Many months ago, a photo circulated widely through the internet, via e-mails and social networking sites. It was of a 21 week old baby reaching his hand out of his mother’s womb ‘himself’ and grasping the surgeon’s hand. The truth was that both the baby and the mother were anesthetized and had no clue about what was going on. Turns out, the whole thing was just a hoax.

But why do these come out in the first place? Is it because there are 1000’s of people around the earth who wish to fool other innocent people via the internet? Perhaps it’s a disease of making up practical jokes to get some kind of pleasure from it. Whatever it is that drives these maniacs, it sure isn’t healthy. Another example is of a Pepsi Co. factory worker infecting a bottle with AIDs. The false report was that a mad Pepsi worker contaminated a batch with his AIDs infected blood. But there were several reasons for this hoax not gaining popularity; many reasonable arguments did arise immediately. For one reason, the AIDs virus couldn’t survive long outside the body and even if it did it wouldn’t spread through the mouth. Also if a single drop of foreign material did fall into the mixture, the whole batch would have been discarded by the company. It too was just another practical joke.

Yet another famous hoax is of the Feejee mermaid. The Feejee Mermaid was a so-called mermaid skeleton whose picture ciculated widely through emails. But it turned out it was just a toy-like structure created by an artist. Another joke that sadly fooled 100s of people. 

Another bunch of people try to make some cash with these scams. For example, the very famous catch phrase: ‘You have just won a million dollars!’ The sad part is that some innocent people do fall into these traps. There was also an incident where it was reported that there were mice at all KFC outlets after which some people stopped eating there. The list is endless. It’s evident that these people are just plain pranksters. We‘ve reached a level where the internet is filled with uncertainty of information. So dear folks, please do not fall into any of these scams. The internet is a great place for acquiring useful info but evil lurks in every sweet shop.