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Top 100 Hoaxes of All Time 247

Posted by michael from the slashdot-not-a-winner dept.
Kaz Riprock writes "Did you know that Taco Bell bought the Liberty Bell? Or that Spaghetti grows on trees?? Here is a pretty interesting website that compiles 100 of the best hoaxes perpetrated through the ages."
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Top 100 Hoaxes of All Time More

Top 100 Hoaxes of All Time

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  • Obviously..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sogoodsofarsowhat ( 662830 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @07:55PM (#5641813)
    /. should be at the top of this list :)

  • The biggest Hoax of them all! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ishkibble ( 581826 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @07:55PM (#5641815)
    Micro$oft OS's are secure!

  • Morons! (Score:5, Funny)

    by NetMasta10bt ( 468001 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @07:56PM (#5641821)

    #17: The Left-Handed Whopper
    In 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."

    • Re:Morons! (Score:5, Funny)

      by unicron ( 20286 ) <unicron@thcne t . net> on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @08:09PM (#5641922) Homepage
      Bah, amateurs.

      In college pulled one that people still talk about. Me, mostly.

      A friend of mine had taken a real liking to online trading through Datek. I had the great idea to spoof their security division's email address and send him one accusing him of insider trading. Guess he didn't pick up on the fact that most emails of this type wouldn't contain the sentence "stick around there so we can arrest you when we get there."

      He comes rushing into my dorm room(at a REALLY, REALLY bad time, mind you) screaming up and down about FED's and insider trading and this and that. My girlfriend and I can barely contain ourselves and luckily he took off again to call his father before we lost it. I go downstairs, and a mutual friend that was in on it tells me I've gotta tell him the truth, because he just called his father. Turns out his father is some fat cat attorney back in Cali. I come clean, he takes a swing at me, it was all in good fun. To this day I still say to him "remember that time I made you think you were going to spend the rest of your life in prison?"..good times.

      • bah. you're the Amateur (Score:5, Funny)

        by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportland@ y a h o o . c om> on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @09:28PM (#5642224) Homepage Journal
        I pulled a similiar joke, but my friend is still sitting in prison. I can't wait for his release so I can see the look on his face when I come clean..
        aahhh, good times.

      • Re:Morons! (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @09:32PM (#5642247)
        Thats similar to a prank that was done on a friend of mine.

        He has just got a "demo" copy of windows XP and had just connected to the net. His boss then sent him an email from "legal@microsoft.com" with the subject "Illegal copy of XP detected". Gave him a heart attack of course, but once he realised it was fake he replied to the email. It wasn't until just after he clicked the send button that he realised he hadn't changed the reply to address and he had just sent that email to MS.
      • <HUMOR>
        This post is in and of itself a hoax. Proof: the author claims to have been having sex... with a real woman! Everybody knows that /.'ers don't do that!
        </HUMOR>

        HUMOR tags included for the humor impaired, in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

    • Re:Morons! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @08:32PM (#5641997)
      "Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."

      Reminds me of the Kodak 'Weekender' Camera. People kept calling up asking if it was okay to use during the week. (note: That's not an April Fool's hoax.)

    • Re:Morons! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )
      The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich.

      Shoot, I would charge them 30 cents extra, give them a regular whopper, and pocket the 30. I am for "taxing" the really stupid. Hell, palm readers do it all the time.
  • some new news?

  • It's about time (Score:5, Funny)

    by seinman ( 463076 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @07:58PM (#5641839) Homepage Journal
    Finally, an April Fool's Day post that isn't annoying as hell!
  • Oh - and a new RFC adds an evil bit to TCP/IP packets to explicitly indicate their evil intent.

  • One of the biggest hoaxes that site missed: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tofino ( 628530 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @07:59PM (#5641854)
    One of the biggest hoaxes that site missed:

    "News for nerds. Stuff that matters."

  • well... (Score:5, Funny)

    by IIRCAFAIKIANAL ( 572786 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @08:01PM (#5641877) Journal
    at least it wasn't:

    1) Slashdot posts story regarding IPv4 evil bit.
    2) Slashdot posts story regarding IPv4 evil bit.
    3) Slashdot posts story regarding IPv4 evil bit. ...
    etc
  • For the museum of Worst hoaxes... ..look at /. on April 1st.

    When I see a hoax, I run to my hoax bible:
    Snopes

    Failing that, I go to http://www.vmyths.com or put my common sense to work.

    saskboy's forwarded hoax paradox:
    >Every line that begins with '>' is a hoax.
  • The best prank I'd say was the broadcast of The War of the Worlds. Even though it was unintentional, the widespread hysteria it made was just amazing.

  • Notice what's NOT there? (Score:3, Funny)

    by wdr1 ( 31310 ) <wdr1.pobox@com> on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @08:09PM (#5641923) Homepage Journal
    Notice that NOWHERE in the list is Slashdot's April 1st editions?

    Take the hint guys. Please.

    -Bill

  • My personal favorite has to be #6: Hotheaded Naked Ice Borers. I remember seeing that story in Discover and being completely amazed. It had me going for quite a while until I did some checking and found out that the scientist's last name was latin for fool. Since her first name was April I then figured out it was a joke.

    Apparently naked mole rats are a big favorite for April Fools pranks. They show up again later on in this list.

  • April Fool's (Score:2, Informative)

    by Bueller_007 ( 535588 )
    This is the top 100 April Fool's hoaxes of all time, not the top 100 hoaxes of all time.

    Huge difference.

  • Hoax and Myth (Score:5, Funny)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @08:25PM (#5641978) Homepage Journal
    In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.
    I'm reminded of that persistent myth about drains and the Coriolis Force [discovery.com]. I'm told that in equatorial contries, tourists can find entrepreneurs who will "demonstrate" the precise location of the equator with a tub that drains clockwise in one location, and counterclockwise a few feet away. If you ask one of these guys about another entrepreneur that lives a few miles north or south that has the same demo, he'll gravely inform you that the other guy is a fraud!

    It can be pretty hard to tell the liar from the true believer!

  • As long as RFC 3514 isn't on the list... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Znonymous Coward ( 615009 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @08:27PM (#5641987) Journal
    I'll RTFA.

  • Colour TV (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hpa ( 7948 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @08:33PM (#5642005) Homepage
    Back in the 60's a Swedish TV show host, Lennart Hyland, managed to convince some huge portion of the Swedish people to drape a nylon sock over their black-and-white TV in an effort to test a new technique to transmit colour TV without requiring new receivers.

    This particular April Fools joke is still talked about...
  • I remember when the taco bell thing happened. I was thinking, "What the hell?!" It went on for a bit until I realized the joke.

    (Yes, I'm slow. Bite me.)

  • Some hoaxes based on reality (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Thatmushroom ( 447396 ) <Thatmushroom.mille352.purdue@edu> on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @08:39PM (#5642028) Homepage
    #8: Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
    The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0. Before long the article had made its way onto the internet, and then it rapidly made its way around the world, forwarded by people in their email. It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation. The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by a physicist named Mark Boslough.

    Funny, but came very close to happening. In fact, in my great state of Indiana, the House actually passed legislation to set pi equal to 3 by a vote of 67-0. [urbanlegends.com] Fortunately, it was shot down in the Senate.
    • he he
      The hoaxers fell for an urban legend. The Bible doesn't say that pi is 3.0.

      PI in the Bible [yfiles.com]

      "The Bible says pi = 3." [purplemath.com]

      Does the Bible say pi equals 3.0? [answersingenesis.org]

      Does the Bible Give a Wrong Value for Pi? [tektonics.org]

      I see four major issues in the relevant Scripture [biblegateway.com]:

      1. We don't know the exact length of a cubit.
      2. We aren't sure of the complete geometry of what was being measured.
      3. The Scripture is giving measurements of real-world objects, not presenting a mathematical theorem. If the numbers seem wrong to us, we're not unde
      • 1. Is hardly a major issue. It's not even a minor issue. Unless the length of a cubit changes when measuring a diameter as opposed to measuring a circumference, which is doubtful. All that matters is the ratio. I won't argue with your other points -- an incorrect value of pi is hardly the worst thing about the bible, anyway.
        • The container had the thickness of a handbreadth and was described as being shaped like a flower (tapered outward at the top). The two of these would cause a different ratio of inner diameter/outer circumference.

          --

          Was it the sheep climbing onto the altar, or the cattle lowing to be slain,
          or the Son of God hanging dead and bloodied on a cross that told me this was a world condemned, but loved and bought with blood.
        • The circumference equation works only with a perfect circle. Hand-made objects aren't necessarily geometrically perfect (symmetric).

          As the other replier noted, there's also the issue of inner/outer measurements of the object. Don't be so quick to plug numbers into an equation before you understand whether the equation represents the real-world picture.

      • The Bible doesn't say that pi is 3.0.

        No, but there is an argument that 3.0 is a "Biblical" number, if unrelated to pi -- consider the perfectness of the Holy Trinity, and so forth.

  • Pi (Score:2)

    by tbmaddux ( 145207 )
    The Alabama story (ranked #8) was an hoax originated by Mark Boslough, [snopes.com] but there was legislation introduced regarding pi in 1897 in the state of Indiana. It never passed. Sources: urban legends [urbanlegends.com] and the straight dope. [straightdope.com]

  • I had a subscription to Discover when they ran the ice borers story. It was funny at the time, but a few weeks later it was in the local newspaper, being reported as fact. I'm not sure but I think it was an AP or UPI story. That was more scary than funny.

  • Dihydrogen Monoxide (Score:5, Informative)

    by shane_rimmer ( 622400 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @08:42PM (#5642044)
    Where was Dihydrogen Monoxide [dhmo.org]?

  • MIT Hacks (Score:5, Informative)

    by i22y ( 10479 ) <mike@NOSPAM.islerphoto.com> on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @08:48PM (#5642084) Homepage
    While not directly related to April Fool's Day, one cannot forget MIT Hacks [mit.edu]. Some of the best pranks I've seen in awhile.

    Notable is the Campus cop car on the Great Dome [mit.edu]...though they're all great.
  • I put a fake 404 error page on the site last night for a few hours, and then copied the isonews.com nonsense. Been getting emails all day from people telling me how it's the first trick they fell for in years.

    www.zophar.net [zophar.net]

  • Orson Wells (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jimson ( 516491 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @09:01PM (#5642129) Homepage
    I'm really surprised to not find Orson Well's War of the Worlds in the top 20 anyways. That has to be one of the best hoaxes ever! War of the Worlds [transparencynow.com]
    • If only I had mod points, you would be rewarded.

    • Re:Orson Wells (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Chris Mattern ( 191822 )
      Can one classify the "War of the Worlds" broadcast as a hoax? Welles did not in fact mean to fool anybody; it was supposed to be just a radio play.

      Chris Mattern
      • Can one classify the "War of the Worlds" broadcast as a hoax? Welles did not in fact mean to fool anybody; it was supposed to be just a radio play.

        Chris Mattern

        Or so he says after then men with the baseball bats and guns showed up at his door one day.

        "Gee guys, I, uh, didn't mean to scare everyone that bad...
        • Well, you can argue that he didn't mean to fool them, particularly since the fact that it is a play is announced at both the beginning and the end. It fooled so many people because when the Charlie McArthy show finished they hopped channels for a while (if I can modernise the process for you young 'uns) and stumbled into it by accident, and then panicked and didn't listen all the way to the end.

          On the other hand, he was very clever, and it's unique adaptation makes it perfect to fool people...
    • The title of the actual article is "Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time"

      Welles performed on October 30.

      Therefore, War of the Worlds was not even eligible.

      However, one of the April Fool's hoaxes (#66) makes a direct reference to War of the Worlds:

      A spokesman for the company later explained that the hoax had been intended as a tribute to Orson Welles's 1938 Halloween broadcast of the War of the Worlds

  • War of the worlds? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Brigadier ( 12956 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @09:12PM (#5642162)


    Though not intentional but shouldn't the 'war of the worlds' radio broad cast by orson wells be listed ?

  • What about the 100 best trolls? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grumpygrodyguy ( 603716 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @09:12PM (#5642165)
    Slightly off-topic, but interesting none-the-less. Would some industrious young slashdotter mind compiling a "Top 100 slashdot trolls of all time" list for the bemusement of the common reader?

    It's highly likely that such a list would be modded into oblivion, so perhaps your could link the list in your sig? Title it something conspicuous like "The top 100 slashdot trolls of all time".

    Would someone please do this? Is the troll community still alive and well on SD? In the 3 years I've been reading SD, I've seen some gems. Make this list, and let everyone share in your trolling glory! Make a new account, and link the top 100 trolls of all time to it. Pretty please, with sugar on top.
  • I read the item about the one-way highway that changes directions [museumofhoaxes.com] with great interest. Like many Northern Virginians, I have many times driven the section of Interstate 95 inside the beltway that is inbound in the morning and outbound in the evening.
    • It's actually Rock Creek Parkway in the District of Columbia. I-95 follows the eastern part of the beltway from Springfield, VA up to College Park, MD. I think you confused I-395 with I-95, because if you continue northward from Springfield you get on 395 seemlessly, which goes into the district. From there you have to go half a mile on ground streets westward to get to the Parkway.

      I personally think the Rock Creek Parkway is scary when it's one-way. The two sides are always splitting apart and coming

  • Oblig. Soviet Russia Post (Score:3, Interesting)

    by coldwd ( 471354 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @09:16PM (#5642179)
    IN SOVIET RUSSIA...the internet hoaxes YOU!

    Hoax #16: Kremvax

    In 1984, back in the Stone Age of the internet, a message was distributed to the members of Usenet (the online messaging community that was one of the first forms the internet took) announcing that the Soviet Union was joining Usenet. This was quite a shock to many, since most assumed that cold war security concerns would have prevented such a link-up. The message purported to come from Konstantin Chernenko (from the address chernenko@kremvax.UUCP) who explained that the Soviet Union wanted to join the network in order to "have a means of having an open discussion forum with the American and European people." The message created a flood of responses. Two weeks later its true author, a European man named Piet Beertema, revealed that it was a hoax. This is believed to be the first hoax on the internet. Six years later, when Moscow really did link up to the internet, it adopted the domain name 'kremvax' in honor of the hoax.
  • First off, I didn't think most of them were all the humorous. However, I have to say the volcano pronk may have crossed the line. Somehow, pranks just aren't funny when they convince people that their lives are in danger.

    Gee, next April 1st I think I'll get an astronomer to announce that there is a huge asteroid headed torwards earth, and no-one will survive. Boy, all those people that commit suicide, rather than endure the suffering, are gonna be so embarassed when I annouce it was just a joke.

    Better
  • Any "top 100 hoaxes" list that omits crop circles has a major hole in it. So many people refuse to accept the obvious on this one even years after the people that first did it fessed up -- and for that matter the same is true of Sasquatch & the guy who took the prank to his grave last year, only to have his family spill the joke.

    Not that anyone believed them anyway.

    The human capacity to believe ludicrous shit is truly amazing :-)

    • I thought "ketchup is a vegetable" belonged on that list too.
    • The list is of the top 100 April Fools hoaxes, not just hoaxes in general.

      And, what's more, the hoaxes should be funny. People believing in Sasquatch and crop circles is just sad.
      • Most of them are April Fools hoaxes, but not a. "The Predictions of Isaac Bickerstaff" (10) was from February 1708, while "Augusta National Goes Public" (91) was from May 1990. A lot of the others don't mention a month, and while of course April Fools Day is implied by all of them, it's possible that some of the others are from other parts of the year as well.

        Given that, the towering achievement of the crop circle & sasquatch hoaxsters is so overwhelming that they deserved at least an honorable mention

  • William Horace de Vere Cole (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The Ape With No Name ( 213531 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @10:20PM (#5642414) Homepage
    We are all pikers in his wake [sniggle.net]. The Abyssinian gag. The Dreadnought Hoax. The Venice Horse Mystery. And, possibly, The Piltdown Man.

    My life's goal is to write a book about WHdVC. I know. I'm a loser.
  • So where are the Bitboys product anouncements on the list?

    Though this morning I really did own a Glaze 3d. Then I ate it.

    Mmmmmmm sugary goodness
  • I was curious where in the list of 100 the compilers would list the "Good Times" virus [doe.gov]. Well, they didn't list it at all.

    Surely it is worth mentioning in a list of the top 100 hoaxes?

  • The best April Fools that got me was one published in a little local magazine. I used to live quite close to Stonehenge (20 miles or so), and the leading page in this magazine was: Stonehenge to be returned to Wales.

    Apparently, the English National Trust had agreed it, and it was only fair that the Welsh should have it, and the stones had originally been "taken" from Wales etc.
    I was like, "They can't do that! It's a national treasure." etc.

  • #8: Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
    The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0.

    Am I the only one who thinks this is a good idea ?.
  • Once upon a time I was a volunteer at the Smithsonian information desk. We always knew that every now and then someone would get approached with "The Dillinger Question."

    The urban legend was that the infamous John Dillinger's penis was abnormally large. So large, in fact, that when raped women, his penis would kill them due to internal hemoraging. This penis was supposedly removed postumously and sent to (A) The Smithsonian or (B) The Walter Reed Army Medical Museum.

    Naturally, people would approach the
  • Show me a hoax about bank fees, and I'll show you a bank dumb enough to try it:

    From the "Top 100 Hoaxes" article, #88: Bank Teller Fees

    "In 1999 the Savings Bank of Rockville placed an ad in the Connecticut Journal-Inquirer announcing that it would soon begin charging a $5 fee to customers who visited a live teller. The ad, which appeared on March 31, claimed that the fee was necessary in order to provide, "professional, caring and superior customer service." Although the ad was a joke, many customers fa
  • With 300K votes less than the competitor and a lot of help from brother.
    • BS. Plenty has been writen on this, the most recent i recall was http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=58957&cid=562 8 391:

      "a person appointed to his job by a court of people appointed to their jobs"

      Um... which court was that? The US Supreme Court, as always, chose between "you go fix it" and "not our problem" (which is what they've always done since 1789 or so). The people they told to "fix it" were the democratically elected members of the Florida Supreme Court, interpreting Florida laws written and r
  • #63 would be true if the power company conspiracy hadn't killed Tesla...

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