The reliably fake blog World News Daily Report managed to gain attention for itself online by duping readers in July 2015 into thinking it was posting legitimate content — which then, of course, circulated in perpetuity with the date obscured or removed.
In this case, the post entitled “Real-Life Dr. Frankenstein Creates First Entirely Lab-Grown Baby” (which has since been deleted) was, as is the blog’s standard, reliably creepy:
A group of scientists of the famous State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR (Государственный научный центр вирусологии и биотехнологии Вектор), based in Koltsovo, Russia, announced this morning that they had successfully given life to the first human baby grown entirely in vitro and created from reprogrammed stem cells.
After working for 2 years on a controversial project, reminiscent of that of the young doctor who created a grotesque but sentient creature through an unorthodox scientific experiment in Mary Shelley’s famous novel, Frankenstein, Dr. Ivanov and his team gave life to an artificially created young boy in their biotechnology lab, located in southern Russia.
The baby, who is simply named Adam, was “born” on June 12, in a laboratory of the research center. He weights only 400 grams and is barely seven inches (18 cm) tall, but the experts believe that his chances of survival are very good.
Like all of the blog’s posts, the “Frankenstein baby” story was made up. While masquerading as a legitimate news site, the site — which claims it publishes items “of interest to the Christian, Muslim and Jewish zionist community worldwide” — does have a disclaimer that reads in part:
WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle.
Notwithstanding this bit of disinformation, there are people in the real world who have drawn attention in the news for carrying the “Frankenstein” last name; a Florida child, Oskar Gary Frankenstein, made headlines after being born on Halloween day in 2017.
Another person with that name, 57-year-old Wes Frankenstein, shared his experiences with the Tulsa World in January 2021,, including the myriad jokes at his expense.
“I have heard it all,” he told the newspaper. “You can’t tell me something I haven’t heard.”
Update 10/29/2021, 2:30pm PST: This article has been revamped and updated. You can review the original here.