Hoaxes of the 1930s

Republican leaders throughout the United States received letters inviting them to a party at Cornell University in honor of the sesquicentennial birthday anniversary of Hugo Norris Frye, aka Hugo N. Frye. The letter explained that Hugo N. Frye had been one of the first organizers of the Republican party in New York State. None of the politicians could make it to the event, but almost all of them replied, expressing sincere admiration for Frye and their regret at not being able to attend. Unfortunately for the Republican leaders who responded, Hugo N. Frye did not exist. He was the satirical creation of two student editors at the Cornell Sun. Hugo N. Frye was shorthand for "You go and fry!" More…

In May 1932, Oscar Daubmann showed up in Germany, claiming he had spent the last sixteen years in a French prisoner-of-war camp. He told a dramatic tale of imprisonment and escape. He said he had been captured by the French in October 1916 at the Battle of the Somme and was placed in a prison camp. After killing a guard during an unsuccessful escape attempt, he was sentenced to 20 years hard labor and transferred to Algeria. There he was tortured, starved, and kept in solitary confinement. Finally, years later, he was transferred to the prison tailor shop on account of good behavior, and from there was able to make a successful escape. He walked 3000 miles along the coast and was picked up by an Italian steamer that took him to Naples. He then returned to Germany. More…

A book called Death in the Air: The War Diary and Photographs of a Flying Corps Pilot was published in 1933. It contained numerous pages of spectacular aerial photographs of World War One dogfights supposedly taken by a pilot in the Royal Air Force. Since very few photos of aerial fighting had been taken by the military, the photographs caused a great sensation. Interest in them grew even greater when they were exhibited at galleries in New York and Philadelphia. It wasn't until 1984 that the photos were discovered to be fake. More…

A picture supposedly showing Adolf Hitler as a baby circulated widely throughout England and America. The child in the picture looked positively menacing. Its mouth was twisted into a sneer, and it scowled at the camera from dark, squinted eyes. A greasy mop of hair fell over its forehead. In reality, the photo did not show Baby Adolf. It was a doctored imagine of an American child who had no connection to Der Führer. More…

Colonel Robert Wilson, a respected British surgeon, came forward with a picture that appeared to show a sea serpent rising out of the water of Loch Ness. Wilson claimed he had taken the photograph while driving along the northern shore of the Loch. For decades this photo was considered to be the best evidence of the existence of a sea monster in the Loch. But Wilson himself refused to have his name associated with it. Therefore it came to be known simply as "The Surgeon's Photo." More…

A rumor swept through America alleging that a leper had been found working in the Chesterfield cigarette factory in Richmond. Sales of Chesterfield cigarettes plummeted as smokers, fearful of catching the dreaded disease, switched to other brands. The Liggett and Meyers Tobacco Company, maker of Chesterfields, repeatedly denied the rumor, but to no avail. The company even arranged for the mayor of Richmond to issue a statement assuring the public that the Chesterfield factory had been investigated and no leper found working there. Still sales continued to decline. More…

Fritz Kreisler was considered to be one of the leading violinists of his time. Much of his popularity stemmed from his discovery of many 'lost classics' by composers such as Pugnani and Vivaldi that he claimed to have found in libraries and monasteries throughout Europe. It became a signature part of his act to play these lost classics during his concerts. Over time many of these works became popular in their own right and entered the repertoire of other performers. So, it deeply shocked the music industry when Kreisler revealed that he hadn't found these works. He had composed them himself. More…

The illustrator Hugh Troy was convinced that most of the people at New York's Van Gogh exhibit were there out of lurid interest in the man who had cut off his ear, not out of a true appreciation for the art. To prove his point, he fashioned a fake ear out of a piece of dried beef and mounted it in a velvet-lined shadow box. He snuck this into the museum and stood it on a table in the Van Gogh exhibit. Beside the box he placed a sign: "This is the ear which Vincent Van Gogh cut off and sent to his mistress, a French prostitute, Dec. 24, 1888." Sure enough, it drew a large crowd. More…

In 1935, veterans of World War One lobbied Congress to pay them their war bonuses ten years early in order to ease the economic hardship they were experiencing during the Great Depression. Congress readily acquiesced and passed the Harrison Bonus Bill to do so. This pre-payment was a source of inspiration for Lewis Gorin, a senior at Princeton University. It seemed logical to him that if present-day veterans could get their war bonuses early, why shouldn't future veterans also receive their money up-front — before they had fought in a war. Thus was born the Veterans of Future Wars movement. More…

In September 1938, Boston Curtis won the post of Republican precinct committeeman for Milton, Washington, by virtue of fifty-one votes cast for him in the state primary election. Boston Curtis ran no election campaign, nor did he offer a platform. However, he also ran uncontested, so his election shouldn't have been a surprise. But when the residents of Milton realized who Boston Curtis was, they were surprised, because Boston was a long-eared brown mule. More…

On October 30, 1938, thousands of people fled in panic after hearing CBS Radio report that Martian invaders had landed in New Jersey and were marching across the country, using heat rays and poisonous gas to kill Earthlings. But as soon became clear, Martians hadn't really invaded New Jersey. What people had heard (and mistook for a real news broadcast) was a radio version of H.G. Wells's story The War of the Worlds, performed by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater. More…

A French farmer found a marble sculpture buried in his turnip field. Art experts hailed it as a great discovery and identified it as a Greco-Roman work from the 1st century BC. But when arrangements were made to transfer the statue to Paris, a little-known artist named Francesco Cremonese came forward and revealed that he had made the statue and buried it two years ago. As proof, he had the matching arm and nose, chiseled from the piece before he placed it in the ground. Cremonese explained that he had created the statue to demonstrate that his lack of recognition as an artist was undeserved, and that he was just as good as the masters of antiquity.

In 1939 a secretive cult known as the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians made headlines when its leader, James Bernard Schafer, announced their intention to conduct an unusual experiment. They were going to raise an immortal baby. More…