11. UFO Lands in London
On March 31, 1989 thousands of motorists driving on the highway
outside London looked up in the air to see a glowing flying
saucer descending on their city. Many of them pulled to the
side of the road to watch the bizarre craft float through the
air. The saucer finally landed in a field on the outskirts of
London where local residents immediately called the police to
warn them of an alien invasion. Soon the police arrived on the
scene, and one brave officer approached the craft with his truncheon
extended before him. When a door in the craft popped open, and
a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in
the opposite direction. The saucer turned out to be a hot-air
balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by
Richard Branson, the 36-year-old chairman of Virgin Records.
The stunt combined his passion for ballooning with his love
of pranks. His plan was to land the craft in London's Hyde Park
on April 1. Unfortunately, the wind blew him off course, and
he was forced to land a day early in the wrong location.
12. Kremvax
In 1984, back in the Stone Age of the internet, a message was
distributed to the members of Usenet (the online messaging community
that was one of the first forms the internet took) announcing
that the Soviet Union was joining Usenet. This was quite a shock
to many, since most assumed that cold war security concerns
would have prevented such a link-up. The message purported to
come from Konstantin Chernenko (from the address chernenko@kremvax.UUCP
) who explained that the Soviet Union wanted to join the network
in order to "have a means of having an open discussion forum
with the American and European people." The message created
a flood of responses. Two weeks later its true author, a European
man named Piet Beertema, revealed that it was a hoax. This is
believed to be the first hoax on the internet. Six years later,
when Moscow really did link up to the internet, it adopted the
domain name 'kremvax' in honor of the hoax.
13. The Predictions of Isaac
Bickerstaff
In February 1708 a previously unknown London astrologer named
Isaac Bickerstaff published an almanac in which he predicted
the death by fever of the famous rival astrologer John Partridge.
According to Bickerstaff, Partridge would die on March 29 of
that year. Partridge indignantly denied the prediction, but
on March 30 Bickerstaff released a pamphlet announcing that
he had been correct: Partridge was dead. It took a day for the
news to settle in, but soon everyone had heard of the astrologer's
demise. On April 1, April Fool's Day, Partridge was woken by
a sexton outside his window who wanted to know if there were
any orders for his funeral sermon. Then, as Partridge walked
down the street, people stared at him as if they were looking
at a ghost or stopped to tell him that he looked exactly like
someone they knew who was dead. As hard as he tried, Partridge
couldn't convince people that he wasn't dead. Bickerstaff, it
turned out, was a pseudonym for the great satirist Jonathan
Swift. His prognosticatory practical joke upon Partridge worked
so well that the astrologer finally was forced to stop publishing
his almanacs, because he couldn't shake his reputation as the
man whose death had been foretold.
14. The Eruption of Mount
Edgecumbe
In 1974 residents of Sitka, Alaska were alarmed when the long-dormant
volcano neighboring them, Mount Edgecumbe, suddenly began to
belch out billows of black smoke. People spilled out of their
homes onto the streets to gaze up at the volcano, terrified
that it was active again and might soon erupt. Luckily it turned
out that man, not nature, 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, all
in a (successful) attempt to fool the city dwellers into believing
that the volcano was stirring 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!"
15. The Case of the Interfering
Brassieres
In 1982 the Daily Mail reported that a local manufacturer had
sold 10,000 "rogue bras" that were causing a unique and unprecedented
problem, not to the wearers but to the public at large. Apparently
the support wire in these bras had been made out of a kind of
copper originally designed for use in fire alarms. When this
copper came into contact with nylon and body heat, it produced
static electricity which, in turn, was interfering with local
television and radio broadcasts. The chief engineer of British
Telecom, upon reading the article, immediately ordered that
all his female laboratory employees disclose what type of bra
they were wearing.
16. Wisconsin State Capitol
Collapses
In 1933 the Madison Capital-Times solemnly announced that the
Wisconsin state capitol building lay in ruins following a series
of mysterious explosions. The explosions were attributed to
"large quantities of gas, generated through many weeks of verbose
debate in the Senate and Assembly chambers." Accompanying the
article was a picture showing the capitol building collapsing.
By modern standards the picture looks slightly phony, but readers
in 1933 were fooled-and outraged. One reader wrote in declaring
that the hoax "was not only tactless and void of humor, but
also a hideous jest."
17. The Sydney Iceberg
On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbor towing a
giant iceberg. Sydneysiders were expecting it. Dick Smith, a
local adventurer and millionaire businessman (owner of Dick
Smith's Foods), had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow
an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently
succeeded. He said that he was going to carve the berg into
small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents
each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters
of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink
they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor.
Local radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage
of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor was
its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting
foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed
away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.
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