Guest post: Forget pickles and ice cream. I published a fake paper on pregnancy cravings for prime numbers

I had grown weary of the constant stream and abuse of spam invitations to submit manuscripts to journals and to attend fake conferences on the other side of the world, a trend extensively studied in academia. The last straw: a solicitation from the Clinical Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, well outside my work in mathematics education.

Accepting the challenge, I decided to submit a deliberately nonsensical, AI-generated manuscript in response to observe how the individuals behind these supposed journals operate.

In October 2025, I wrote to someone named Henry Jackson, who had sent the article invitation in August (despite the fact that no such person is listed on the journal’s website). I sent a manuscript generated entirely by ChatGPT to test how far a publication created with zero genuine effort could go and whether there was any filtering mechanism in place to prevent a meaningless article from being published. 

I proposed the following title in my reply: “Obstetric Paradoxes and Didactic Equations: The Impact of Mathematical Teaching on Childbirth and Beyond.” The abstract read: 

In an unprecedented quantum leap in interdisciplinary research, we introduce the concept of ‘Gyneco-Obstetric Algebraic Didactics’ (GOAD). This paper explores the impact of teaching mathematical models using obstetric metaphors on the cognitive flexibility of third-trimester patients and first-year mathematics students alike. Through the introduction of the Ovary-Function Theorem (OFT) and the application of the Cervix-Dilation Equation , the study reveals that explaining non-Euclidean spaces through pelvic retroversion significantly improves calculus test scores and reduces birth anxiety by 13.7%. A case study with pregnant mathematicians and aspiring gynecologists demonstrates that integrating the Fibonacci sequence into labor progression charts induces spontaneous appreciation for abstract algebra and mild cravings for prime numbers. These findings challenge the traditional boundaries between prenatal care and set theory, suggesting that mathematical didactics and obstetric gynecology, when merged, can birth new paradigms in both fields. Further research is encouraged, especially in the context of cesarean matrices and post-partum group theory.

On October 29, I received the following response from someone named Amelia Sandra, from the journal’s editorial office (who is also not listed among the journal’s staff): “We request that you submit the full-length article on your research so that we can forward it to our quality department for evaluation.” I asked ChatGPT to generate a full article (clearly absurd and entirely fictitious) consistent with the submitted title and abstract. I deliberately included graphs that explained nothing and results that were entirely implausible. The conclusions were patently unbelievable. A cursory glance at the paper would have been enough to realize it made no sense whatsoever.

At this point, I resorted to a small deception and submitted the article under a pseudonym, as I had no intention of gaining any benefit from the publication, nor of having it appear among my genuine academic works. I chose a pseudonym similar to my real name, “Pascual Chiago,” since I had to submit the manuscript from my official university email account. 

I left other obvious signs that the article was a joke, such as references to non-existent journals and authors with rather explicit surnames (e.g., Sneakydez, Trickón, Sneakarez, Hoodvez, Cheatillo) hoping that anyone would clearly see the false nature of the article. On November 3, I submitted the AI-generated article on the impact of mathematics education on unborn children.

Minutes later, I received a response from Amelia stating that my article had been forwarded to their “professional review team.” At this point, I assumed my experiment would end there.

I was wrong. On November 12 a certain Susan Lee (also not listed on the journal’s website) demanded an immediate response within 24 hours to the review comments on the submitted paper, even though I had not previously received any email with review comments. The tone was threatening and insisted on payment of the invoice. I received six identical emails with the review comments.

Fortunately — or amusingly — the manuscript was rated as “ACCEPTED WITH MINOR MODIFICATIONS.” The review letter praised the manuscript as “fairly written and interesting” and commended my “hard work.” Among the requested revisions were suggestions that made little sense, including demands that I cite unrelated journals such as the Journal of Molecular Liquids and Spectrochimica Acta.

Pressed for time and increasingly irritated, I resubmitted the same file five minutes later, randomly highlighting passages in yellow and making no actual changes. I also added the requested citations without checking their existence, inventing authors and titles to further test whether anyone was genuinely overseeing the process. The references included authors explicitly named to suggest fabrication (e.g., “Me-Lo, I.” and “Nvent, O.”, names that, when read in Spanish, sound like ‘me lo invento’, meaning ‘I’m making it up’).

Within less than an hour, I received final acceptance from the editor. Shortly after, I was sent an invoice for APCs amounting to USD $2,949, payable within two to three days.

Naturally, I had no intention of paying such a sum. So when I received a payment reminder email on November 18 signed by Robbie Williams, I decided to extend the joke slightly further so they might realize they were the ones being deceived this time. I replied angrily and embedded references to songs by the singer Robbie Williams (the real one), with a fake receipt attached from the “CheatBank of Spain” generated by AI. Perhaps the fake invoice was excessive, but it felt like poetic justice.

I assumed the matter would end there. However, a few days later, after recounting the story to a colleague, I discovered that the article had indeed been published on the journal’s website with an assigned DOI. I had assumed that without payment, publication would not proceed.

My email of November 18 was my last communication with them. Since then, Robbie Williams has continued to email me every five or six days requesting payment.

The paper has somehow brought me back to where I started. This week I received an unsolicited email from the conference manager of an upcoming gynecology meeting. It seems my paper “was identified as pertinent to themes under consideration.”

What was my intention in doing all this? Even today I am not entirely sure, but I suppose that, first, I was seeking a kind of vendetta against the malicious spam emails that academics receive daily. 

Second, I wanted to demonstrate what we are repeatedly told in training courses about predatory journals: The machinery designed to exploit the academic system is devoid of scientific rigor and ethical standards. But I don’t think I needed AI to tell us that. 

Pascual D. Diago is a professor in the Department of Teaching of Mathematics at the University of Valencia in Spain. His (real) research is on the use of new technologies in teaching mathematics.

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