In December 1989, the Sunday edition of the Rockford Register Star ran a brief article on its front page under the headline, “Aliens Spotted Near Rockford.” The article warned that “These aliens claim to be human children offering further proof that alien beings do indeed live in our planet and may be among local residents.” The story was a prank inserted by a mischievous production worker. The man was fired the next day.

Billy Tipton (1914-1989) got his start in the predominantly masculine world of jazz during the 1930s. He made a name for himself playing the saxophone and piano, and during the 1950s formed his own group, the Billy Tipton Trio. Throughout his life he had a number of wives and adopted three sons. Therefore, when he died at the age of 74 on January 21, 1989, it came as a surprise to almost everyone to discover that Billy Tipton was really a woman. Even his wives claimed not to have known his secret during their marriages to him. More >>>

On November 28, 1987, a 15-year-old black girl named Tawana Brawley was found lying inside a trash bag outside an apartment building located in Wappingers Falls, New York. She was covered in feces and racial insults had been scrawled on her body. When questioned by police she claimed that a group of white men, including police officers, had raped and beaten her. The black community rallied around her, and a prominent black leader, the Reverend Al Sharpton, appointed himself her spokesman. Support for Brawley reached its peak on June 15, 1988 when her advisers held a meeting at the Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn that was broadcast to an audience of ten million viewers.

However, the material evidence did not back up Brawley’s claims. Her body displayed no signs of rape or assault. She was not frostbitten, even though she had supposedly been kept naked in the freezing woods for days. The feces on her body turned out to be from a neighbor’s dog, and even more damningly, a local resident of the apartment community where she was found claimed to have seen her climb into the trashbag alone and lie down of her own accord. More >>>

On August 31, 1987, the double-A Williamsport Bills were playing the Reading Phillies. Rick Lundblade of the Phillies was on third base, waiting to run for home. The pitcher threw the ball low, into the glove of the catcher, Dave Bresnahan, who immediately threw it towards third hoping to pick off Lundblade. But the throw went wild, over the head of the third baseman, and Lundblade triumphantly sprinted towards home. But when he reached home he found Bresnahan waiting for him with a grin on his face and the ball in his hand.

The entire stadium erupted in confusion. If Bresnahan had thrown the ball out into left field, how was it possible that he now had it in his hand, waiting to tag Lundblade out? The answer was that he had not thrown a ball into left field. What he had thrown was actually a peeled potato.

The stunt immediately became known as the Great Potato Play. Although it cost Bresnahan his job with the Bills, the stunt did earn him an immortal place in baseball history.

On 23 June 1987, P. David Herrlinger, a 46-year-old investment adviser working out of Cincinnati, called up the Dow Jones News Service and informed them that he represented a large private investment firm which was about to offer to buy the retailer Dayton Hudson for $6.8 billion. The news immediately triggered a $9 spike in the company's stock price.

The news turned out to be completely bogus. Herrlinger had apparently made the call after suffering a mental breakdown. When his co-workers asked him what he was doing, he replied, "We're going to make some money," and when confronted with the obvious fact that he lacked the financial resources necessary to make a $6.8 billion offer on Dayton Hudson, he commented, "An offer is really an intangible thing."

Herrlinger, through his lawyer, later argued that Dow Jones bore the responsibility for disseminating the fake takeover bid, on the logic that they should never have believed him in the first place. In the aftermath of the hoax, many expressed concern at the ease with which a single irrational individual had been able to manipulate the market.

On 27 April 1986, late night HBO subscribers watching the movie "The Falcon and the Snowman" were surprised by a sudden interruption of service. A color bar test pattern appeared on the screen for 4 ½ minutes. It was accompanied by a text message: "Good Evening HBO from Captain Midnight. $12.95/month? No Way! (Showtime/Movie Channel Beware!)" More >>>

On January 21, 1985, the daily broadcast of the Donahue show was devoted to a typically unusual subject — gay senior citizens. But few people would later remember the topic of that day's show, because as the live broadcast progressed seven members of the audience proceeded to faint. Concerned by the bizarre outbreak of swooning, Donahue cancelled the rest of the show and sent everyone home.

The producers theorized that the hot temperature inside the studio might have caused the people to collapse, but a few days later Deborah Harmon, one of the fainters, admitted she had been paid to do so by the well-known prankster Alan Abel. He had also paid the six other audience members who had fainted.

Abel later explained that the stunt was designed as a protest against the deteriorating quality of daytime talk shows. He claimed that a group called FAINT (Fight Against Idiotic Neurotic TV) had spearheaded the protest. "We want to raise the consciousness of the public by going unconscious," he said.

The stunt attracted more censure than any of Abel's other pranks because critics charged that it could have inspired panic at a time when there was public concern over the possible spread of Legionnaire's disease.

During the 1980s a rumor began to circulate alleging that the luxury department store Neiman Marcus had once charged a customer $250 for a cookie recipe. The rumor was first reported in newspapers during the late 1980s. However, the tale was likely older than that. Pat Zajac, a Neiman Marcus spokeswoman in Dallas, when interviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times in 1992, said that the tale had been circulating since she came to work for the chain in 1986. More >>>

In 1983 the novel The Diary of a Good Neighbor was published in Great Britain and the United States. It told the story of a successful middle-aged magazine editor who befriends a lonely old woman. The cover identified the author as Jane Somers, a name that was said to be the pseudonym of a "well-known English woman journalist." The book received little critical attention, and had only modest sales. Approximately 1500 copies sold in the UK and 3000 in the United States.

A year later a sequel appeared, If the Old Could. But upon its publication, Doris Lessing revealed herself to be the author of both works. More >>>

On April 22, 1983 the glossy German news magazine Stern issued a press release announcing what it promised was "the most important historical event of the last ten years." It had discovered the personal diary of Adolf Hitler -- a massive, multi-volume work spanning the years 1932-1945.

Stern's announcement generated a media frenzy. Magazines and news agencies bid for the right to serialize the diary. Journalists, historians, and World War II buffs eagerly anticipated what revelations it would contain. Skeptics, however, insisted it had to be a fake.

The skeptics turned out to be right. Less than two weeks after Stern's initial announcement, forensics experts at the West German Bundesarchiv issued a press release of their own, denouncing the diaries as a "crude forgery." More >>>

Too much dialogue, not enough exposition, weak story line Casablanca is arguably the most famous movie in the history of film. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1943, and was voted as one of the top three American films ever made by the American Film Institute. It's a movie that everyone in the film industry should instantly be able to recognize. But in 1982 freelance writer Chuck Ross asked himself this question: Would contemporary Hollywood movie agents actually be able to recognize Casablanca if it was submitted to them as a script? Or failing that, would they at least be able to recognize it as great writing?

To find out, Ross devised an experiment. He retyped the script of Casablanca, changed its title to "Everybody Comes to Rick's" (the title of the original play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison), changed the name of Rick's sidekick from Sam to Dooley (after Dooley Wilson, the actor who played that character), and submitted it to 217 agencies as a script supposedly by an unknown writer, "Erik Demos." More >>>

An article that appeared in the Washington Post on September 29, 1980 told a heartwrenching tale. It detailed the life of 'Jimmy,' a young boy who had apparently become a victim of the thriving heroin trade that was devestating the low-income neighborhoods of Washington D.C. Caught in a cycle of addiction, violence, and despair, Jimmy had become a heroin addict after being introduced to the drug by his mother's live-in boyfriend. As Janet Cooke, the author of the article, described him, "Jimmy is 8 years old and a third-generation heroin addict, a precocious little boy with sandy hair, velvety brown eyes and needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin brown arms." She noted that Jimmy aspired to be a heroin dealer when he grew up.

The story immediately generated controversy. Many demanded that Cooke reveal where the boy lived so that he could be helped. However, Cooke refused to provide his location, claiming she needed to protect her sources and that her life would be in danger from drug dealers if she failed to do so. Meanwhile, the city government launched an intensive search to find him. More >>>

On 21 April 1980, Rosie Ruiz, a 23-year-old New Yorker, was the first woman to cross the finish line in the Boston Marathon. She had achieved the third fastest time ever recorded for a female runner (two hours, thirty-one minutes, and fifty-six seconds), which was made all the more remarkable by the fact that she looked remarkably sweat-free and relaxed as she climbed the winner's podium to accept her wreath. However, race officials almost immediately began to question her victory. More >>>

On January 2, 1980 the New York Times announced the death of Alan Abel on its obituary page. It provided a flattering account of his career. The obituary read, in part:


Unfortunately for the Times, Abel was not dead. The Times learned this when Abel held a press conference the next day in which he revealed that the news of his death was a hoax engineered by himself and a team of twelve accomplices. It is reported that the editor of the Times was so mad at the deception, that he vowed to never print Abel's name again. This was a vow the editor was unable to keep.