Cell Phone Popcorn Hoax Exposed
You may remember various email hoaxes over the years claiming that cell phones could cook an egg and therefore were frying your brain while you used them. Well, a new version popped up May 28th in the form of YouTube videos purporting to demonstrate how cell phones can pop corn. I’ve received several emails from friends “alerting” me to the danger.
Sorry, folks, but all three videos were illusions produced by Cardo Systems, Inc., a provider of Bluetooth headsets, as part of a marketing campaign to - you guessed it - sell more headsets. Pretty clever, I suppose, but how was it done? Well, someone’s produced a video that purports to “expose” the hoax. The video on the left is one of the three produced by Cardo showing the corn “popping”, the one on the right by someone dismantling a microwave to demonstrate how the trick was conceivably accomplished. Kids, don’t try this at home.
A word of caution seems appropriate here. Cardo refers to their videos as “illusions” without explaining how they were accomplished. The video purporting to expose them was not produced by Cardo and could conceivably be a hoax itself. In any event, attempting to reproduce the illusion as shown in the second video would be, at the very least, dangerous. At worst, you could be electrocuted or burn your house down. Needless to say, I don’t recommend anyone try it.
Doug
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Oh goodie, Mommy and Daddy are at work and I have taken our microwave apart just like in the video. I think I got the wires cut and spliced right, so I am ready to plug this bad boy in and have some fun! I have a couple of cherry bombs on the table to see if they will go off....
Here goes...
Uh oh, Billyum blew his head off! I'm getting out of here before I get in trouble!
"This is Channel 9 reporter Derk Portly live from 123 Cherry Lane where fire crews are attempting to control a house fire of mysterious origin. Neighbors say they heard a loud explosion before seeing the house in flames. One headless body has been recovered and witnesses say they saw a young girl fleeing the scene immediately after the explosion. Foul play is suspected......"
I knew when I got the email that it was some kind of hoax. I mean cell phones have been blamed for all kinds of things that were all fake.
But isn't it dangerous to be exposed to the microwave beams? The people around the table are all exposing themselves to beams that cause cancer, right?
That was too fast. The hoax is so new and its already exposed. It was a pretty cool one too.
"This is Dirk Portly with a Channel 9 News exclusive. I'm talking with 9 year old Cheryl Bloomer, the girl seen running from the explosion and fire earlier today. So Cheryl, tell us what happened?"
"Well me an' Billyum was messin' around with his microwave to pop some popcorn an' we got the idea to see what would happen with other stuff. We tried matches but they wouldn't light. Then we tried some cherry bombs. We was gonna pop 3, but Billyum put 7 more on the pile and then they blew up the table and the roof and Billyums head shot off like a Roman candle....."
"So there you have it, direct from one of the children who started the blaze. And Cheryl, what did you learn from all this?"
"You shouldn't use more than three cherry bombs...."
"Thank you Cheryl. This is Dirk Portly, live on Cherry Lane where three houses are now engulfed in flames. Now back to our regular program."
You guys are too funny!
Seriously, doing this with a microwave is asking for problems. Want to get a Darwin Award? Try this! Really dumb!
I don't thing the microwaves would penetrate the wood table. I think this is another hoax.
I think you are right, they won't penetrate the glass door with the little rubber seal around it, why would they go through the thick table? Fake!
Who dreams up these things anyway? Aren't there enough hoaxes we need another one? Glad this one will live a short life.
Sometimes the comments are as good as the article!
Everyone have a nice weekend!
This will make a good weekend project. We have an old microwave in the garage that was going to the dump anyway. I will let you know if it works.
I have received this from 4 or 5 friends about how cell phones can pop corn. It looked pretty legit. Thanks for the expose!
This thing about cellphones popping popcorn was all over our office the last couple weeks. I knew it couldn't be real or we would have heard about someone's brain being damaged. You just can't believe most of what comes to your email inbox.
I tried this over the weekend and couldn't get it to work. I used an old microwave that we were taking to the dump anyway so maybe it no longer worked right. I did it on the work bench which may have been too think also.
Reminded myself of how much fun science class was in school days.
I hope no one burned their house down trying this stupid experiment. Darwin Award hopeful candidates only!