Student’s Wikipedia Hoax Goes Global

“One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear.”

The above quote has been attributed to French composer Maurice Jarre who died in March of this year.

The quote was posted to Wikipedia just shortly after his passing and subsequently appeared in obituaries around the world...in the Guardian, the London Independent, on the BBC Music Magazine website and even some in Indian and Australian publications.

The problem? Jarre never said it.

The quote was a hoax of sorts carried out by a 22-year-old Dublin student.

Shane Fitzgerald is currently studying sociology and economics at University College Dublin. He said that put the quote on Wikipedia as part of an experiment on globalization.

He was attempting to demonstrate how many journalists use the web as a source and how people are connected via through the net, he said.

Fitzgerald was stunned by the results of the project.

“I didn’t expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised about,” he said.

The fake quote remained undiscovered for weeks until Fitzgerald e-mailed the publications in question and notified them that they had published an inaccurate quote.

To this day, the quote lives on on several websites and blogs. Search for it. You will find it. Amazing.