A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.

The British philologist Robert Nares (1753–1829) says that the word hoax was coined in the late 18th century as a contraction of the verb hocus, which means "to cheat", "to impose upon" or "to befuddle often with drugged liquor".Hocus is a shortening of the magic incantation hocus pocus, which in turn is a contraction of the phrase Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, mentioned in Thomas Ady's 1656 book A candle in the dark, or a treatise on the nature of witches and witchcraft. According to the book, the Latin-like gibberish phrase was uttered by a conjuror to distract his audience from his sleight of hand.

Alternatively, hoax could have been derived from the Irish Gaelic olcas, pronounced olkəs and h-olkəs, an adjective used to describe behaviour similar to mischief, naughtiness, spite, wickedness, evil. Similarly, hocus could have been derived from the same word.

Carlos Arredondo (born 1960) made national news when his son Marine Lance Corporal Alexander Arrendondo, 20 years old, was killed in An Najaf, Iraq during his second tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom on August 25, 2004. Later that day, on Carlos Arredondo's 44th birthday, the Marines' Casualty Assistance Team arrived at the Arredondo home in Hollywood, Florida to notify him of his son's death. The Marines had not brought a chaplain with them and notified him in the front yard of his home. After close to 30 minutes during which Mr. Arredondo requested for the Marines to leave, he became extremely upset and agitated. According to Arrendondo's account, at this point he called his son's Marine recruiter on the phone:

"My head full of confusion, asking myself what's going on, what's going on, I pounded the hammer hard into the ground, then went behind a tree to cry when I think to call Alex's recruiter, Sergeant Martinez. I have his telephone number in my phone. I call him, explain that I'm Alex's father and ask him to please help me, the Marines are telling me Alex has died. The voice on the other side say, "Sir, sir, you've got the wrong number. I look and the phone say "Sergeant Martinez." Pretty sure it was Sergeant Martinez's voice. I call him back again, and again he hung up on me."

Richard C. Martinez is a Democratic member of the New Mexico Senate, representing the 5th District since 2001.