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Interview with Alex Boese

Aired December 31, 2002 - 14:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, today we ask this question -- did the controversial cult, the Raelians, really clone a human being, or is it a hoax? They say history repeats itself, so we thought we'd look back to previous cases, to claims of other far out scientific feats.
Well, Alex Boese wrote the book "The Museum of Hoaxes." It is a compilation of outlandish claims and outlandish headlines. He joins us now from San Diego -- hi, Alex.

ALEX BOESE, AUTHOR, "THE MUSEUM OF HOAXES": Hi.

PHILLIPS: All right. Let's go back to these cases. You take me all the way back through your book to 1725. Tell us quickly about Mary Toft.

BOESE: Well, one of the weirdest cases of hoaxes in history. It really hasn't been topped to this day. Mary Toft claimed that she had actually given birth to rabbits, and she provided pretty compelling proof that this had happened, because in front of the king's own surgeon, the king of England, she proceeded to give birth to rabbits. In fact, she gave birth to about 18 or 20 of them, and proceeded to become one of the most famous women in England for a period of a few weeks, as the woman giving birth to rabbits.

PHILLIPS: So how finally was it proven that it was a hoax?

BOESE: What happened was that the king's surgeon said that, Well, this is so incredible, we don't know how this is happening, that we really need to do some surgical procedure to, you know, to investigate and find how how Mary Toft is giving birth to rabbits. And of course, surgery and in 1725 or 1726 was a death sentence, so Mary Toft quickly confessed that she was just hoaxing.

PHILLIPS: All right. Then in 1912, there was this evolution hoax. Tell us about that.

BOESE: Right. The famous case of the Piltdown man. The situation here was that paleontologists had been looking for the missing link between man and ape, and an amateur paleontologist in England found this skull in a gravel pit in England. The pit was called Piltdown, which appeared to be the missing link between man and ape. And it had the skull of a human, as well as the jawbone of what looked like an ape. And for almost 40 years, this fooled the scientific community until finally the British Museum in the 1950s investigated the skull and found that it was just the jawbone of an orangutan which had been attached to the skull of a human. PHILLIPS: All right. Well, your book goes on to talk about a number of other hoaxes, from skin grafts to the oldest human to -- let's go to 1978. We have video of this actual headline, OK, about this alleged cloning incident that took place. This ended up being a hoax. Tell us what happened, and this is what is so vaguely familiar to what's going on right now with the Raelians.

BOESE: Right. It was the case of David Rorvik, who was a very highly respected science journalist. He had written for "TIME" magazine and the "New York Times." He published a book called "In His Image: The Cloning of a Man," and he claimed that he had participated in a research project funded by an eccentric American millionaire who wanted to produce a clone of himself. And somewhere on a remote Pacific island, this millionaire had gathered a team of scientists, and they proceeded to produce a clone of the millionaire, and this obviously made front page headlines in 1978.

But what happened was that a British scientist whose work was referenced by Rorvik took objection to being kind of Shanghai'ed into this whole scenario, and he actually sued Rorvik and Rorvik's publisher, Lippincott. And the case dragged on for three years, and finally the court -- it was an American case in Philadelphia. They decided that because Lippincott and Rorvik were so uncooperative in providing compelling evidence that a clone actually had been born that they ruled that it was a hoax.

PHILLIPS: All right. So now here we are, OK, the Raelians have nothing to do with that incident, but they're coming forward saying, OK, we have this baby, this human being that we've cloned, yet they're obviously stalling. We're not seeing any proof, we are not seeing a baby. Let's say it is a hoax. Why would the Raelians do this if, indeed, it is a hoax, and take the risk of being busted?

BOESE: Right. Well, the motive for the Raelians is actually far clearer than the motive was for David Rorvik back in 1978. The Raelians are getting a huge amount of publicity for this, and they are a kind of somewhat obscure cult, and they only have something to gain from this. If it is a hoax, they have got their name out there, millions of potential converts now know about them. And if it isn't a hoax, then they really have succeeded in doing this remarkable thing, but I would suspect that it's a hoax.

PHILLIPS: OK -- so that it's -- well, all right, you know what? We'll find out, probably soon enough, and we'll have you back on, Alex. Once again, the name of the book is "The Museum of Hoaxes." Very interesting. Alex, we sure appreciate your time.

BOESE: OK. Thanks for having me.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 31, 2002 - 14:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, today we ask this question -- did the controversial cult, the Raelians, really clone a human being, or is it a hoax? They say history repeats itself, so we thought we'd look back to previous cases, to claims of other far out scientific feats.
Well, Alex Boese wrote the book "The Museum of Hoaxes." It is a compilation of outlandish claims and outlandish headlines. He joins us now from San Diego -- hi, Alex.

ALEX BOESE, AUTHOR, "THE MUSEUM OF HOAXES": Hi.

PHILLIPS: All right. Let's go back to these cases. You take me all the way back through your book to 1725. Tell us quickly about Mary Toft.

BOESE: Well, one of the weirdest cases of hoaxes in history. It really hasn't been topped to this day. Mary Toft claimed that she had actually given birth to rabbits, and she provided pretty compelling proof that this had happened, because in front of the king's own surgeon, the king of England, she proceeded to give birth to rabbits. In fact, she gave birth to about 18 or 20 of them, and proceeded to become one of the most famous women in England for a period of a few weeks, as the woman giving birth to rabbits.

PHILLIPS: So how finally was it proven that it was a hoax?

BOESE: What happened was that the king's surgeon said that, Well, this is so incredible, we don't know how this is happening, that we really need to do some surgical procedure to, you know, to investigate and find how how Mary Toft is giving birth to rabbits. And of course, surgery and in 1725 or 1726 was a death sentence, so Mary Toft quickly confessed that she was just hoaxing.

PHILLIPS: All right. Then in 1912, there was this evolution hoax. Tell us about that.

BOESE: Right. The famous case of the Piltdown man. The situation here was that paleontologists had been looking for the missing link between man and ape, and an amateur paleontologist in England found this skull in a gravel pit in England. The pit was called Piltdown, which appeared to be the missing link between man and ape. And it had the skull of a human, as well as the jawbone of what looked like an ape. And for almost 40 years, this fooled the scientific community until finally the British Museum in the 1950s investigated the skull and found that it was just the jawbone of an orangutan which had been attached to the skull of a human. PHILLIPS: All right. Well, your book goes on to talk about a number of other hoaxes, from skin grafts to the oldest human to -- let's go to 1978. We have video of this actual headline, OK, about this alleged cloning incident that took place. This ended up being a hoax. Tell us what happened, and this is what is so vaguely familiar to what's going on right now with the Raelians.

BOESE: Right. It was the case of David Rorvik, who was a very highly respected science journalist. He had written for "TIME" magazine and the "New York Times." He published a book called "In His Image: The Cloning of a Man," and he claimed that he had participated in a research project funded by an eccentric American millionaire who wanted to produce a clone of himself. And somewhere on a remote Pacific island, this millionaire had gathered a team of scientists, and they proceeded to produce a clone of the millionaire, and this obviously made front page headlines in 1978.

But what happened was that a British scientist whose work was referenced by Rorvik took objection to being kind of Shanghai'ed into this whole scenario, and he actually sued Rorvik and Rorvik's publisher, Lippincott. And the case dragged on for three years, and finally the court -- it was an American case in Philadelphia. They decided that because Lippincott and Rorvik were so uncooperative in providing compelling evidence that a clone actually had been born that they ruled that it was a hoax.

PHILLIPS: All right. So now here we are, OK, the Raelians have nothing to do with that incident, but they're coming forward saying, OK, we have this baby, this human being that we've cloned, yet they're obviously stalling. We're not seeing any proof, we are not seeing a baby. Let's say it is a hoax. Why would the Raelians do this if, indeed, it is a hoax, and take the risk of being busted?

BOESE: Right. Well, the motive for the Raelians is actually far clearer than the motive was for David Rorvik back in 1978. The Raelians are getting a huge amount of publicity for this, and they are a kind of somewhat obscure cult, and they only have something to gain from this. If it is a hoax, they have got their name out there, millions of potential converts now know about them. And if it isn't a hoax, then they really have succeeded in doing this remarkable thing, but I would suspect that it's a hoax.

PHILLIPS: OK -- so that it's -- well, all right, you know what? We'll find out, probably soon enough, and we'll have you back on, Alex. Once again, the name of the book is "The Museum of Hoaxes." Very interesting. Alex, we sure appreciate your time.

BOESE: OK. Thanks for having me.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com