Journalist Dan De Quille published an article in the Territorial Enterprise on October 26, 1867, describing some stones with a curious property. Whenever separated from each other, these stones, which he said had recently been discovered in Nevada's Pahranagat Valley, spontaneously moved back together. The article, written in a semi-scientific style, was a joke, but De Quille discovered that a lie once told cannot easily be untold. Years later, despite efforts to expose his own hoax, he was still receiving letters from people wanting to know more details about the traveling stones. More >>>

On May 14, 1864 a meteor shower fell in southern France, near the town of Peillerot. The meteorites, which were composed of carbonaceous chondrite, were given the name 'Orgueil.' Samples of the meteor shower were collected and sent to the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle in Montauban, France. From there samples were disseminated to other museums throughout Europe, but two of the meteorites remained in Montauban, where they were sealed inside a glass jar.

The meteorites remained all but forgotten until the early 1960s, when researchers unsealed one of the glass jars and discovered something remarkable. There were plant seeds embedded deep within the meteorite, within the glassy fusion layer created from the heat of passing through the atmosphere. This indicated that the plant seeds were of extraterrestrial origin.

But closer examination revealed that the plant seeds were from France and that the entire meteorite was an elaborately created fake. The fusion layer was actually dried glue. More >>>