A reputed science journal accepted an article after having failed to determine that it was a hoax, forcing its editor-in-chief to resign from his post.

The article, written by a Philip Davis and claiming to be from the Center for Research in Applied Phrenology (CRAP), passed the Open Information Science Journal‘s review process despite its claims of peer review and scrutiny by various other academics, which consequently awarded the article publication online, and Davis a $800 stipend.

Davis, a graduate student from the University of Ithaca in New York, admitted to the hoax after he was informed that his article was to be published online. He said that he wanted to test the editorial standards of Bentham Science Publishers, the journal’s publishers.

However, Mahmood Alam, Bentham’s director of publications, said that they were aware the article was a hoax, and tried to identify the false authors under the false pretense of the the article’s publication, New Scientist reports.

“In this particular case, we were aware that the article submitted was a hoax and we tried to find out the identity of the individual by pretending the article had been accepted for publication when in fact it was not.”

Davis denies being directly contacted.

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