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To qualify as a hoax, the creator must know the information is false, and the story must be designed to make others believe it is true. Idaho meets that criterion. No, the state isn’t a hoax, but its name is. I’ve written many times about the origin of Idaho’s name, so I won’t hash that out again. Here’s a link in case you missed it.
I found a couple of sites that listed Idaho’s name as one of the top ten hoaxes of all time. Since the word eventually became the name of the state and is still in use today, it probably should rank as number one. After all, nobody believes in Piltdown Man or that Martians landed in New Jersey in 1938. So, kudos to Mr. Willing.
We’ve had more than our share of other hoaxes in Idaho. One of my favorites was perpetrated by Joseph Rich in 1868. He invented the Bear Lake Monster to drive interest in his spa on Bear Lake. He later confessed, but that didn’t stop the sightings. There was one as recently as 2002.
Another Idaho hoax still generates breathless headlines such as “The Unique Figurine in Idaho that Still Baffles Archaeologists to this Day.” The Nampa Doll or Nampa Figurine was “discovered” in July of 1889 by Mark A. Kurtz while drilling a well. The drill pump was somewhere between 260 and 301 feet deep when the “doll” came up. You can read more about it here.
I found a couple of sites that listed Idaho’s name as one of the top ten hoaxes of all time. Since the word eventually became the name of the state and is still in use today, it probably should rank as number one. After all, nobody believes in Piltdown Man or that Martians landed in New Jersey in 1938. So, kudos to Mr. Willing.
We’ve had more than our share of other hoaxes in Idaho. One of my favorites was perpetrated by Joseph Rich in 1868. He invented the Bear Lake Monster to drive interest in his spa on Bear Lake. He later confessed, but that didn’t stop the sightings. There was one as recently as 2002.
Another Idaho hoax still generates breathless headlines such as “The Unique Figurine in Idaho that Still Baffles Archaeologists to this Day.” The Nampa Doll or Nampa Figurine was “discovered” in July of 1889 by Mark A. Kurtz while drilling a well. The drill pump was somewhere between 260 and 301 feet deep when the “doll” came up. You can read more about it here.
A poor photo (the only kind that exists, apparently) of the Nampa Doll.
Some claim this proves the doll was made two million years ago, which would screw up countless timelines of human history. Had the figurine been pulled up in a core sample, it would have been an amazing and, yes, baffling discovery. It was not. It came up—if it came up at all—by a drill pump. That means it could have flaked off from anywhere in the entire shaft. That assumes it was a discovery and not a plant. There remain tortured explanations for how it might have reached that depth, all of which ignore Occam’s Razor, which suggests that the most likely explanation is that there is no mystery at all.
Caleb Lyon, the second governor of Idaho Territory, famously embezzled more than $46,000 intended for the Boise Shoshoni Tribe while he was in office. It’s less well-known that he started a frenzy of diamond prospecting by claiming that a diamond had been found near Ruby City. Hundreds flocked to stake their claims. Not a single diamond was found.
Kenneth Arnold, Idaho’s flying saucer man, is widely credited with starting the UFO mania that continues even today. His 1947 sighting generated a number of UFO hoaxes, perhaps the most famous of which was tied to Twin Falls. Following several sightings in Idaho in July of that year, some Twin Falls residents found a 30-inch disc in their backyard after hearing a thud at 2:30 in the morning. Police confiscated the object, which contained radio tubes, electrical coils, and wires underneath a plexiglass dome. The FBI turned the thing over to Army intelligence. They determined that it had been built by teenage pranksters. It got a lot of publicity before the Army got involved. When Army released a picture (below) of the suspicious disk, UFO reports dropped considerably. The Twin Falls saucer hoax came just three days after Army personnel found a “flying disc” that was later described as a weather balloon near Roswell, New Mexico.
Caleb Lyon, the second governor of Idaho Territory, famously embezzled more than $46,000 intended for the Boise Shoshoni Tribe while he was in office. It’s less well-known that he started a frenzy of diamond prospecting by claiming that a diamond had been found near Ruby City. Hundreds flocked to stake their claims. Not a single diamond was found.
Kenneth Arnold, Idaho’s flying saucer man, is widely credited with starting the UFO mania that continues even today. His 1947 sighting generated a number of UFO hoaxes, perhaps the most famous of which was tied to Twin Falls. Following several sightings in Idaho in July of that year, some Twin Falls residents found a 30-inch disc in their backyard after hearing a thud at 2:30 in the morning. Police confiscated the object, which contained radio tubes, electrical coils, and wires underneath a plexiglass dome. The FBI turned the thing over to Army intelligence. They determined that it had been built by teenage pranksters. It got a lot of publicity before the Army got involved. When Army released a picture (below) of the suspicious disk, UFO reports dropped considerably. The Twin Falls saucer hoax came just three days after Army personnel found a “flying disc” that was later described as a weather balloon near Roswell, New Mexico.
Army Captain holding a 30-inch hoaxed "flying disc" from Twin Falls, Idaho, July 12 1947
In 1937, two men in Arco claimed to have found what they thought was a “prehistoric town” about 35 miles northwest of that town. John Dietrich said that he and James Beard found about 400 foundations in rows parallel to an old river bed. The foundations were up to four feet thick. The ruins seemed to have been large enough to support a community of some 2000 people living in about 500 houses. Nearby, they claimed to have found a skeleton sealed in a niche with rocks and clay.
As it happened, archaeologist Godfrey J. Olsen of the Museum of the American Indian was in Idaho conducting a survey of Bruneau Canyon for Indian artifacts. Once he heard about the discovery, he took a side trip to Arco to see what he could see.
What Oleson found was the stone foundations of a 40-year-old freight station, not a 5000-year-old Indian village.
“The site shows no evidence of aboriginal occupations,” he said. The foundations were “at one point the former Cedarville freight station.”
Oleson dismissed the discovery and returned to Bruneau Canyon.
For their part, Dietrich and Beard complained that the archaeologist must have been looking in the wrong place. They begged him to come back so they could show him what they found. He did not.
That was the last mention of the prehistoric town that I could find. I think the two men who stumbled onto the foundations were probably earnest in their conjectures and not true hoaxers.
If you still haven't had enough of hoaxes, check out the Clark Rock and Daniel Boone's Idaho arborglyph.
As it happened, archaeologist Godfrey J. Olsen of the Museum of the American Indian was in Idaho conducting a survey of Bruneau Canyon for Indian artifacts. Once he heard about the discovery, he took a side trip to Arco to see what he could see.
What Oleson found was the stone foundations of a 40-year-old freight station, not a 5000-year-old Indian village.
“The site shows no evidence of aboriginal occupations,” he said. The foundations were “at one point the former Cedarville freight station.”
Oleson dismissed the discovery and returned to Bruneau Canyon.
For their part, Dietrich and Beard complained that the archaeologist must have been looking in the wrong place. They begged him to come back so they could show him what they found. He did not.
That was the last mention of the prehistoric town that I could find. I think the two men who stumbled onto the foundations were probably earnest in their conjectures and not true hoaxers.
If you still haven't had enough of hoaxes, check out the Clark Rock and Daniel Boone's Idaho arborglyph.
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