Top 100 Hoaxes of All Time

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."

Comments

The BEST in my book

[MasterSLATE]

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.

Colour TV

[hpa]

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...

Copied directly from the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

Copy a paragraph directly from the article and get moderated up? Give me a break. Clearly the moderators didn't bother to read the article...

Some hoaxes based on reality

[Thatmushroom]

#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. Fortunately, it was shot down in the Senate.

War of the worlds?

[Brigadier]

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?

[grumpygrodyguy]

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.

Oblig. Soviet Russia Post

[coldwd]

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.

William Horace de Vere Cole

[The Ape With No Name]

We are all pikers in his wake. 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.