Scam Sandwich | Snopes.com

FACT CHECK:   Did a Texas woman claim she was raped by a pig and became pregnant as a result? CLAIM:   A Texas woman named Angie Houston claimed she was raped by a pig and became pregnant as

a result.   FALSE EXAMPLE:    _[Collected via e-mail, June 2015]_ > Here is the site in question with the article in question being that > a girl (claiming she's a virgin) is 

claiming a pig raped her one > night (ripped her pants off & easily bc she wasn't wearing panties) > impregnating her with a baby pig. She (of course) is refusing a > 

sonogram to find out if in deed there is a "pig baby" in her belly. > She says she feels it will come out looking human instead of a > mutant pig. She's claiming no 

other way possible for her to be > pregnant for she's never been sexually active. Her parents are > backing her 100% saying she has promised she's never been with a > boy.

 I find this story repulsive honestly. The mere story is enough > to make you sick to your stomach!! ORIGINS:    On 24 June 2015, the web site _Dude Comedy_ published an article headlined

"Pregnant Texas Woman Claims She Was Raped by a Pig," reporting an unusual incident that purportedly occurred in Bardwell, Texas: > Angie Houston recently told Ellis County 

News that she expects to > give birth to a baby pig. >  > Houston alleges that one night she came home from a night of playing > miniature golf and was pounced on and raped by a 

400lb boar named > Pete. >  > “People think I’m crazy and need mental help because of my > story,” Houston said. “They ask how’d the pig get my panties > off to mount me? I 

wasn’t wearing any panties is how! This pig > been hot for me for years. Constantly sniffing at my genitals. > He’s tried to rape me a hundred times. This is just the first time > 

he successfully got inside me.” Despite the article's complete implausibility, a number of users shared it on social media and inevitably forwarded it to _snopes.com_ — due in part to

the salacious nature of the subject, and likely in part due to the substance of the false claim. It was easy (and flattering) to believe _someone else_ might be foolish enough to buy the

story, so some readers shared it to mock the (non-existent) people sufficiently ignorant to believe it. Although there are a number of news sources that cover the area, there is no media

entity called "Ellis County News." The picture of a pig used in the article was an old and popular stock image, clearly not a new photo of a felonious farm animal. (The photograph

of the "victim" is possibly that of a real pregnant woman whose image was used without her permission in an objectionable and insulting manner, but we haven't yet turned up

its original source.) And while _Dude Comedy_ doesn't have a "satire" disclaimer on the site, they openly solicit "submissions" (meaning that anyone is free to

submit a story for publication). The report was published by _Dude Comedy_ on 24 June 2015 and included an H/T (i.e., "hat tip") to the site Moron.com (a common purveyor of fake

news), but we found no similar article on the latter site. At least one of the two photographs used in the _Dude Comedy_ article was a stock image dating back to 2008, and a Facebook share

counter on the page appeared to be statically set at 82676 (considerably higher than the number of shares displayed on the site's Facebook page) in order to create an illusion of

popularity and possible credibility. Overall, the page appeared to play into users' desire to laugh at what looked to be the immense stupidity of others, as they themselves forwarded an

entirely falsified story. LAST UPDATED:     25 June 2015 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED:    25 June 2015