Famous Hoaxes

The 'Piltdown Man,' a skull fragment claimed to be a missing evolutionary link, was revealed as a hoax in 1953. Where was it 'found'?

Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of which science fiction story caused widespread panic among listeners?

The Cardiff Giant, a 10-foot 'petrified man' discovered in 1869, was actually carved from what material?

In 1983, the 'Hitler Diaries' were revealed to be forgeries. Which German magazine had purchased them?

The Loch Ness Monster's most famous photograph, the 'Surgeon's Photograph' of 1934, was later revealed to be what?

P.T. Barnum's 'Feejee Mermaid' exhibit was actually made by combining a monkey with what other creature?

The Cottingley Fairies photographs, taken by two girls in 1917, fooled which famous author of Sherlock Holmes?

In 1835, the 'Great Moon Hoax' published in the New York Sun claimed what had been discovered on the Moon?

Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, uncovered in 2008, defrauded investors of approximately how much?

The 'Turk,' an 18th-century chess-playing automaton, was actually operated by what?

Which company's stock price collapsed in 2001 after revelations of massive accounting fraud, becoming the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history at the time?

The crop circles that appeared in English fields in the 1970s and 80s were eventually claimed by which pair of hoaxers?

Frank Abagnale Jr., whose story was told in the film 'Catch Me If You Can,' successfully impersonated all of the following EXCEPT?

In 1996, physicist Alan Sokal exposed weaknesses in academic publishing by submitting a nonsensical paper to a journal in which field?

Which Italian forger created fake Vermeer paintings so convincing that one was sold to Nazi leader Hermann Göring?