From Scams to Scandals: 50 Historical Hoaxes You Won’t Believe

The eighth-century forgery known as Emperor Constantine's donation of Rome to Pope Sylvester I greatly impacted medieval politics, asserting papal authority over key cities. According to the legend, Constantine became a Christian after Sylvester healed him of leprosy, giving him control over several churches. In 1440, Catholic priest Lorenzo Valla exposed the forgery by noting discrepancies in the Latin used, leading the Catholic Church to disown the document from its official canon.

In the drug experimentation era of the 1960s, a rumor spread that bananas could be turned into a hallucinogenic substance similar to LSD. The claim gained traction with the release of Donovan's song "Mellow Yellow," coincidentally featuring lyrics about an "electrical banana." Although bananas did contain some LSD-related ingredients, the amounts were too small for any effect. Originating in a counterculture magazine, the hoax persisted for years, even appearing in mainstream publications, ultimately benefiting banana growers without any substance behind the claim.

In 1983, British author Doris Lessing conducted an experiment under the pseudonym "Jane Somers" to highlight the challenges faced by new writers and defy critics who accused her of being one-dimensional. Despite American publishers being aware of the experiment, their British counterparts rejected her two novels, "The Diary of a Good Neighbour" and "If the Old Could", and the books received little attention, selling fewer than 5,000 copies. Lessing eventually revealed herself as the true author a year later, embarrassing the literary world as only a few astute critics had recognized her writing style.

In 1941, Morris Newburger and friends tested newspaper credibility by inventing a football team, Plainfield Teachers College. They submitted fake scores, and the results were printed in multiple New York papers. Expanding the hoax, they created a fictional player, Johnny Chung, complete with press releases, a song, and even a dedicated phone line. The prank gained widespread attention until Time magazine exposed it. In the end, Newburger sent a final press release announcing the team's cancellation due to midterm exam failures, but it went unnoticed.

The Mechanical Turk, presented as an 18th-century chess-playing marvel, was a deception by Hungarian inventor Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen. Unveiled in 1770, it claimed to defeat strong chess players, including encounters with Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin. In reality, it housed a concealed human chess player within a secret compartment, creating the illusion of an automated machine. The Turk won games mainly because opponents were unnerved and unaware of the hidden player. The hoax persisted for almost 100 years before its eventual destruction in a fire.

In the mid-1950s, late-night DJ and writer of "A Christmas Story," Jean Shepherd, orchestrated a memorable prank after a bookstore clerk denied the existence of a book because it wasn't on the best sellers list. Outraged by this criterion, Shepherd fabricated a scandalous novel titled "I, Libertine" and encouraged listeners to request it at bookstores, confounding clerks and publishers. The prank gained notoriety and profit, prompting Shepherd to allow a real novelist to write the book, turning the hoax into a tangible and profitable reality.

Rupert Hughes, a lexicographer, included an unusual entry, ZZXJOANW, in the Music-Lovers Encyclopedia, claiming it was a Maori word pronounced 'Shaw,' meaning 'Drum' or 'Fife.' Despite staying in the encyclopedia for 70 years, it was later realized that Maori lacks Z and X, and words end with a vowel. The entry, now acknowledged as a hoax, has sparked theories about the possibility that Hughes encoded a message, such as sending kisses to someone named Joan Shaw.

In 1995, Ray Santilli claimed to possess footage of an "alien autopsy" after the 1947 Roswell UFO incident. Initially presented as authentic, he later revealed on April 4, 2006, that only a few frames were real, and the rest was a reconstruction using dummy alien bodies and a constructed set in London. The announcement stirred controversy, with some questioning the film's authenticity.

In 1910, Irish poet Horace de Vere Cole orchestrated a prank by convincing friends, including Virginia Woolf and Duncan Grant, to pose as an Abyssinian delegation visiting the flagship HMS Dreadnought. Faking an official telegram, Cole fooled the navy into an elaborate reception, complete with a tour and fake Swahili remarks. The media exposed the hoax on February 12, prompting the Royal Navy to send the Dreadnought to sea to escape the publicity, and the Bloomsbury Group was not formally charged to put the incident behind them.

In 1702, con artist George Psalmanazar fabricated a fantastical tale about the fictional land of Formosa (now Taiwan), claiming to be a native. With a Scottish priest, he traveled to London, shocking the English with tales of polygamy, cannibalism, and underground living for the upper class. His 1704 book became a bestseller. However, Psalmanazar was later discredited, yet he faced no punishment and went on to become a respected theologian.