were failing to bite the bread crumbs mafini was leaving behind they were so invested in ung's hat mythology they refused to reconcile the reality in NUMBER_TOKEN muffini published his book ong's hat the beginning then he spoke about aung's hat on a popular paranormal radio show coast to coast am and from here things started to get weird well more weird even though miffini had left many clues behind even in the original pamphlet that the uns hat story was made up just a game eggheads all around the world started taking it far too seriously and were demanding answers from him conspiracy theorists ufo obsessives and the genuinely mentally ill were hounding mafini for more information they sent him threatening emails phone calls letters and then they started showing up at his house by the year NUMBER_TOKEN mafini was finding conspiracy theorists camped out on his lawn he was forced to march one intruder off his property at gunpoint one of these cracked eggheads even contacted muffini's employers claiming he was a dangerous liability which is a bit rich coming from people who genuinely believe in a new jersey vortex and so in NUMBER_TOKEN he finally came clean he posted an open letter online to the effect that he no longer wanted anything to do with the whole aung's hat thing and concluded by saying i am glad to finally be myself again it was signed the real joe mafini but you can't keep a good tinfoil hat owner down for long and the conspiracy theorists weren't about to be satisfied by something as flimsy as the creator of the hoax coming out and saying the hoax is definitely a hoax so conspiracy theories about the conspiracy theory started to spread had the government got to miffini had they threatened him had someone bought his silence mafini's confession ultimately brought the harassment from strangers to an end well mostly but he still couldn't seem to help himself he clearly enjoyed playing with the egghead's paranoia giving vague answers to their questions and constantly keeping them guessing in NUMBER_TOKEN he even worked as a consultant on an entirely new internet hoax based around the character of john teeter a time traveler from NUMBER_TOKEN who made worrying predictions about nuclear war and other catastrophic events which turned out to be the creation of florida lawyer larry haber ultimately the story of aung's hat may not be real but its legacy is some say it's the first alternate reality game in history at least the first that went viral and there are still plenty of people out there today desperate to believe in the mythical egg and the presence of an interdimensional vortex somewhere around the ominous hut at aung's hat there are plenty of youtube videos of people hiking around the new jersey pine barrens searching for wrong's hat desperately hoping to uncover a gateway to another world and go for a ride in the egg and here are we to crush their hopes and dreams even if they are mental after all in this day and age where the internet is consumed by yet more args vr headsets and video games that enable you to shout violent profanity at people from all over the world the line between fiction and reality is blurrier than ever before thanks for watching you can get your hands on my book stick a flag in it over on
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