Fooled the World: Famous Hoaxes Through History
Instructions: From faked fossils to forged diaries, history is full of elaborate deceptions that had the whole world fooled — test your knowledge of the most audacious hoaxes.
- 1.
The Piltdown Man was a 'missing link' fossil discovered in England in 1912 that convinced scientists for decades — until it was exposed as a fake. In what year was the fraud finally revealed?
A1929B1953C1967D1981 - 2.
The Cardiff Giant was a 10-foot stone 'petrified man' supposedly dug up on a New York farm in 1869 — actually carved from gypsum and planted there as a prank. Who masterminded this elaborate hoax?
AP.T. BarnumBJames NewellCGeorge HullDWilliam Vanderbilt - 3.
In 1917, two young English cousins produced photographs they claimed showed real fairies dancing in their garden. Which famous author became one of the most vocal believers in the photographs' authenticity?
AH.G. WellsBRudyard KiplingCJ.M. BarrieDArthur Conan Doyle - 4.
In 1983, Germany's famous Stern magazine paid millions of marks for what were claimed to be 62 volumes of Adolf Hitler's personal diaries — but they were quickly exposed as forgeries. Who had faked them?
AKonrad KujauBGerd HeidemannCWilhelm ArndtDHans-Ulrich Werner - 5.
In August 1835, millions of Americans thrilled to newspaper reports claiming a famous astronomer had spotted winged creatures, blue-tinted goats, and forests on the moon. Which newspaper ran this 'Great Moon Hoax'?
AThe New York TimesBThe New York HeraldCThe New York SunDThe Boston Transcript - 6.
In 1991, two retired English friends confessed that since 1978 they had been secretly creating mysterious patterns in farmers' wheat fields, fooling the world into thinking UFOs or supernatural forces were responsible. What were their names?
AHarold Finch and Roy ChambersBDoug Bower and Dave ChorleyCKenneth Webb and Thomas PringleDBarry Goodson and Colin Marsh - 7.
P.T. Barnum's American Museum exhibited many oddities, but the notorious 'Fiji Mermaid' was actually made from what materials?
AA preserved seal fitted with a carved wooden tailBA large fish dressed with a ceramic doll's upper bodyCCleverly sculpted wax made to look like a half-woman, half-fishDA monkey's dried upper body stitched to the back half of a large fish - 8.
The most famous photograph of the Loch Ness Monster — known as the 'surgeon's photograph' — was taken in what year?
A1934B1947C1956D1963 - 9.
From 1770 onward, European royalty marveled at 'The Turk' — a mechanical figure that appeared to play chess brilliantly on its own, reportedly defeating Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. Who built this ingenious fake automaton?
ALeonhard EulerBJames WattCWolfgang von KempelenDJohann Maelzel - 10.
In 1726, Englishwoman Mary Toft managed to fool several royal physicians — including one sent by King George I — into believing she was actually giving birth to what unusual things?
AKittensBPigletsCTadpolesDRabbits - 11.
In 1988, three separate scientific laboratories each tested samples from the Shroud of Turin using carbon-14 dating. What did all three laboratories conclude?
AThe cloth dated from the medieval period, roughly AD 1260 to 1390BThe cloth dated from around AD 33, consistent with the time of JesusCThe cloth dated from the early Christian era, roughly AD 200 to 400DThe results contradicted each other and no firm date could be established - 12.
In 1968, British sailor Donald Crowhurst entered a famous solo around-the-world race, then secretly falsified his logbook positions when he realized he could not complete the voyage. What was the name of that race?
AThe Vendee GlobeBThe Sunday Times Golden Globe RaceCThe Fastnet RaceDThe Jules Verne Trophy - 13.
In 1971, word spread of a remarkable discovery: a small tribe called the Tasaday who had supposedly lived as Stone Age hunter-gatherers in complete isolation from the modern world. In which country were they supposedly found?
ABrazilBPapua New GuineaCThe PhilippinesDIndonesia - 14.
When scientists exposed the Piltdown Man as a forgery in 1953, they found it had been assembled from parts of two completely different creatures. What were those two creatures?
AA Neanderthal and a chimpanzeeBA gorilla and a modern humanCAn ancient human ancestor and a baboonDA relatively modern human and an orangutan - 15.
When Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths — the two girls who took the Cottingley Fairies photographs — finally admitted the truth in 1983, how did they explain creating the fairy images?
AThey used theatrical makeup and costumes on neighborhood childrenBThey cut fairy figures from a children's book and propped them up with hatpinsCThey hired a local artist to create hand-painted double exposures in a darkroomDThey used figurines from a dollhouse, painted to look more lifelike
Answer Key
In 1953, scientists used chemical testing and microscopic examination to prove that the Piltdown skull was a cleverly assembled forgery, finally solving one of science's most embarrassing mysteries more than 40 years after the hoax began.
George Hull, a New York tobacconist, had a block of gypsum quarried in Iowa and secretly carved into a giant in Chicago, then shipped it to his cousin William Newell's farm in Cardiff, New York, where it was buried in 1868 and 'discovered' by well-diggers about a year later — partly as a prank aimed at people who believed in the biblical giants described in Genesis.
Arthur Conan Doyle — creator of the supremely logical Sherlock Holmes — was a devoted spiritualist who wrote enthusiastically about the Cottingley Fairies in Strand Magazine in 1920, giving the hoax worldwide attention and credibility.
Konrad Kujau, a Stuttgart antiques dealer and accomplished forger, produced all 62 volumes; forensic tests revealed almost immediately that the paper, ink, and even the polyester binding thread were all post-World War II materials.
The New York Sun ran six sensational front-page articles falsely crediting the lunar 'discoveries' to the respected astronomer Sir John Herschel; the series briefly made the Sun the highest-circulation newspaper in the world.
Friends Doug Bower and Dave Chorley demonstrated to journalists exactly how they flattened grain using wooden boards and rope, revealing that the worldwide crop circle craze began as a simple prank dreamed up over a pint at their local pub.
Originally crafted by Japanese fishermen, the Fiji Mermaid was a monkey's torso attached to a fish tail and dried; Barnum promoted it with beautiful mermaid illustrations on his handbills, so audiences paying to see it were often shocked by how grotesque the real specimen looked.
Taken in April 1934 and long attributed to a respected London physician, the photograph was revealed in 1994 to be a toy submarine fitted with a sculpted head, created by hoaxer Marmaduke Wetherell and his stepson Christian Spurling.
Hungarian engineer Wolfgang von Kempelen built the Turk in 1770 to impress Empress Maria Theresa of Austria; the secret was a skilled human chess player hidden in a compartment beneath the chessboard who controlled the mechanical arm using a system of levers and magnets.
Mary Toft of Godalming, Surrey, had secretly inserted animal parts into her body and 'delivered' them as witnesses watched; the fraud was exposed when a hospital porter was caught trying to sneak live rabbits into her room to resupply her.
Laboratories at Oxford University, the University of Arizona, and ETH Zurich all concluded independently that the linen of the Shroud dates to between approximately 1260 and 1390 AD — suggesting it was created in medieval Europe rather than ancient Judea.
The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race offered a prize for the first solo nonstop circumnavigation; Crowhurst drifted in the South Atlantic for months faking his position, then vanished — when his empty trimaran was found, the logbooks revealed the entire deception.
The Tasaday were reported to have been found in the rainforest of Mindanao in the Philippines by government official Manuel Elizalde Jr.; later investigations by journalists and anthropologists suggested the entire scenario had been staged as a hoax, though some debate about their true origins continues.
Careful analysis proved the Piltdown skull combined a relatively recent human cranium with the jawbone of an orangutan; both pieces had been chemically stained with potassium dichromate to look ancient, and the orangutan's teeth had been deliberately filed down to appear more human.
Elsie and Frances revealed they had cut illustrations of fairies from a popular children's book called Princess Mary's Gift Book, anchored the cardboard figures to the ground with hatpins, and photographed them — a charmingly simple trick that fooled experts and the public for more than sixty years.