Internet hoaxes: you cannot kill them. They just come back for more.
We thought we had heard the last from the Klingerman Virus back in May. The term began to appear in late April and peaked the week of May 21 with as many searches that week as Madonna.
Why the searches for an unknown virus? Well, a number of people had received email along the lines of the following:
There have been 23 confirmed cases of people attacked by the Klingerman Virus, a virus that arrives in your real mailbox, not your email inbox. Someone has been mailing large blue envelopes, seemingly at random, to people inside the US. On the front of the envelope in bold black letters is printed, "A gift for you from the Klingerman Foundation." When the envelopes are opened, there is a small sponge sealed in plastic.
Those who have come in contact with the Klingerman Virus have been hospitalized with severe dysentery. So far seven of the 23 victims have died. There is no Klingerman Foundation, so if you receive an oversized blue envelope in the mail marked "A gift from the Klingerman Foundation", DO NOT open it. Place the envelope in a strong plastic bag or container, and call the police immediately. The "gift" inside is one you definitely do not want.
Well, there is no such thing as the Klingerman Foundation, but there is also no such thing as the Klingerman Virus. The story is a complete hoax, a modern urban legend. But that didn't stop people from searching for the virus on Lycos, or doing really weird things.
For example on May 25, a terrified resident of Auburn, Maine, called 911 after receiving an envelope from the Handyman Club of America containing a free sanding sponge. As the Associated Press reported, "Fire trucks, cruisers and ambulances rushed to his home. The street was sealed off for half a mile. Police called the FBI. People in spacey hazardous materials suits ushered [him] outside, stripped him down to his shorts and sprayed him with a fire hose before sending him to the hospital." Fun!
The virus hoax finally dimmed, and by July the searches had died out. Or so we thought. Because at the end of December we began noticing searches for the Klingerman Virus again, and those searches have grown each week. Last week the Klingerman Virus received as many searches as the film Snatch and pop star Dido, two rising topics which, unlike the Klingerman Virus, actually exist.
The question is, why did some individual resuscitate this hoax? Unfortunately, we can't answer that question, but we can tell you: it worked.
