Article April Fools Day - 1975
Type: April Fool’s Day Hoaxes.
Summary: Notable hoaxes perpetrated on April Fool’s Day, 1975.
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Table of Contents
The Musendrophilus
The famous naturalist David Attenborough gave a report on BBC Radio 3 about a group of islands in the Pacific known as the Sheba Islands. He played sound recordings of the island’s fauna, including a recording of an alleged night-singing tree mouse called the Musendrophilus. He also described a web-footed species whose webs were prized by inhabitants of the island as reeds for musical instruments.
The Banbury Inscription
A group of historians was summoned to Banbury, Oxfordshire to examine an ancient stone inscription which had supposedly been recently discovered. The inscription was said to be a clue to a past civilization. It read, “s sorcy rub nabot es rohk co caed ir.” The historians soon figured out that it simply read “Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross,” spelt backwards. The hoax recalls a prank played centuries earlier on the early modern linguist Athanasius Kircher.
Snell’s African Journey
BBC Radio 4’s Today Show announced that as part of the centenary celebrations for Edgar Wallace’s Sanders of the River, Major John Blashford Snell had just completed a secret journey into the African interior in search of a rare tribe mentioned in that book. The heads of the members of this tribe supposedly grew beneath their shoulders, giving them a stooped appearance. It was also reported that the chief of this tribe had once been a lift attendant.
Foley Island to be Towed
BBC Radio 4’s Today Show also reported about a controversy involving the Island of Foley, located between Sheppey and the Kent Coast. Apparently the island was the cause of numerous shipwrecks. Therefore, authorities had decided to destroy it. However, because this decision had been protested by conservationists, authorities had decided to tow it somewhere safer instead. Towing islands has been a source of jokes as far back as 1824, when a hoaxer supposedly had the residents of Manhattan believing that their island was going to be towed out to sea.
