86
votes
What is the origin of this photo of an unexploded bomb?
The original photo appears to have been posted by Ukrainian soldier Andrew Zaharov on his Facebook photo album. as it predates the articles from any of the news sources below.
The initial hit for ...
- 18.5k
69
votes
Did Donald Trump call Alicia Machado "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping"?
This is Machado's own claim, as she confirmed to the New York Times today.
Ms. Machado recalled the taunts from Mr. Trump that Mrs. Clinton invoked on Monday night, as well as another sobriquet: “...
- 39.4k
61
votes
Accepted
Will tuning your TV to a channel that isn't the presidential inauguration lower its ratings?
No, unless you're part of one of the relatively small number of pre-selected households whose viewing habits are measured (the "Nielsen families")
There's not a lot of clarity about how many ...
- 4,338
55
votes
Accepted
Are the 'Family Feud' surveys systematically fake?
According to this article, And the Survey Says... (by Carl Bialik, 2008) in the Wall Street Journal, the Family Feud show does conduct real surveys.
Surprisingly, they don't just conduct polls of the ...
- 2,919
46
votes
Accepted
Did Donald Trump call Alicia Machado "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping"?
Machado made the same claims in an interview with Inside Edition in May 2016:
Machado, who claims she actually gained closer to 15 pounds, told IE
she felt publicly shamed. She said he called her ...
- 620
41
votes
Accepted
Have any versions of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" had to remove the Ask the Audience lifeline due to the audience purposely voting wrong?
The Ask the Audience lifeline was removed from the show, but the reason is straightforward: they had to get rid of the audience due to COVID concerns. According to the Millionaire wiki, this change ...
- 23.1k
34
votes
Accepted
Mythbusters tested a material that was so explosive they didn't release the episode and contacted DARPA
It's true, according to what Adam Savage (i.e. one of the MythBusters) said at Silicon Valley Comic Con 2016, as can be seen in this video here. This is what he said:
The biggest disaster we had was ...
- 23.1k
25
votes
Accepted
Was National Geographic just filming a snake attack a child and not helping?
The image is not from National Geographic, but from the TV show Nature's Deadliest (image 3 in the slideshow) from Animal Planet.
Waffelsatnoon.com and hoaxorfact.com both describe it as ...
tim♦
- 50.6k
20
votes
Accepted
Does Arabic graffiti in "Homeland" criticise the show?
According to Google Translate, "Homeland is Racist" will translate to "الوطن عنصري", which you can compare to the graffiti:
From this article
These do look very similar. In fact, the only ...
- 3,824
18
votes
Accepted
Do Chevrolet commercials feature "Real people. Not actors."?
Summary: Chevrolet explain that they took some effort to avoid actors, but further investigation found that some had appeared in the adverts.
The "Real People, Not Actors" is a ad campaign which is ...
- 22.5k
17
votes
Accepted
Is "the funniest interview you will ever see" genuine?
It turns out it's a sketch, part of the Flemish series of mockumentaries "In De Gloria".
In 2006 one of the sketches, "Boemerang" (Boomerang) gained notoriety on YouTube. It features the host of a ...
- 77.9k
16
votes
Accepted
Is Russian TV airing a "hunger games" like reality series where contestants can rape, kill or be killed?
The BBC reported on this in a little more detail a little while back: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38342421/russia-does-the-hunger-games-for-real-in-siberia-but-no-guns-are-allowed
A Russian ...
- 2,149
15
votes
Will tuning your TV to a channel that isn't the presidential inauguration lower its ratings?
EDIT:
From the most up to date source I could find:
"Families are asked to track their viewing habits for a certain period of time. A small collection of these families makes up a sample size that ...
- 261
15
votes
Have any versions of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" had to remove the Ask the Audience lifeline due to the audience purposely voting wrong?
Is this claim true for Russian [...] version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"?
Can't say for all nations, but that particular screenshot doesn't match the claim in any way.
That Reddit ...
- 251
13
votes
Accepted
Did Bear Grylls see Rob Hall's body on Everest?
Is Rob Hall's body still on Everest...
Yes. (Unless something very unusual has happened very recently.)
Virtually all the people who died on Everest (or other extremely high mountains) are still up ...
- 18.8k
13
votes
Accepted
Was the U.S. government responsible for Popeye's dependance on spinach?
No.
The 'eat your vegs' campaign as an established social norm is older, started with World War One, not during the Depression. Further, spinach is no meat substitute, whether you look for any iron ...
- 43.4k
12
votes
Will tuning your TV to a channel that isn't the presidential inauguration lower its ratings?
Yes (but no)
There are two parts to the Nielsen ratings, the total number of viewers (Points) and the Share.
A Ratings Point is 1% of the total number of households.
The Share is the percentage of ...
- 990
12
votes
What is the origin of this photo of an unexploded bomb?
This is a Soviet truck, ZiL-131:
which is very unlikely to be used in Palestine.
So the claim it is from Palestine is wrong. The bouth Russian and Ukrainian media claimed the truck to be Ukrainian, ...
- 808
12
votes
Accepted
Is this metric system video, apparently taken from Fox news, a deep fake?
The original question asked whether the video is satirical. The answer to this is no. We can prove this on the strength that the arguments made by Tucker Carlson's guest have been published non-...
- 39.4k
11
votes
Accepted
Does using the computer before sleeping affect sleep patterns?
Make your own conclusion from the sources mentioned
This is evidence showing that using face-to-screen electronics before going to bed could harm your sleep.
For instance, this study, published in ...
- 29.8k
10
votes
Does saying "off the record" allow lawyers to make admissions without legal ramifications?
"off the record" seems to mainly be a plot device. The original "off the record" statement would mean that the lawyer approach the bench and have some off the record talk, usually ...
- 201
10
votes
Accepted
Are North American children adopting British accents because of Peppa Pig?
The Guardian did a short piece on this and the bottom line is straightforward:
American kids may have picked up a Britishism or two, but the claim that they’re developing a whole accent based off a ...
- 7,049
9
votes
Does Arabic graffiti in "Homeland" criticise the show?
Yes, it does.
The German newspaper Die Zeit (The Times) has also covered this event by interviewing the Arabic artist Caram Kapp, who was asked by the creators of the show to spray the graffiti.
...
- 18.5k
9
votes
Is this metric system video, apparently taken from Fox news, a deep fake?
This link, titled "Can the US continue to stand alone against the metric system?", is from foxnews.com, and has been there for several days that I know of. It is apparently the same video as the ...
- 5,511
8
votes
Accepted
Is Elvis the individual who has saved the US healthcare industry the most money in the last 100 years?
Per Philip J Smith in 2011, U.S. Immunization Survey (USIS) has been partly the reason for the success of immunization in USA. This should mean that the single event responsible for raising ...
- 22.5k
8
votes
Accepted
Did a broadcast of the US National Anthem in the 60's use subliminal messaging?
Don't trust it to be true: it's almost certainly a fake.
The original is likely here and has no messages (but better colors!):
http://www.fuzzymemories.tv/index.php?c=3104 -- It's an uncut segment, ...
- 77.9k
8
votes
Accepted
Was there ever a cable channel called The Puppy Channel which broadcast for three years?
According to this episode of This American Life, Dan FitzSimons started the Puppy Channel in June 1996, and worked on the concept for 5 years. Unfortunately, no cable distributor bought the show.
- 344
7
votes
Does watching television damage the eyes?
No, watching too much television does not directly cause myopia.
Walter Wood has debunked the theory that too much near work causes myopia.
In his book The Ultimate Unification of Diet Health and ...
- 541
7
votes
Accepted
Is there any benefit to leaving Animal Planet on when leaving a cat alone?
I couldn't find any research to support the notion that cats benefit from watching TV. I couldn't find any to contradict it either.
I did find that the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery ...
- 24.8k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible