Hoaxes of the 21st Century

The British television show "Space Cadets" pulled off what was perhaps the most expensive and elaborate hoax in English television history. It fooled Reality TV contestants into believing they were flying into space. 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…

When five Iranian speedboats approached three U.S. Warships in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. ships attempted to contact the Iranians by radio, but they heard a voice reply, "I am coming to you... You will explode in... minutes." At first the warships assumed this message came from the Iranian speedboats, but it's since been determined that it probably came from a "Filipino Monkey", which is the name given to rogue radio operators who interject lewd jokes, threats, and obscenities into ship-to-ship radio communications conducted on VHF marine channels. Filipino Monkey radio pranksters have been active in the Persian Gulf since at least 1984. More…

Since 1981, the magazine Wine Spectator has given "Awards of Excellence" to restaurants that it deems to have exceptional wine lists. But when it gave an award to Osteria L'Intrepido, a restaurant in Milan, Italy, it was later embarrassed to discover that this restaurant did not exist. More…

Year after year, Bernard Madoff delivered reliable annual returns of around 10% for his investors. He managed to do this even in down markets, when everyone else was losing money. These returns inevitably created suspicions, but billions of dollars continued to be entrusted to him, principally because he always paid out if anyone requested their money. But it was all too good to be true, as his investors discovered during the economic crisis of 2008. More…

The story of how Herman Rosenblat first met his wife, Roma, was remarkable. Imprisoned as a child in the Buchenwald concentration camp, Rosenblat claimed that Roma, a Jewish girl disguised as a Christian who lived in the nearby town, used to throw apples over the fence for him. Twelve years later, the two met in Coney Island and realized where they had previously seen each other. They fell in love and got married. But as the story gained media attention, skeptics raised questions about it. Other Buchenwald survivors noted that civilians weren't allowed anywhere near the fence. Historian Kenneth Waltzer then discovered that Rosenblat's wife had lived over 200 miles away from the camp. More…

News that a six-year-old boy was trapped inside a balloon as it drifted across the country caused millions of people to watch their TV screens in horror, fearing for his safety. But after several hours, when the balloon finally landed, the boy was nowhere to be found. There were fears he had fallen out. Thankfully he was alive. The truth then emerged. He had been safe at home the entire time, hiding in a room above his family's garage. The incident turned out to have been a bizarre hoax engineered by his parents in an apparent effort to secure a reality TV deal. More…

The author of the "Gay Girl in Damascus" blog identified herself as a lesbian named Amina Abdallah Arraf living in Syria. Over the course of three months, her blog gained a sizable following by offering an insider's account of the Arab Spring. Then a post on her blog reported she had been arrested by government forces. But amidst the expressions of concern for her safety, doubts were raised about her identity. No one had actually met her, and the photos of her on the blog were discovered to be of someone else. A week later, a 40-year-old American man studying for a masters at Edinburgh University, Tom MacMaster, confessed that he was really Arraf.

AptiQuant Psychometric Consulting Co. released a study revealing that Internet Explorer users scored lower on IQ tests than users of other web browsers and were therefore "dumb". This result was duly reported as fact by numerous news outlets, including CNN, the BBC, NPR, CNET, and Forbes. However, not only was the study fake, but also AptiQuant wasn't a real company. The staff photos and information on its site had been copied from the site of a legitimate French firm. The hoax was the work of Tarandeep Gill, a Canadian web developer, who later said he had hoped to "create awareness about the incompatibilities of IE6." [wikipedia]

A Dutch real estate company announced plans to develop a utopian "protected" community specifically for gay people on the north side of Tilburg. It would be named "Gay Village." The company said it had come up with the idea after seeing research showing that 22% of gay men didn't feel safe in their own neighborhood. The concept immediately generated controversy, with many denouncing it as a "gay ghetto". But a day later, the gay rights organization Roze Maandag (Pink Monday) admitted it was the mastermind behind the plan, which was all a hoax designed to highlight the problem of homophobia and "create awareness." [guardian]