The Gasland background story has now collapsed with Fox’s admission it was a NWPOA lease depicted in the movie. Every aspect of the story about a $4,750/acre signing bonus that came in the mail from a gas company turns out to be a falsehood.

Here is Josh Fox, speaking at the very beginning of Gasland, offering the story line subsequently picked up, without challenge, by literally thousands of reviewers and media outlets:

One day I got a letter in the mail. It was from a natural gas company. The letter told me that my land was on top of a formation that was called the Marcellus Shale which stretched across Pennsylvania…New York…Ohio…and West Virginia and that the Marcellus shale was the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.

I could lease my land to this company and I would receive a signing bonus of $4,750 an acre. Having 19.5 acres that was nearly $100,000…right there in my hand could it be that easy?

Certain of the fundamental frauds inherent in this story have been articulated several times already. The lease was a draft developed by the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance (NWPOA), not a gas company lease and was developed after Fox said he received his offer. Following the FrackNation exposure of this reality, a public radio station interviewer forced Fox to answer how this could be. He changed his story, admitting it was the NWPOA lease and suggesting he and/or his father (the actual owner of the property) had been members. He claimed to have dropped out before being forced to sign. No one, of course, was forced to sign, which was just the beginning of the deception.

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