[Undertoad]

Five years later, someone has used the Contact Us link to give us... the rest of the story (RIP Paul Harvey):

On 1/28/2004, the picture of the day was a photo of a dragon fetus (possibly a hoax) in a jar. I happen to know the true story.

It is a hoax, but it's a modern one. If you're wondering where I got this, I have a book called "The Dragon Conspiracy" (which has the same picture on the cover) by P. R. Moredun, who knows all about this hoax because he created it.

Here's the passage transcribed directly out of the back of the book:

"The idea for the dragon hoax came to me in my sleep. I woke up one morning and decided to have a dragon made and use it for publicity. That's how most of my ideas come to me, either in my sleep or when I'm relaxing in the bath!

"Finding a dragon is not that easy. There are plenty of experts out there who have never seen one, so how was an amateur dragon hunter like me going to get one? I went to see a model maker, a man called Jez who had built the dinosaurs for a BBC television show called "Walking With Dinosaurs", and explained to him that I needed a baby dragon, but one with a difference.

"Everyone thinks dragons came from eggs, but I'm not so sure, and there is no evidence to support either argument, only the myth--and that might not be accurate. So I asked Jez to make me a dragon fetus with an umbilical cord, and that was just the start of the fascinating discussions that have continued ever since. But he did make me a very fine dragon!

"I didn't tell anyone what I was doing, so when the dragon was ready it was still a secret. I then put it in the glass jar, filled it with water and sealed it with wax. Since the dragon is made out of latex rubber, water doesn't bother it. Once the dragon was complete, all I had to do was get the story straight for the hoax. The specimen jar was crated up and placed in a friend's garage--so the story went that it was supposedly stored away for years and forgotten. I'd been to Salzburg, Austria, for a weekend trip and bought some old letters and postcards from an antique shop. I used this to "authenticate" the hoax, since they were genuine and handwritten in old-style German, a language few people can read nowadays. Finally I had one additional letter created--it spoke of a "ghost" being sent to the British Museum and that it's true origin must be kept secret.

"So everything was ready. All I needed was for the press to be interested. I sent a photograph of the dragon to London's daily newspaper and the editor was hooked! He gave it full-page coverage the very next day and after that the story went worldwide. TV crews turned up, and newspapers from Moscow to Sydney and from Rome to L.A. ran the story.

"Of course, no one believed it was a real dragon--how could it be? But the story that it was a nineteenth-century hoax was believable--a dragon created by German scientists to fool their British counterparts at a time when rivalry was high between two of the biggest world powers. In fact, it was a hoax of a hoax. Eventually we launched the book with a major UK bookstore chain and the rest, well that is history, or urban myth as they call it nowadays.

"Was it fun to do? Absolutely! Even after we admitted the dragon was a hoax, people would still ask, "Is it real?" Everyone wanted it to be genuine, so strong is the belief in dragons. And when it went on exhibit at the Natural History Museum in London, crowds gathered and it proved very popular.

"Would I do it again? Definitely! There is so much doom and gloom in the news nowadays that I think something like the dragon story was refreshingly "unreal" and exciting in a positive way.

"Have I got another one planned? Yes, but I can't say--otherwise I'll spoil it!"

There you have it. That's the true story behind the dragon in the jar.

The story checks out. Thanks contributor! (I dunno if you wanted to remain anonymous)