Famous Historical Hoaxes
Fake fossils, fairy photographs, spaghetti trees and men on the Moon: the hoaxes that fooled newspapers, scientists and the public, and how each one was finally exposed.
The Woman Who 'Gave Birth' to Rabbits (1726)
In 1726 Mary Toft of Godalming convinced eminent doctors she was giving birth to rabbits. The hoax made fools of the medical establishment, until a porter talked. Read the full story
The Great Moon Hoax (August 25, 1835)
In August 1835 the New York Sun ran a series claiming the astronomer John Herschel had seen bat-winged people, unicorns and temples on the Moon. It was a hoax, and it is still one of the most famous in newspaper history. Read the full story
The Cardiff Giant (October 16, 1869)
On 16 October 1869 well-diggers in Cardiff, New York, uncovered a ten-foot stone man. Crowds paid to see the 'petrified giant'. It was a gypsum statue carved for a cigar maker's hoax. Read the full story
Piltdown Man (December 18, 1912)
In 1912 amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson announced that he had found the fossil skull of an early human ancestor at Piltdown in England. Read the full story
The Cottingley Fairies (1917)
The full story of the Cottingley Fairies: two girls, a borrowed camera, Arthur Conan Doyle's endorsement, the experts who were fooled, and the 1983 confession. Read the full story
The War of the Worlds Broadcast (October 30, 1938)
On 30 October 1938 Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre broadcast a Martian invasion as fake news bulletins. Newspapers reported a nationwide panic, but historians now think the panic was far smaller than legend says. Read the full story
The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest (April 1, 1957)
On 1 April 1957 the BBC current-affairs programme Panorama aired a three-minute report about a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti from trees. Read the full story
The Leg on The Graduate Poster (1967)
For decades audiences assumed the stockinged leg on the poster for The Graduate (1967) was Anne Bancroft's. In 2013 Linda Gray, later Sue Ellen in Dallas, said it was hers, and that she was paid $25. Read the full story
Explore more: Strangest Deaths in History · Weirdest Disasters in History · Strange Encounters · Odd Science from History · This day in strange history