Hoaxes Throughout History
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Hoaxes by Journalists

Following the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's financial situation was dire. So when the American magazine Forbes FYI reported that the Russian government had decided to sell the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin in an effort to raise foreign currency, the news seemed believable. Bidding for Lenin, it was said, would start at $15 million. Both ABC News and USA Today repeated the story without questioning it, and so were embarrassed when the editor of Forbes FYI revealed that it had been intended as a joke. Russian Interior Minister Viktor Barrannikov denounced the story as "an impudent lie." More…

Ghostwatch (Oct 1992)

On Halloween night, BBC TV aired a program called Ghostwatch, advertised as a live investigation into supernatural activity at a house in London. After a calm start, events quickly spun out of control when a malevolent spirit attacked the investigators, and then manifested back in the BBC studio. A terrified reporter warned that by airing the investigation on live TV they must have created a "massive seance," unleashing the spirit onto the whole of the UK. The program elicited a huge reaction. Many viewers phoned the police in panic. But there was no ghost on the loose. The program wasn't even live. It had been taped months before for Halloween. More…

Allegra Coleman (Nov 1996)

Esquire magazine's November 1996 cover featured Allegra Coleman, said to be a hot new star taking Hollywood by storm. The feature article inside described the buzz building around her. Hollywood was intrigued. After Esquire ran the article, the magazine received calls from talent scouts, eager to get in touch with the new star. But as it turned out, Allegra didn't exist. Esquire had invented her as a spoof of the fawning puffery that many magazines shower on movie stars. The woman shown on the cover and in the photos inside was a (then) little-known actress called Ali Larter, who subsequently starred in (among other things) the NBC series Heroes. More…
Stephen Glass was a young writer at the New Republic who had a reputation for always getting the best scoops. In his most celebrated article, "Hack Heaven," he told the story of a fifteen-year-old hacker who broke into the computer system of a software corporation, Jukt Micronics, and then succeeded in extorting money, a job, a Miata, a trip to Disney World, and a lifetime subscription to Playboy from the company. But Jukt Micronics, as well as many of the other topics Glass wrote about, existed only in his own imagination. The New Republic fired him in May 1998 when it found out. More…
A Belgian public television station interrupted its regular programming with a news bulletin: the Flanders' parliament had declared its independence from the Kingdom of Belgium. The broadcast showed cheering, Flemish-flag-waving crowds, as well as footage of the King and Queen of Belgium at the airport, boarding a plane to flee the country. It was only thirty minutes later, after the television station had been swamped with frantic phone calls from viewers, that an on-screen text message revealed, "This is fiction." More…
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