April Fool’s Day

Pranks and Hoaxes

Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

Instant Colored Television In 1962 there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it was black and white. The station's technical expert appeared on the news to announce that, thanks to a new technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to display in color. All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen. He demonstrated the process. Thousands of people fell for it. Regular color broadcasts only started in Sweden on April 1, 1970.

The Taco Liberty Bell• 1996: The Taco Bell Corporation

announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of angry citizens called to express their anger. A few hours later Taco Bell admitted 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.

The Left Handed Whopper• 1998: Burger King published a full page

advertisement in USA Today announcing a new menu item: a "Left-Handed Whopper“ designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. The new whopper had the same ingredients as the original Whopper, but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. Thousands of customers went to Burger King asking for the new sandwich. Many others asked for their own “right handed version." The next day Burger King revealed it was a hoax.

Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity• 1976: A British astronomer announced on the

radio that a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to happen and listeners could experience it in their very own homes. Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would lessen the Earth's gravity. He told his listeners if they jumped in the air at 9:47. A. M, they would experience a strange floating sensation. The radio station got hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

UFO Lands in London1989: On March 31, thousands of drivers in London looked up and saw a glowing flying saucer floating over the city. Many pulled over to watch the craft float through the air. When it finally landed in a field, people called the police to warn them of an alien invasion. The police arrived, and one brave officer approached the craft with his baton in front of him. The spaceship door popped open, and a small, silver-suited figure came out. The policeman ran in the opposite direction. The flying saucer turned out to be a hot-air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the chairman of Virgin Records. He loved flying balloons and playing pranks. His plan was to land the spaceship in the park on April 1, but the wind blew him off course, and he landed a day early in the wrong place.

Flying Penguins

• 2008: BBC announced that camera crews filming near the Antarctic for its natural history series captured footage of penguins flying. The clip became one of the most viewed videos on the internet. A follow-up video explained how BBC created the special effects of the flying penguins.

Finding the Loch Ness Monster’s Body• 1972: On March 31, a team of zoologists were at Loch Ness searching

for proof of the Loch Ness Monster. They found a mysterious carcass floating in the water. It weighed a ton and a half and was 15 ½ feet long. The zoologists put the body in a van to take to the zoo. However, a law was passed in 1933 that made it illegal to remove any “unidentified creatures” from Loch Ness. The police heard what had happened and chased down the truck. The body was taken to a lab for examination. People around the world were excited to see the pictures of the Loch Ness Monster. The British newspapers called it "Son of Nessie." When scientists examined the creature, they found it was a bull elephant seal. The next day the zoo’s education officer confessed he was responsible. The bull elephant seal had died the week before at the zoo. He shaved off its whiskers, padded its cheeks with stones, and kept it frozen for a week, before dumping it in the Loch and then phoning in a tip to make sure his colleagues found it. He meant to play an April Fool's prank on his colleagues, but admitted the joke got out of hand when the police chased down their van.

The Eruption of Mount Edgecumbe• 1974: People in Alaska were alarmed when the long-dormant

volcano Mount Edgecumbe, suddenly began to belch out billows of black smoke. People gazed up at the volcano, terrified that it was active again and might soon erupt. Luckily it turned out that a man was responsible for the smoke. A local practical joker named Porky Bickar had flown hundreds of old tires into the volcano's crater and then lit them on fire, to fool the city into believing the volcano was coming to life. According to local legend, when Mount St. Helens erupted six years later, a Sitka resident wrote to Bickar to tell him, "This time you've gone too far!"

The Sydney Iceberg• 1978: Dick Smith was a millionaire from his grocery stores.

He announced to everyone that he was towing an iceberg from Antarctica. He said he was going to carve the iceberg into small ice cubes, and would sell them for ten cents each. Since the ice cubes were from fresh water in Antarctica, they would improve the flavor of any drink. People watched the ship pull the iceberg into the harbor. Radio stations broadcast from the scene. When the iceberg reached the middle of the harbor, it started to rain. The firefighting foam and shaving cream that the iceberg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.

The 26 Day Marathon• 1981: The Daily Mail ran a story about an

unfortunate Japanese long-distance runner who had entered the London Marathon but because of a translation error, thought that he had to run for 26 days, not 26 miles. He was now somewhere out on the roads of England, still running, determined to finish the race. Various people had spotted him, though they were unable to flag him down. The translation error was attributed to Timothy Bryant, who said, "I translated the rules and sent them off to him. But I have only been learning Japanese for two years, and I must have made a mistake. He seems to be taking this marathon to be something like the very long races they have over there."

Bomb’s Away• 1915: On April 1, in the middle of World War I,

a French pilot flew over a German camp and dropped what appeared to be a huge bomb. The German soldiers immediately scattered in all directions, but no explosion followed. After some time, the soldiers crept back and carefully approached the bomb. They discovered it was actually a large football with a note tied to it that read, "April Fool!"

The Skyforest Orange Pine Trees• 1950: People driving along the scenic

highway in Southern California discovered that the pine trees lining the road had all grown oranges overnight. It was the work of the residents of Skyforest, a nearby town, led by cartoonist Frank Adams. They crept out during the night and strung 50,000 oranges in the trees along a one-mile section of the highway. The fruit was left over from the recent National Orange Show in San Bernardino.

The Derbyshire Fairy• 2007: In late March, images of an 8-inch

mummified creature resembling a fairy were posted on the Internet. The text explained the creature had been found by a man walking his dog along an old roman road. Word spread around the internet. Bloggers excitedly speculated about whether this was evidence of the actual existence of fairies. By April 1 the website received tens of thousands of visitors and hundreds of emails. But at the end of April 1, the owner of the site, confessed that the fairy was a hoax. He used his skills as a magician's prop-maker to create the creature. Even after his confession, he received e-mails from people who refused to accept the fairy wasn't real.

I Must Fly

• 1959: The residents of Wellingborough, England woke to find a trail of white footprints painted along the main street of their town. At the end of the trail were the words, "I must fly."

Operation Parallax• 1979: A radio station announced Operation Parallax would

soon go into effect. This was a government plan to resynchronize the British calendar with the rest of the world. The radio station explained that ever since 1945 England had gradually become 48 hours ahead of all other countries because of the constant switching back and forth from British Summer Time. To fix this situation, the British government had decided to cancel April 5 and 12 that year. Lots of people called the radio station. One employer wanted to know if she had to pay her employees for the missing days. Another woman was curious about what would happen to her birthday, which fell on one of the cancelled days.

Dogs Painted White

• 1965: A Danish newspaper reported the Danish parliament had passed a new law requiring all dogs to be painted white. The purpose of this, it explained, was to increase road safety by allowing dogs to be seen more easily at night.

Bearskin Helmets Need Trimming• 1980: Soldier magazine claimed the fur on the

bearskin helmets worn by the guards at Buckingham Palace kept growing and needed to be regularly trimmed:“The most hair-raising fact about the bearskins has been discovered by scientists recently. The skins retain an original hormone, which lives on after the animal has been skinned. Scientists call it otiose and it is hoped it can be put to use in medical research — especially into baldness.”A photo showed Guardsmen sitting in an army barbershop having their helmets trimmed. The story was picked up by the London Daily Express because they didn’t know it was a hoax.

Tasmanian Mock Walrus• 1984: A Florida newspaper ran a story about a creature

called Tasmanian Mock Walrus (or TMW for short) that many people in Florida were adopting as a pet. It was 4” long, looked like a walrus, purred like a cat, and acted like a hamster. It was an ideal pet because it never had to be bathed, it used a litter box, and it ate cockroaches. In fact, a single TMW could rid a house of cockroaches. Some TMWs had been smuggled in from Tasmania, but the Florida pest-control industry was pressuring the government not to allow them into the country because they would put cockroach exterminators out of business. Dozens of people called the paper trying to find out where they could get their own TMW. A picture of a Tasmanian Mock Walrus accompanied the article. Skeptics noted that the creature looked surprisingly similar to a Naked Mole Rat.

Eiffel Tower Moves

• The Parisien stunned French citizens in 1986 when it reported that an agreement had been signed to dismantle the Eiffle Tower. It would be reconstructed in the new Euro Disney theme park. In the space where the Tower used to stand, they would build a 35,000 seat stadium to use during the 1992 Olympic Games.