True/False
Fake/Real
Geography
Fringe Theory
Corrections
100
True or False: The moon is tidally locked with Earth, which means that it spins on its axis exactly once each time it orbits our planet. Because of this, people on Earth only ever see one side of the moon.
True!
100
Conspiracy theorists claim that the famous moon landing was fake, citing what appears to be a flag waving on the moon which would be impossible due to a lack of atmosphere since with no air there is no wind. Was the moon landing real, or fake?
Real: If you view the moon landing video carefully, you will see exactly why the flag is moving - the astronaut is shaking it from side to side as he places it on the moon's surface. Furthermore, while there is no "air" in space, there certainly is solar wind.
100
The highest point on Earth.
Mt. Everest
100
Believers of this theory will often claim that what we view as the sky is in fact a glass dome covering our not-round world.
Flat Earth Conspiracy Theory
100
Spider bites, primarily from brown recluse and black widow spiders, kill over 300,000 people in the United States every year.
Correction: black widow and brown recluse bites can be dangerous, but less than 3 people die of spide bites each year and most of them are children or people over 60.
200
True or False: The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure visible from space.
FALSE! The Great Wall is NOT visible from space. The only man-made "structures" that can be seen from space are the lights from our most densely populated cities.
200
Conspiracy theorists claim that 9/11 was an "inside job," that the U.S. government planned the entire attack to justify invading Iraq and securing oil reserves in the Middle East. Was 9/11 real or a fake attack?
Real: Conspiracy theorists claim that jet fuel can't get hot enough to melt steel beams, and so explosive devices must have been set up in the Twin Towers. And while this is correct - jet fuel can't melt steel - the planes crashed into the World Trade Center with over 2000 tons of force, causing an explosion nearly as powerful as a small nuclear bomb.
200
The lowest point on Earth is located at the bottom of this body of water in the Pacific Ocean.
Mariana Trench
200
These dangerous conspiracy theorists believe that safe, medically-necessary, life-saving vaccinations - especially vaccinations given during childhood - could cause autism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these conspiracy theorists were the most vocal.
Anti-vaxxers
200
All spiders belong outside. If you see a spider in your building, carefully catching the spider and taking it outside will save its life.
Correction: most spiders belong outside. Some spiders, however, commonly called "house spiders" have evolved specifically to live indoors, and taking them outside will ensure their horrible death.
300
True or False: Chevrolet famously failed to sell the Chevy Nova in Latin America - perhaps because in Spanish, "No va" means "Doesn't go."
False: While "No va" does mean "doesn't go," in Spanish, it isn't true that the Chevy Nova did poorly in Spanish-speaking countries. In fact, just as in English, the word "nova" conveys a sense of newness. There's even a Mexican gasoline called Nova.
300
Fake or Real: Throwing rice at weddings can be dangerous to birds - pidgeons who eat dry rice are in danger of exploding when the rice absorbs the fluid in their stomachs.
Fake: While it may not be the healthiest option, and perhaps a few pidgeons got a stomach ache after eating too much uncooked rice, but exploding birds? That's ridiculous.
300
The largest lake in the world
The Caspian Sea
300
QANON, a conspiracy theory group that behaves almost like a religious cult, found an audience on this social media platform. Hint: it wasn't Snapchat.
Facebook
300
The United States of America declared independence from Britain in 1986.
Correction: the United States declared independence from Britain in 1776.
400
True or False: Gerber failed miserably in their first attempt at selling baby food in Africa. In Africa, the packaging matched the food inside, so upon seeing the picture of a baby's face on the baby food jar, most African's assumed it actually contained babies!
False. Also, racist. Africa is a massive continent with 54 countries, over 3,000 ethnic groups, and more than 2,100 spoken languages. It is simply not possible that every consumer in the entire continent of Africa assumed that baby food was made out of babies. In fact, this myth existed before Gerber started making baby food, and it persists because of a racist image of non-white people as savages and cannibals.
400
Fake or Real: Most people think the Earth is round. Some people believe the Earth is flat. But they are both wrong - the Earth is egg-shaped.
REAL! Although it appears to be a perfect sphere or ball, because of the effect of gravity and the Earth's rotation around the sun, the planet is actually more oblong and egg-shaped than round.
400
The longest river in the world
The Nile
400
One rather strange, unscientific conspiracy theory linked this upgrade in cell phone signal technology to all sorts of medical and psychological problems; most famously, videos of people shaking their legs violently and blaming it on this upgrade made the rounds on all social media platforms.
5G
400
New York City is known as "The Big Apple," because at one point in time New York was the largest producers of apples in the United States.
Correction: nobody really knows why we call New York "The Big Apple," although there are several theories. It was never a major apple producer, though.
500
True or False: All rivers run from North to South.
False: Rivers move from high elevations (mountains) to low elevations (sea level) regardless of cardinal direction. The Nile River, for example, runs mostly South to North.
500
Conspiracy theorist and U.S. congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene made an outlandish accusatio when she claimed that "Jewish space lasers" had caused wild fires in California.
Real(ish): While the phrase "Jewish space lasers" sounds absurd, it is true that the Israeli government does have a system of laser-guided air defense satellites capable of destroying incoming missles. But these satellites had nothing to do with California wild fires.
500
Easter Island
500
It is often said that humans consume approximately 8 spiders in their sleep every year, but the real number will shock you! How many spiders do you really eat in your sleep by accident in a year?
0. The "fact" that we swallow eight spiders a year likely originated in a 1993 magazing article about how readily and easily people accept information they read online, no matter how ridiculous. Spiders instinctually try to stay as far away from humans as possible and would never willingly crawl into a human mouth.
500
Humans have explored more of the Earth than space.
Correction: humans have actually gone much greater distances in space than on Earth - the oceans, as well as the interior of the Earth, remain largely unexplored mysteries beyond our reach.