List of hoaxes

The following are lists of hoaxes:

Proven hoaxes

These are some claims that have been revealed to be deliberate public hoaxes. This list does not include hoax articles published on or around April 1, a long list of which can be found in the "April Fools' Day" article.

A-F

George Adamski's claims to have gone into space in UFOs. His book was based on his earlier book of fiction.
Cedric Allingham, fictitious author who wrote a book about meeting the pilot of a Martian spacecraft. Allingham was created by British astronomer Patrick Moore and his friend Peter Davies.
Alien autopsy hoax film by Ray Santilli
Amina Abdallah Arraf al Omari, a fake Syrian blogger
Apollo 20, a series of YouTube videos claiming to show evidence of intelligent, extraterrestrial life on the moon
The Archko Volume, a collection of documents related to the life of Jesus
The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, a book about purported sexual-enslavement of a nun
The balloon boy hoax – a boy reported to be traveling uncontrollably at high altitudes in a home-made helium balloon was later discovered to be hiding in the attic of his house
Bananadine, a fictional drug made from bananas
Bathtub hoax, an imaginary history of the bathtub published by H.L. Mencken
Johann Beringer's Lying Stones
Berners Street hoax in 1810
Franz Bibfeldt, a fictitious theologian originally invented to provide a footnote for a divinity school student, which later became an in-joke among academic theologians
The Big Donor Show, a hoax reality television program in the Netherlands about a woman donating her kidneys to one of three people requiring a transplantation
Biggest Drawing in the World, Erik Nordenankar's "drawing" of a self-portrait over the entire world using a GPS receiver^[1]
Jayson Blair's plagiarized and fabricated articles for the New York Times
Blood libels, which accused Jews of murdering non-Jewish children for baking matzos
C.W. Blubberhouse, whose letters in UK national newspapers were exposed as a hoax by the Sunday Times
Blue waffle, a supposedly contagious sexually transmitted disease affecting only women, causing a blue discoloration of the vagina
The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, a Christian book that was later admitted to be a hoax
Steve Brodie, who claimed to have jumped off Brooklyn Bridge
Bruno Banani, Tongan luger who, as a marketing ploy, was renamed after a lingerie firm, while insisting it was his real name
Calaveras Skull
The Cardiff Giant, of which P. T. Barnum made up a replica when he could not obtain the "genuine" hoax
Andrew Carlssin, a nonexistent "time travelling" stock broker arrested for SEC violations.
Thomas Chatterton's "medieval" poetry
The Shakespearean discoveries of John Payne Collier
The Cottingley Fairies
Crop circles. English pranksters Doug Bower and Dave Chorley claimed they started the phenomenon, and hundreds of "copycat" circles have been fabricated since by other hoaxers.
Donald Crowhurst who entered the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in an attempt to become the first person to single-handedly sail around the world non-stop. Instead he abandoned the race early on but continued to report false positions in an attempt to make it appear as if he was still competing.
Disappearing blonde gene
Document 12-571-3570 supposedly establishing that sex had taken place during a space mission
The Donation of Constantine
George Dupre, who claimed to have worked for SOE
The Education of Little Tree, widely acclaimed autobiography by Asa Earl Carter, later revealed to be fictional
Albert Einstein quotation supporting Astrology (Hamel 2007)
Emulex hoax, a stock manipulation scheme
The English Mercurie, a literary hoax purporting to be the first English language newspaper
Ern Malley, a fictitious poet
Essjay controversy, a false claim of academic credentials, starting on Wikipedia and continued into a New Yorker interview
The False Decretals
Fiji mermaid, the supposed remains of a half-fish half-human hybrid
Sidd Finch, fictional baseball player^[2]
Spiritualist Arthur Ford's claim of psychic contact with Harry Houdini
Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood 1939–1948, Binjamin Wilkomirski's memoirs, which were supposed to be a faithful account of his childhood in a Nazi death camp
Furry trout

G-M

Stephen Glass's falsified articles for The New Republic
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia claims by Eugenia Smith and Anna Anderson
The Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814
Gundala (film) a super hero movie that was promoted on the web despite the fact that it did not exist
The Hand that Signed the Paper, purportedly based on the experiences of "Helen Demidenko", actually Helen Darville
Hanxin, industrious and scientific hoax of a forgery Digital signal processor
Recordings allegedly made by the pianist Joyce Hatto
Joice Heth, African-American slave exhibited by P. T. Barnum as George Washington's nurse.
The Historia Augusta, a fictionalized collection of Roman imperial biographies, written in the late fourth century under the names of six third- and early fourth-century historians.
Histoire de l'Inquisition en France, the 1829 book by Etienne Leon de Lamonthe-Langan
The Hitler Diaries
The Horn Papers
Idaho's name
Il Bambino, a sculpture created by Michelangelo but sold as a classic Greek statue.
The Ireland Shakespeare forgeries, a collection of Shakespeare-related documents supposedly discovered by William Henry Ireland and published in 1795 by his father, Samuel Ireland; the discoveries included a "lost" play, Vortigern and Rowena
Clifford Irving's biography of Howard Hughes
The Jackalope, supposedly a form of rabbit with antlers
The Jacko hoax, a supposed gorilla or sasquatch caught near Yale, British Columbia, in 1884
Jdbgmgr.exe virus hoax^[3]
Anthony Godby Johnson, a nonexistent author of a hoax autobiography A Rock and A Hard Place.
The Lady Hope Story, a claim of Charles Darwin's deathbed conversion to evangelical Christianity
Fred Lorz 1904 Olympic Marathon
Enric Marco, who presented himself as a victim of the extermination camp of Mauthausen until uncovered in 2005
Maggie Murphy hoax, a hoax that claimed a farmer grew an oversized potato
Manhattan Airport Foundation, advocating for the development of an airport replacing Central Park.^[4]
Mars hoax (also called the Two Moons hoax), a yearly hoax, started in 2003, falsely claiming that at a certain date Mars will look as large as the full moon^[5]
The Masked Marauders, an album issued by a Warner Bros. Records subsidiary that reportedly featured a jam session between Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The perpetrator: Rolling Stone magazine.
Michelle Remembers, a memoir of Satanic child abuse
The Microsoft acquisition hoax, a 1994 hoax claiming that Microsoft had acquired the Roman Catholic Church. The hoax is considered to be the first hoax to reach a mass audience on the Internet. Following its debunking by Microsoft, new jokes with similar stories about Microsoft and other companies unrealistically acquiring influent non-profit bodies have also appeared later.
Internet reports that the Military Personnel Records Center was destroying paper records (2004)
The Moles' "We Are The Moles", a 1967 single promoted with not-so-subtle hints that it might be The Beatles recording under a pseudonym. It was actually recorded by Simon Dupree and the Big Sound – a 1960s UK pop group, members of whom later formed the progressive rock band Gentle Giant.
"Monkey Style", a purported variant of the "Animal Style" cheeseburger on In-N-Out Burger's secret menu, promoted as a rumor in a YouTube video in 2013
Mon cher Mustapha letter, a letter supposedly written by a Muslim immigrant in France, designed to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment
My 61 Memorable Games, a fake version of My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer

N-S

Ompax spatuloides, a "fish" supposedly discovered in 1872 in Australia, made of a mullet, an eel and the head of a platypus, as a joke on Karl Theodor Staiger which also fooled Francis de Laporte de Castelnau into writing a scientific description of the "species".
The Works of Ossian, "translated" by James MacPherson
"Our First Time", an early popularized Internet hoax.
Edward Owens (hoax), perpetrated on the English-language Wikipedia in 2008 by a class at George Mason University.
The Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis)
Paul is dead (Paul McCartney death hoax)
The perpetual motion engines built by John Ernst Worrell Keely and Charles Redheffer
Pickled dragon
Piltdown Man
Platinum Weird, deliberate hoax by David A. Stewart and Kara DioGuardi about a fictitious band from 1974 promoted using false advertising
Pope Joan – the one and only supposed female pope
The Poppy Fields, a made-up band that earned a number 24 hit for "45 RPM", a song they had not recorded
Princess Caraboo, aka Mary Baker
The Priory of Sion, a made-up secret society that plays a prominent role in The Da Vinci Code^[6]
Progesterex, a date-rape drug
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a book instrumental in the surge of antisemitism during the last hundred years^[7]
George Psalmanazar and his "Formosa"
Psychic surgery
Q33 NY, an Internet hoax based on the 9/11 attacks
A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century
Tamara Rand prediction of the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, which was actually made after the fact (Randi 1982:329).
Rejecting Jane chronicles the rejection by publishing houses of the opening chapters of Jane Austen novels submitted to them under a pseudonym by British writer David Lassman
The Report From Iron Mountain, a literary hoax claiming that the government had concluded that peacetime was not in the economy's best interest
Rosie Ruiz, who cheated in the Boston Marathon
Frank Scully's 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers, which claimed that aliens from a crashed flying saucer were being held
"Seriously McDonalds", a viral photograph apparently showing racist policies introduced by McDonald's.^[8]
Michael Shrimpton, who perpetrated a hoax that Germany was planning a nuclear attack on the 2012 Summer Olympics
The Skvader, a form of winged hare supposedly indigenous to Sweden
Songs of Bilitis, supposed ancient Greek poems "discovered" by Pierre Louÿs
Space Cadets, a 2005 TV programme by Channel 4, in which contestants were fooled into thinking that they were training at a Russian space academy to become space tourists.
The "R. E. Straith" letter sent to George Adamski by Gray Barker and James W. Moseley (Moseley & Pflock 2002:124–27,331–32).
James Vicary's Subliminal advertising (Boese 2002:127–8)
The "Surgeon's Photo" of the Loch Ness Monster
SETI: EQ Pegasus Hoax of 1998^[9]

T-Z

Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax
Thatchergate Tapes, a fake conversation with which the punk band Crass fooled the governments of the USA and UK
Slowing of Satellites above Tirunallar Saniswaran Temple, because of mysterious UV rays from Saturn, claimed to have been admitted as a Miracle, by NASA.^[10]
Robert Tilton's "prayer cloths"
Mary Toft, the rabbit mother
Toothing, an invented fad about people using Bluetooth phones to arrange sexual encounters
Tourist guy, fake photo of a tourist at the top of the World Trade Center building on 9/11 with a plane about to crash in the background
Trodmore Racecourse, a fictitious Cornish race meeting
The Turk, a chess-playing automaton that actually contained a person
Tuxissa, a computer virus hoax
Benjamin Vanderford's beheading video
Villejuif leaflet, a pamphlet distributed in Europe with claims of various food additives having carcinogenic effects.
Southern Television broadcast interruption hoax (1977), hoax message inserted into an IBA broadcast in the United Kingdom on 26 November 1977
David Weiss, a fictitious person that was used by the Jerusalem Post as a source
Laurel Rose Willson's claims to be a survivor of Satanic ritual abuse (as Lauren Stratford), and of the Holocaust (as Laura Grabowski)
Yellowcake forgery, the false documents suggesting Iraq's Saddam Hussein was to purchase uranium from Niger
Zzxjoanw, a fictitious word that fooled logologists for 70 years

Proven hoaxes of exposure

"Proven hoaxes of exposure" are semi-comical or private sting operations. They usually encourage people to act foolishly or credulously by falling for patent nonsense that the hoaxer deliberately presents as reality. See also culture jamming.

The Amityville Horror – ghostly events reported by the buyers of a house where another family had been murdered.
The Atlanta Nights hoax
The British television series Brass Eye encouraged celebrities to pledge their support to nonexistent causes, to highlight their willingness to do anything for publicity
Dihydrogen monoxide hoax
Disumbrationism
Genpets, the bio-engineered pet creatures
Grunge speak, an alleged slang of the Seattle rock underground, concocted by a Sub Pop employee and profiled in The New York Times
ID Sniper rifle, a rifle that shoots GPS chips to mark and track suspects
The Lovelump bio-engineered sex toy
Project Alpha – exposed poor research into psychic phenomena
Pacific Northwest tree octopus, by Lyle Zapato
Sina, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals
Nat Tate, an imaginary artist, about whom a biography was published in 1998 by William Boyd intended to temporarily fool the art world
Media pranks of Joey Skaggs
The Sokal affair
The Taxil hoax by Léo Taxil, poking fun at the Roman Catholic Church's attitude toward Freemasonry
The avant-garde "music" of "Piotr Zak"
The practice of growing Bonsai Kittens
January 2009 Quadrant Hoax

Journalistic hoaxes

Deliberate hoaxes, or journalistic fraud, that drew widespread attention include:

Washington Irving created a hoax about the supposedly missing Diedrich Knickerbocker
Edgar Allan Poe created a hoax of moon travel in "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall"
Jayson Blair, reporter for The New York Times
Janet Cooke, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her fictitious Washington Post story about an eight-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy
Dark Side of the Moon (documentary) – this French mockumentary "proving" that the Apollo moon landings were hoaxes is itself an admitted hoax
The Flemish Secession hoax of 2006
Stephen Glass, reporter for The New Republic
Fuckart & Pimp a hoax art exhibition at London's Decima gallery, which purported to be the show of a female artist having sex with clients to consummate the sale of her paintings, created a worldwide media scandal but was later revealed to be a hoax.
The Great Moon Hoax of 1835; Edgar Allan Poe would later claim that this was inspired by his own story "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall," which was published only a few months before
Great Wall of China hoax of 1899
Jack Kelley, longtime USA Today correspondent
David Lassman who wrote the 2007 'Rejecting Jane' article, which chronicled Jane Austen's rejection by modern-day publishers
The New York Zoo hoax of 1874
Nik Cohn's New York magazine article, "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", which was the source material for the movie Saturday Night Fever, and which Cohn admitted decades later had been fiction, not reportage
Konspiration 58 about the soccer world cup of 1958
David Manning, a fictitious film-critic created by Sony in order to place good quotes on Columbia Pictures' film advertising
Holocaust teaching controversy of 2007
Cello Scrotum is a hoax medical condition originally published as a brief case report in the British Medical Journal in 1974.
San Serriffe, a fictional island nation made the subject of an extensive report created for April Fools' Day 1977 by Britain's Guardian newspaper

References

↑ Moore, Matthew (27 May 2008). "'Biggest drawing in world' revealed as hoax". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 6 February 2010.
↑ Plimpton, George (2004), The Curious Case of Sidd Finch, New York, NY: Four Walls Eight Windows, ISBN 1-56858-296-X
↑ F-Secure Hoax Information Pages: jdbgmgr.exe virus hoax at the Wayback Machine (archived March 5, 2009)
↑ Clark, Tim (July 22, 2009). "Airport Hoax". London: Daily Mail. Retrieved 2009-07-22.
↑ Mehta, Ankita (2014-08-28). "'Two Moons' Hoax: Absence of Twin Moon on 27 August Disappoints Many". International Business Times. Retrieved 2014-08-31.
↑ Brown, Dan (2003). The Da Vinci Code. Doubleday. ISBN 0385504209.
↑ Cohn, Norman (1966), Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elder of Zion, New York: Harper & Row .
↑ "McDonald's issues Twitter denial after hoax poster saying blacks will be charged extra goes viral". Daily Mail. 13 June 2011. Retrieved 18 June 2011.
↑ "Alien hoax dismays scientists". BBC News. 1998-11-03. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
↑ https://mysteriesexplored.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/saturn-and-lord-shaneeshwara-part-one/

External links

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