Last week, millions watched and worried over the fate of a young boy supposedly trapped in a helium balloon. Authorities now say the whole ordeal was a hoax. This week, we take a look at some other memorable deceptions.
In 1912, parts of an ancient human skull were discovered in the English village of Piltdown. The fossils set the archaeological world on fire: scientists believed the skull fragments were the missing link between humans and apes. Forty years later, it was discovered that Piltdown Man was an elaborate hoax.
This collection of literary hoaxes includes a couple you may recognize from recent headlines. But literary fakers have been around since at least 1769, when a teenager named Thomas Chatterton wrote poems and passed them off as the work of a 15th-century monk.
If you believe that alien life forms are hovering in the skies, waiting for the right moment to make contact, you may want to steer clear of this site. It lists the (entirely subjective) top 10 UFO hoaxes, including such classics as Area 51 and a link to H.G. Wells’s radio play War of the Worlds.
This video debunks some of the most famous hoaxes, including the 1967 film of Bigfoot, the well-known footage of the Loch Ness monster, and a dinosaur roaming London in the 1980s. The truth is out there.
No, the Apollo 11 moon landing isn’t a hoax, but the rumours have been swirling ever since that historic day over 40 years ago. National Geographic takes on the most famous hoax claims here, disputing them with something that sometimes seems rarer than the Loch Ness monster: common sense.