Top 10 Hoaxes of All Time 10. The Howard Hughes Autobiography In the 1920s, renowned industrialist Howard
Hughes was one of the richest men in the world, but mental illness led to his becoming a total
recluse, and by the 1950s he had entirely retired from public life. In 1970, struggling writer Clifford Irving
and a friend hatched a plan to write a fake autobiography of the famed aviator and film
producer, figuring that Hughes wouldn't want to draw attention to himself by condemning
it as a fake. Irving forged letters in Hughes' hand, made
up interviews and stories, and eventually managed to get a contract with a well-known
publishing company for the "Autobiography of Howard Hughes". Irving became a minor celebrity when the book
was released, appearing on 60 Minutes and other television shows to discuss his supposed
relationship with Hughes, but he was finally found out when the real Howard Hughes called
a press conference and denied ever knowing him. Irving and his accomplice eventually spent
some time in prison for the stunt, which remains one of the biggest literary hoaxes of all
time. 9. Idaho's Name If the story behind it is indeed true, then
the Idaho hoax remains one of the most successful pranks of all time. The story dates back to the 1860s, when a
new territory was being mapped out in the Western United States. Industrialist George Willing suggested "Idaho"
as a name for the new state, claiming that it meant "the sun comes from the mountains"
in a Native American language. The name gained some popularity in the area,
and in 1863 the region was named Idaho Territory, which would later become the state of Idaho. It was only then that Willing, a known eccentric,
admitted that Idaho wasn't a Native American word at all and claimed that he had simply
made it up. Although historians still argue about whether
or not Willing is really responsible for helping name the state of Idaho, his claim that it
was an Indian word was widely reported, and it falsely appeared in history books well
into the 20th century. 8. The Hitler Diaries The Hitler diaries were a collection of documents
penned by master forger Konrad Kujau and passed off as the personal journals of Adolf Hitler. The scammers claimed that after being recovered
from the wreckage of a plane that crashed in Germany in 1945, the diaries were smuggled
out of East Germany by a man known as "Dr. Fischer." They were eventually bought for 10 million
German marks by the magazine Stern, which published extracts from them in one of its
issues in 1983. But the extreme amount of secrecy required
to keep the story exclusive meant that historians and handwriting experts weren't able to properly
examine the diaries to confirm their authenticity, and it was only after the article was published
that they were revealed to be fakes. The ensuing scandal resulted in several of
the magazine's editors resigning, and Kujau and the journalist he was working with both
spent time in prison. 7. Paul Is Dead The superstardom earned by The Beatles in
late 1960s helped produce the "Paul is Dead" hoax, which still remains one of the biggest
legends in music. It started when some fans began to claim that
hidden messages stating that Paul McCartney was dead could be heard when certain Beatles
songs were played backwards. The rumor gained steam with the help of radio
disc jockeys and conspiracy theorists, and a legend arose that McCartney had died in
a car accident during the recording of one of the band's albums, with some even claiming
that Paul had been replaced by a look-alike. McCartney was eventually forced to address
the rumor in order to confirm that he was not, in fact, dead, but just who started the
hoax remains a mystery. Many have put forth Beatles themselves as
possible suspects, pointing to the frequent cryptic messages and wordplay found on their
albums, but the band repeatedly denied this claim. 6. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is one
of the biggest literary forgeries of all time, and since it appeared over 100 years ago,
its effects have been unbelievably far-reaching. The book, which was deliberately forged by
Russian journalist Matvei Golovinski sometime around 1900, purports to describe the secrets
of a clandestine group of Jews known as the Elders of Zion. Mixing outright fabrication with plagiarism
from other sources, it details a Jewish conspiracy to achieve world domination through brainwashing,
governmental power and violence. Even though it was proven as a forgery both
in the media and the court of law as early as 1938, it has been used time and again as
a justification for anti-Semitism, most notably by the Nazis, and has helped inspire untold
amounts of violence. At this point, the book has lost almost all
credibility in academic circles, but it continues to have an influence, most famously in Middle
Eastern nations like Egypt and Iran. Want to know more, here is a video. 5. The Turk Built by Wolfgang Von Kempelen in 1770, the
Turk was a fake "automaton chess player" that gained fame in the courts of Europe and was
exhibited around the world for more than 80 years. Conceived by Kempelen in order to impress
the Empress Maria Theresa, the Turk was purported to be a chess playing machine that worked
by a series of mechanical cogs and cranks, but in reality it was an illusion that allowed
a human chess master to hide inside a compartment and operate the pieces using magnets. The Turk gained much fame during its exhibitions
in Paris, London, and the United States, during which it won most of its matches against some
of the most respected chess players in the world. It famously defeated both Napoleon Bonaparte
and Ben Franklin, and when it was shown in America it inspired Edgar Allan Poe to write
a magazine article speculating on how it might work. The Turk inspired much debate and fascination,
with some claiming it was operated by a spirit or some kind of magic, and it continued to
be exhibited even after Kempelen and one of its most famous operators, William Schlumberger,
had both died. After being given to a museum, the Turk was
destroyed in a fire, and shortly thereafter its secrets were revealed in a series of magazine
articles. 4. The Niger Uranium Forgeries Perhaps no hoax has had more far reaching
effects than the Niger Uranium forgeries, which played a big part in the initial invasion
of Iraq in 2003. The hoax started when a series of documents
were recovered by Italian military intelligence. The papers supposedly provided evidence that
Sadaam Hussein had made efforts to purchase quantities of Yellowcake Uranium from the
country of Niger. These documents ultimately became the biggest
evidence that Iraq was looking to build weapons of mass destruction, and were one of the major
reasons for the initial invasion of Iraq by American and British forces. It was only after the documents' existence
had been made public that the CIA made further inquiries into their authenticity and discovered
that they were fakes. In the time since, the forgeries have been
a constant source of speculation and debate, but no one has ever been charged with creating
them, though members of the Italian and American intelligence communities have been put forth
as suspects. 3. Piltdown Man Perhaps the most famous scientific hoax in
history, the Piltdown Man was a skeleton of a primitive humanoid that was discovered in
1912 in Piltdown, England. The shape of the creature's skull was different
from any previously discovered early humans, and the two men who popularized the find,
Charles Dawson and Arthur Smith Woodward, were quick to advance the theory that Piltdown
Man was the famed "missing link" between apes and humans. Skepticism eventually arose in the scientific
community, and several paleontologists and anthropologists called the find a fake. Despite the controversy, Piltdown Man was
generally accepted as a major piece of history for forty years until 1953, when a team of
scientists finally proved it to be a forgery assembled from human, orangutan, and chimpanzee
bones and teeth aged with chromic acid. A number of possible suspects have been put
forth over the years, but recent evidence points to Dawson, Piltdown Man's original
finder, as the mastermind behind the hoax. 2. The Cardiff Giant In 1869, a tobacconist named George Hull orchestrated
what has become one of the most famous hoaxes in American history: the Cardiff Giant. After hiring a stonecutter to create the likeness
of a ten-foot tall giant out of gypsum, Hull had it buried on his cousin's farm in Cardiff,
New York. A year later, he hired some men to dig a well
on the spot, knowing that they would uncover the petrified man. Sure enough, the men uncovered the giant,
and the find soon became a media sensation. Hull built a tent on the dig site and started
selling tickets to it for 50 cents, and even though most scientists immediately condemned
the find as a fake, people flocked to the farm to get a glimpse of the petrified giant. The find became such a success that P.T. Barnum attempted to rent the giant for his
circus, and when he was turned down, he built a replica and started exhibiting it as the
real thing. The owners of the Cardiff Giant sued Barnum,
but in the course of the trial it eventually came out that both of the finds were hoaxes,
and in 1870 Hull finally confessed to engineering a forgery. 1. The War of The Worlds Radio Show In what is remembered as the most famous hoax
in entertainment history, a 1938 radio play version of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds is
said to have caused mass hysteria and panic among its listeners. The show aired on Halloween and was directed
and narrated by Orson Welles, who would later make the classic film Citizen Kane. It was presented in the form of a special
news bulletin and interrupted a weather report, leading many to believe that the story's description
of a Martian invasion of Earth was actually happening. It is estimated that some six million people
heard the broadcast, and it is said that police stations were overrun with distress calls. In one small town in Washington, the broadcast
coincided with a freak citywide power failure, leading many of the town's residents to arm
themselves with guns and flee into the mountains. The media backlash from the broadcast was
huge, and CBS radio, which aired the program, went on to promise never to try a similar
stunt again. The whole incident did succeed in jump-starting
Orson Welles' career, and it has been said that when Pearl Harbor was attacked three
years later, many people initially thought the news reports to be yet another radio prank
like the War of the Worlds hoax.
