Internet Hoaxes

　　The Internet has given birth to a proliferation(增殖)of hoaxes. E-mail inboxes are bombarded on an almost daily basis with messages warning of terrible computer viruses that cause users to delete benign(良性)chunks of data from their hard drives, or of credit card scams that entice the naive to give all their personal information, including passwords and bank account details, to identity thieves. Other e-mails give rise to wry(歪曲的)chuckles, which is where this list begins.

　　Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide(一氧化二氫)

　　City officials in Aliso Viejo, California, were so concerned about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide that they scheduled a vote last month on whether to ban foam(泡沫)cups from city-sponsored events after they learned the chemical was used in foam-cup production.

　　Officials called off the vote after learning that dihydrogen monoxide is the scientific term for water.

　　"It's embarrassing," city manager David J. Norman told the Associated Press. "We had a paralegal(律師助手)who did bad research."

　　Indeed, the paralegal had fallen victim to an official-looking Web site touting the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide. An e-mail originally authored in 1990 by Eric Lechner, then a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, claimed that dihydrogen monoxide "is used as an industrial solvent and coolant, and is used in the production of Styrofoam(聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料)."

　　Other dangers pranksters(愛開玩笑的人)associated with the chemical included accelerated corrosion and rusting, severe burns, and death from inhalation.

　　Versions of the e-mail continue to circulate today, and several Web sites, including that of the Coalition to Ban DHMO, warn, tongue-in-cheek, of water's dangers.

　　Alabama Changes Value of Pi

　　The April 1998 newsletter put out by New Mexicans for science and Reason contains an article titled "Alabama Legislature Lays Siege to Pi". It was penned by April Holiday of the Associmated Press (sic) and told the story of how the Alabama state legislature voted to change the value of the mathematical constant Pi from 3.14159 to the round number of 3.

　　The ersatz(假的)news story was written by Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist Mark Boslough to parody(滑稽地模仿)legislative and school board attacks on the teaching of evolution in New Mexico.

　　At Boslough's suggestion, Dave Thomas, the president of New Mexicans for science and Reason, posted the article in its entirety to the Internet newsgroup Talk. Origins on April 1. (The newsgroup hosts a lively debate on creation vs. evolution.) Later that evening Thomas posted a full confession to the hoax. He thought he had put all rumors to bed.

　　But to Thomas's surprise, however, several newsgroup readers forwarded the article to friends and posted it on other newsgroups.

　　When Thomas checked in on the story a few weeks later, he was surprised to learn that it had spread like wildfire. The telltale signs of the article's satirical intent, such as the April 1 date and misspelled "Associmated Press" dateline, had been replaced or deleted.

　　Alabama legislators were bombarded with calls protesting the law. The legislators explained that the news was a hoax. There was not and never had been such a law.

　　TV and Newspaper Hoaxes

　　Before the advent of the Internet, and even today, traditional media outlets such as newspapers, radio, and television, have sometimes hoaxed their audiences. The deceptions run the gamut from purported natural disasters to wishful news.

　　Swiss Spaghetti (意大利式細面條) Harvest

　　Alex Boese, curator of the Museum of Hoaxes, a regularly updated Web site that also appeared in book form in November 2002, said one of his favorite hoaxes remains one perpetrated by the British Broadcasting Company.

　　On April 1, 1957, the BBC aired a report on the television news show Panorama about the bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland.

　　Viewers watched Swiss farmers pull pasta off spaghetti trees as the show's anchor, Richard Dimbleby, attributed the bountiful harvest to the mild winter and the disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.

　　The broadcaster detailed the ins and outs of the life of the spaghetti farmer and anticipated questions about how spaghetti grows on trees. Thousands of people believed the report and called the BBC to inquire about growing their own spaghetti trees, to which the BBC replied, "Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

　　"It was a great satirical effect about British society," Boese said. "British society really was like that at that time. The British have a tendency to be a bit insulated(絕緣的) and do not know that much about the rest of Europe."

　　Taco Liberty Bell

　　On April 1, 1996, readers in five major U.S. cities opened their newspapers to learn from a full page announcement that the Taco Bell Corporation had purchased the Liberty Bell from the U.S. government. The announcement reported that the company was relocating the historic bell from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Irvine, California. The move, the corporation said in the advertisement, was part of an "effort to help the national debt".

　　Hundreds of other newspapers and television shows ran stories related to the press release on the matter put out by Taco Bell's public relations firm, PainePR. Outraged citizens called the Liberty Bell National Historic Park in Philadelphia to express their disgust. A few hours later the public relations firm released another press announcement stating that the stunt was a hoax.

　　White House press secretary Mike McCurry got into the act when he remarked that the government would also be "selling the Lincoln Memorial to Ford Motor Company and renaming it the Lincoln-Mercury Memorial".

　　Crop Circles

　　Strange, circular formations began to appear in the fields of southern England in the mid-1970s, bringing busloads of curious onlookers, media representatives, and believers in the paranormal out to the countryside for a look.

　　A sometimes vitriolic(諷刺的)debate on their origins has since ensued(跟著發生), and the curious formations have spread around the world, becoming more and more elaborate as the years go by.

　　Some people consider the crop formations to be the greatest works of modern art to emerge from the 20th century, while others are convinced they are signs of extraterrestrial communications or landing sites of UFOs.

　　The debate rages even today, although in 1991 Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, two elderly men from Wiltshire County, came forward and claimed responsibility for the crop circles that appeared there over the preceding 20 years. The pair made the circles by pushing down nearly ripe crops with a wooden plank suspended from a rope.

　　Moon Landing—a Hoax?

　　Ever since NASA sent astronauts to the moon between 1969 and 1972, skeptics have questioned whether the Apollo missions were real or simply a ploy to one-up(領先)the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The debate resurfaced and reached crescendo levels in February 2001, when For television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?

　　Guests on the show argued that NASA did not have the technology to land on the moon. Anxious to win the space race, NASA acted out the Apollo program in movie studios, they said. The conspiracy theorists pointed out that the pictures transmitted from the moon do not include stars and that the flag the Americans planted on the moon is waving, even though there is though to be no breeze on the moon.

　　NASA quickly refuted these claims in a series of press releases, stating that any photographer would know it is difficult to capture something very bright and very dim on the same piece of film. Since the photographers wanted to capture the astronauts striding across the lunar surface in their sunlit space suits, the background stars were too faint to see.

　　As for the flag, NASA said that the astronauts were turning it back and forth to get in firmly planted in the lunar soil, which made it wave.

　　1. Some people have the age-old desire to put the joke on others.

　　2. According to the passage, the only form of Internet hoaxes is e-mail hoax.

　　3. Dihydrogen monoxide is a very dangerous chemical, which is often used as an industrial solvent.

　　4. Dihydrogen monoxide can accelerate corrosion and rusting, and cause sever burns and even death from inhalation.

　　5. The reason why the ersatz news that Alabama changed the value of Pi spread wildly was that ________ forwarded the article to friends and posted it on other newsgroups.

　　6. Traditional media outlets such as ________ may still hoax their audiences nowadays.

　　7. According to Boese, many people believed the report of Swiss spaghetti harvest because the British did not know ________.

　　8. According to a hoax announcement, the Taco Bell Corporation bough the Liberty Bell and moved it to Irvine to help ________.

　　9. The crop circles were thought to be the greatest works of modern art, the signs of ________ or landing sites of UFOs.

　　10. Some people thought that NASA acted out the Apollo program in movie studios partially because the pictures transmitted from the moon do not include ________.

　　答案詳解：

　　1. Y 根據題干中的信息詞age-old desire定位到原文第一段，可知美國圍家地理新聞整理了近期歷史上讓人印象深刻的惡作劇，這些謊言欺騙的是那些易受騙的、輕易信任他人的人，用以滿足有些人想要捉弄他人的想法，故該句表述正確。

　　2. NG 根據題干中的信息詞Internet hoaxes定位到第一個小標題，可知互聯網促進了惡作劇的增多，該部分接著介紹了通過電子郵件騙人的把戲，但并沒有表明電子郵件惡作劇是惟一的網絡惡作劇形式。

　　3. N 根據題干中的信息詞Dihydrogen monoxide定位到第二個小標題，由該標題下的第二段可知，所謂的一氧化二氫其實就是H¬2O，也就是水。而關于水被用做工業溶劑的說法是嚇唬人的，故該句表述錯誤。

　　4. N 根據題干中的信息詞Dihydrogen monoxide定位到第二個小標題，再由corrosion and rusting定位到該標題下的倒數第二段，可知愛開玩笑的人還將加速腐蝕和生銹、嚴重燒傷、吸入致死等其他危險和一氧化二氫聯系起來，結合前文提到的一氧化二氫就是水可知，這些不過是哄弄人的說法，故該句表述錯誤。

　　5. several newsgroup readers。根據題干中的信息詞Alabama changed the value of Pi定位到第三個小標題，再由forwarded the article定位到該標題下第四段，可知有些新聞讀者將文章發給朋友，還將其登在其他新聞版塊中。再結合上下文可知，正是這些新聞讀者的做法導致了那條虛假新聞的大肆傳播。

　　6. newspapers，radio，and television。根據題干中的信息詞traditional media outlets定位到第四個小標題，可知在互聯網出現之前，甚至是現在，報紙、廣播和電視這類傳統媒體有時也會捉弄公眾，由此可得答案。

　　7. much about the rest of Europe。根據題干中的信息詞Swiss spaghetti harvest定位到第五個小標題，該部分最后一段提到，Boese表示，英國人不太了解歐洲其他國家。再結合上文可知，這正是許多英國人相信瑞士的意大利面條大豐收的原因。

　　8. the national debt。根據題干中的信息詞Taco Bell Corporation和Liberty Bell定位到第六個小標題，再由Irvine定位到該標題下的第一段，可知一項公告報道Taco Bell公司買下了自由鐘，并要將其挪到加利福尼亞的歐文市，該公司表示移動該鐘是為了幫助緩解國家債務，由此可得答案。

　　9. extraterrestrial communications。根據題干中的信息詞crop circles定位到倒數第二個小標題，再由UFOs定位到該標題下的倒數第二段，可知有些人認為麥田圈是現代藝術最偉大的作品，也有人確信那是外太空通信的跡象或不明飛行物的著陸地。

　　10. stars。根據題干中的信息詞Apollo program和pictures transmitted from the moon定位到最后一個小標題下的第二段，可知有人認為阿波羅計劃是在攝影棚里拍攝出來的，他們指出，從月球傳回的畫面上并沒有星星，這應該就是他們懷疑登月真實性的部分原因。