April Fool's Day Archive, Contents:

"What's This? — Gail Speicher gives her French poodle 'Domino' an airing. But wait a minute ... that's no poodle! Seems like anything can happen today. It's April Fool."
[Lebanon Daily News - Apr 1, 1959]

"One of the Herald's photographers, Jim Parker, who has since been banished to the north, wandered up to the editor's desk the other day and offered this picture for publication. The editor recognized it as the Calgary city hall but could see no news in it as somebody is usually blowing their top over something the city does or does not do." [The Calgary Herald - Apr 1, 1954]

The Wiesbadener Tagblatt published a photo of a "Martian in the USA," showing American soldiers accompanying a one-legged creature with "a large head and a very small body."

The photo, as the paper subsequently explained, was created with the participation of Americans at the Wiesbaden US Army base, who posed with photographer Hans Scheffler's five-year-old son, Peter. Scheffler then replaced his son in the photo with the alien.


Scheffler's photo subsequently surfaced in the UFO-research community, where it was thought to be actual evidence of a captured extraterrestrial. This happened after an unknown informant, in May 1950, sent a clipping of the photo to the FBI, without noting its origin as an April fool spoof. The FBI duly filed away the photo and then released it to UFO researcher Barry Greenwood in 1979 after he filed a Freedom of Information Act request. The next year, 1980, the photo was included in The Roswell Incident, an alien-conspiracy book written by William Moore and Charles Berlitz.

The Cologne Neue Illustrierte published a picture of "a tiny, aluminum-covered man" who had supposedly been rescued from a saucer that had crash landed after being shot by American anti-aircraft guns. The planet this being came from was unknown.

The photo subsequently became a famous "alien" photo, after its origin as an April fool hoax was forgotten. It was reproduced in books such as "Flying Saucers from Outer Space" (1953) by Donald Keyhoe and "The UFO Encyclopedia" (1980) by Margaret Sachs.

The Progress (Clearfield, Pennsylvania) published a picture of a flying saucer, supposedly hovering over the business section of Clearfield. The photo caption read, "Scoring an unquestioned scoop on the other newspapers of the nation, Life, and Look magazines and other pictorial publications, The Progress proudly presents today the first published picture of a 'flying saucer' in the air."

International Soundphoto distributed a photo of a flying bus swooping over the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France. The photo ran in many papers, accompanied by the caption: "Well, Well, look how all those Parisians are being missed by the bus at Place de la Concorde. Anything can happen in the French capital on April Fool's day, they say, but it is suspected that some zany darkroom jokester had something to do with this." [Newsweek - Apr 10, 1950.]

North Carolina's Twin City Sentinel ran a story on its front page claiming that "a long sleek transatlantic steamer," the S.S. Santa Pinta, had "plowed through the muddy waters of Yadkin River and anchored ten miles west of Winston-Salem." An accompanying photo showed the stranded steamer. Hundreds of people (who hadn't read to the end of the article to see the phrase "An April Fool's Dream!") decided to drive out to see the steamer, resulting in a traffic jam on the highway. [Winston-Salem Journal, Apr 1, 2009]

"Charleston, R.I.—Dr. Harold Sand's pet oyster-eating hippo escapes from backyard." [Life, Mar 22, 1937.]

"Old Rye, N.H.—A freak windstorm spells things in branches of willow trees." [Life, Mar 22, 1937.]

"Boston—General George Washington is caught backwards on his charger in the Public Gardens." [Life, Mar 22, 1937.]

"The Flume, N.H.—Local boy builds boat, finds it too big, sandpapers it down to fit." [Life, Mar 22, 1937.]

In the "Pictures to the Editors" section of its March 22, 1937 issue, Life magazine published four photographs sent in by a correspondent who wrote: "These strange shots are sent you as a warning as to what to expect in photography around April 1st.—A.H. Blackington, Boston, Mass." The photographs presumably had been published earlier in regional New England newspapers.

1. Charleston, R.I.— Dr. Harold Sand's pet oyster-eating hippo escapes from backyard.

2. Boston— General George Washington is caught backwards on his charger in the Public Gardens.

3. The Flume, N.H.—Local boy builds boat, finds it too big, sandpapers it down to fit.

4. Old Rye, N.H.— A freak windstorm spells things in branches of willow trees.

The San Antonio Light revealed that a plot to move the Alamo from San Antonio to Dallas had been foiled at the last minute:

The Philadelphia Record ran a picture titled, "Deep Sea Monster Visits Philadelphia." Although modern viewers have little difficulty in spotting the picture as a fake, it fooled many of the Record's readers.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin ran a story about the discovery of a Viking ship in Hawaii, accompanied by a picture of the ship. The story played on the popular belief that early Viking explorers landed in America and traveled as far west as Minnesota. However, it is doubtful they ever went as far as Hawaii.