Pat Shingleton for June 1, 2009

• By PAT SHINGLETON
• WBRZ Chief Forecaster
• Published: Jun 1, 2009

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

I’m repeating a Weather News column on  a bogus story about Death Valley, Calif. In 1874, the editor of the Virginia Territorial Enterprise needed to fill space. He concocted a story about a scientist who invented a suit called “solar armor.” The scientist covered himself with a spongelike material, saturated himself with water and set across the desert. The article said the inventor was found perched on a rock, frozen solid, his beard was covered with frost; a foot-long icicle on his nose. The story had the trappings of scientific fact and the hoax was so successful newspapers reprinted it. Perspiring lowers the body temperature, as more people die from dehydration in Death Valley than heat stroke. Fastcast: Sizzling.