Top Ten April Fool's Day Hoaxes

#1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
1957:
The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very
mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti
weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop.
It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants
pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees.
Huge numbers of viewers were taken in.
Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own
spaghetti tree.
To this the BBC diplomatically replied, "place a sprig of spaghetti in
a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

#2: Sidd Finch
1985:
Sports Illustrated published a story about a new rookie pitcher who
planned to play for the Mets.
His name was Sidd Finch, and he could reportedly throw a baseball at
168 mph with pinpoint accuracy.
This was 65 mph faster than the previous record.
Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before.
Instead, he had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery
under the guidance of the "great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa."
Mets fans celebrated their teams' amazing luck at having found such a
gifted player, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for
more information.
In reality this legendary player only existed in the imagination of
the author of the article, George Plimpton.

#3: Instant Color TV
1962:
In 1962 there was only one TV channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in
black and white.
The station's technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news
to announce that, thanks to a new technology, viewers could convert
their existing sets to display colour reception.
All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their TV screen.
Stensson proceeded to demonstrate the process.
Thousands of people were taken in. Regular color broadcasts only
commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.

#4: 1996:
The Taco Bell Corporation announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and
was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.
Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in
Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger.
Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed, a few hours
later, that it was all a practical joke.
The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike
McCurry was asked about the sale.
Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also
been sold. It would now be known, he said, as the Ford Lincoln Mercury
Memorial.
#5: San Serriffe
1977:
The British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page
supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic said to consist
of several semi-colon-shaped islands located in the Indian Ocean.
A series of articles affectionately described the geography and
culture of this obscure nation.
Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse.
Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica.
The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information
about the idyllic holiday spot.
Only a few noticed that everything about the island was named after
printer's terminology.
The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the
enthusiasm for April Foolery that gripped the British tabloids in
subsequent decades.

#6: Nixon for President
1992:
National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation program announced that
Richard Nixon, in a surprise move, was running for President again.
His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't
do it again."
Accompanying this announcement were audio clips of Nixon delivering
his candidacy speech.
Listeners responded viscerally to the announcement, flooding the show
with calls expressing shock and outrage.
Only during the second half of the show did the host John Hockenberry
reveal that the announcement was a practical joke.
Nixon's voice was impersonated by comedian Rich Little.

#7: Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
1998:
The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason
newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state
legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant
pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0.
Soon the article made its way onto the Internet, and then it rapidly
spread around the world, forwarded by email.
It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the
Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people
protesting the legislation.
The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative
attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by
physicist Mark Boslough.

#8: The Left-Handed Whopper
1998:
Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today
announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a
"Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million
left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper
included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce,
tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated
180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers.
The following day, Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing
that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of
customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich.
Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested
their own 'right handed' version."

#9: Hotheaded Naked Ice Borers
1995:
Discover Magazine reported that the highly respected wildlife
biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo had found a new species in Antarctica: the
hotheaded naked ice borer.
These fascinating creatures had bony plates on their heads that, fed
by numerous blood vessels, could become burning hot, allowing the
animals to bore through ice at high speeds.
They used this ability to hunt penguins, melting the ice beneath the
penguins and causing them to sink downwards into the resulting slush
where the hotheads consumed them.
After much research, Dr. Pazzo theorized that the hotheads might have
been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of noted Antarctic
explorer Philippe Poisson in 1837.
"To the ice borers, he would have looked like a penguin," the article
quoted her as saying.
Discover received more mail in response to this article than they had
received for any other article in their history.

#10: Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity
1976:
The British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at
9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur
that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet
Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational
alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity.
Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact
moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a
strange floating sensation.
When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls
from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation.
One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from
their chairs and floated around the room.