Ok, a few days ago Username24 posted something along the lines of (paraphrased) "this year Mars will be as big as the full moon". Well today my dad forwarded this email to me:

Is this simply a case of bad grammer and people repeating things they didn't really understand? Or is this straight woo-woo? Or am I just dumb?

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Is this honestly the first email forwarded to you that was factually incorrect? It is part of the mixed blessing of instantaneous communication. Everyone, including those who do not take the time to check the validity of the information, has a "forward" button, and an address list. IMO, email would be far better without those two little innovations.

The majority of these things get sent around so much that they show up on the radar of a site like www.snopes.com . The best method to dealing with an email like this is to delete it, and let the person who sent it know that you do not need to receive such emails in the future. If you are one of those people who simply cannot keep your pointer off the "forward" button, at least check the validity before you forward.

It's being discussed in this thread

PS: It's not so much factually incorrect, as two years late--it was originally sent in regards to the Mars conjunction of August 2003

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Snopes' take on it.

Edit to add quote:

Actually....yes 8). I get junk mail, but that doesn't count, cause that is just false advertising.

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The fastest way to get of off the list to receive bulk spam from your acquaintances is to hit the reply all button and respond with factual information and links to credible sources that support your statements. Most of the time these messages contain multiple email addresses of many friends of the sender. The original sender will be embarrassed enough to make sure you never get another junk email again.

Only do this if you don’t mind never hearing from the person again.

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I do that, but I also go one step further. Usually, when someone forward an email they leave the addresses of all the previous people who have forwarded the email. So the message looks like this:

from: billybob
to: tofu
subject: fw: fw: fw: fw: OMFG WTF?

>from: jethro
>to: billybob
>subject: fw: fw: fw: OMFG WTF?

>>from: anniemay
>>to: jethro
>>subject: fw: fw: fw: OMFG WTF?

>>Teh Moon is as BIG as mars!!!111

When you think about it, this makes sense. A person who is too lazy to spend 30 seconds looking this up in google is also too lazy to clean up the email before forwarding it. Anyway, what I usually do is email jethro and anniemay from an anonymous account and I tell them that they are very foolish for believing this and very rude for forwarding it on.

I'm sorry, but this is the 21st century. In my opinion, if you are an adult you should be smart enough to learn basic netiquette, and that includes not propagating stupid hoaxes. Polite emails rarely work on these types of people, but a very rude email that berates them mercilessly might just be traumatic enough to make them think twice about doing it in the future.

I got a couple of similiar emails forwarded from a friend; and did the 'reply to all' with a link or two debunking same. Months later, from the same friend, I got a virus alert with panic written all over it. The email said to do a search and delete what comes up on your computer stateing it was a deadly (for your data) virus hibernating. Being skeptical, I Googled the search term; the Norton site came up calling it a 'hoax' warning. If you deleted what it said to delete, one would ~have~ to re-install Windows for the pc to function correctly.

I forwarded the link to him immediately, along with thirty others on his forwarded email. This was within five minutes of receiving it from him. Told him to don't ever automatically send out anything like that again with at least checking it out. "Look at the damage you could have caused."

Jeez, the naivete.

I'm writing a blog entry/webpage about this over the weekend.

Nice. 8) I was thinking about the same thing - several of my mates recently asked me about this Mars thing that is 'coming up.' I didn't realise this email was still being spread around. #-o

with regards

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Sign up to sue the Sun

On the other hand...

My boat has come in guys! I was recently contacted by a nigerian government agent. This guy is gonna give me millions of dollars, just to hold onto his money for him. What kind of telescope should i purchase with all that money to watch this martian event?

No way! You and I must have been picked specially or something, because they were gonna do that for me too! :wink:

You guys are lucky. All I ever get are notices from my bank telling me to enter in my account info and password for them to verify.

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Once in awhile I go to their form page and fill out fake information just to get their hopes up, but it takes too long to do very often. Mail programs should have a retaliate button that automates this.

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I was at a birthday party last Friday when the birthday girl made a comment about mars being as large as the moon in a few weeks. I said she must have heard or been told wrong, because the closest approach was a few years ago, but it would never be as big as the moon. However, she persisted so I left it alone, since it was her party. I hate to respond with an "appeal to authority" but sometimes you want to just smack someone upside the head and ask "what's the matter with you." This is the roommate of the person I mentioned in another thread who thinks that neutrons only interact with water and that fission chain reactions are caused by beta and alpha particles.

Oh, my aching head. #-o

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The local paper actually debunked this today. On the front page, even. Wish I could find a link. I'm referring to The Ottawa Citizen if anyone cares to try.

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Snopes also has an entry for this, another place you can point people.

http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp

I tried exactly that with a person who sent me that Photoshopped picture of the SE Asian tsumani from last December. You may have gotten the pic, yourself... Anyway, I linked to Snopes and added some comments of my own, to which she replied something like "Why should I believe Snopes, I don't know those people." It was worth a shot, though.

Aporetic

Yeah, I've done this before. I was banned from many yahoo groups because of it.

Ignorance is bliss I suppose. *shrug*


It is amazing though, how many folks take things they read at face value. Not think for a second that, "Hey! This may be wrong. Perhaps I should google it for more info." Especially with "Mars being as big as the moon" and all. :roll:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...l_marshoax.htm


Just for back-up. In case someone does not believe you. :wink: