaking of crop circles..I have a story for you guys

So I was on vacation in Ohio the other week and I went and visited an old Native American site, The Serpent Mound...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_Mound
and like every quasi-mysterious old artifact, I figured there would be woo associated with it...Well we were in a nearby fossil/rock store my dad (whom I was visiting) liked and I got to hear about the crop circles that appeared nearby in 2003. This guys theory was novel..not aliens...just the way the earth communicates with the universe..Okaaaaaay...He admitted some crop circles are people just making them but on this one, he said that the field with the circle was a soybean field and that the fuzz covering all the beans were burned off so that meant something really hot (ie not people) did it....
http://www.cosmicmysteries.com/cropcircles.php

[realisticphish]

4. Serpent Mound is cool

but there is a SHITLOAD of new-age, faux native american bullshit that goes with it. Ditto with the Newark Earthworks, Fort Ancient, and every other Hopewell site.

[LeftishBrit]

5. If you're British, you certainly get your fill of Loch Ness Monster woo!

Which at least is more harmless than the health woo.

One story has it that Nessie, even without existing, helped to win the 1964 election for Harold Wilson and Labour. It's said that one particularly loony English Tory MP of the time, David James, spent the election campaign period in Scotland, looking for the Loch Ness Monster, instead of campaigning for re-election in his marginal seat. He did not find Nessie, and he did lose his seat by seven votes. The Party were not too pleased with him, when they in turn lost the election by four seats. Nevertheless, he was later re-selected as a candidate and got back into Parliament, which may show the lack of competition as regards brains in the Tory Party.

[onager]

6. Ha! Thanks!

Trying to return the favor, from my current bedtime reading:

Admittedly, feeble municipal government and high property taxes constrained comprehensive development in London.

So did dyed-in-the-wool conservatism.

"Do away with the congestion of traffic at Hyde Park Corner?" exclaimed Disraeli to the Commissioner of Works. "Why, my dear fellow, you would be destroying one of the sights of London!"

From The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 by Piers Brendon