In mid-July, 1842, An English gentleman named "Dr. J. Griffin", a member of the British Lyceum of Natural History, arrived in New York City bearing a remarkable curiosity — a real mermaid supposedly caught near the Feejee Islands in the South Pacific. The press were expecting him, since throughout the Summer they had been receiving letters from Southern correspondents describing the doctor and his mermaid. So when he checked in to his hotel, reporters were waiting for him, demanding to see the mermaid. Grudgingly he obliged. What they saw totally convinced them of the creature's authenticity. More→

A London newspaper provoked trans-Atlantic controversy when it reported that a series of brutal killings had occurred on a Georgia train. More→

On May 18, 1864 two New York City newspapers reported that President Lincoln had issued a proclamation ordering the conscription of an additional 400,000 men into the Union army. The implication of this news was grim. Evidently the war was not going well and might drag on for years to come, putting further strains on the nation's economy and manpower. Share prices on the New York Stock Exchange immediately plummeted, while gold, considered to be a safe, inflation-proof investment, rose in value. However, it soon became clear that the proclamation was not real. The Associated Press issued a statement denying they had sent such a dispatch, and the State Department sent a telegram declaring the proclamation to be “an absolute forgery.” More→

In early 1877, an article appeared in many American newspapers alleging that the remains of General George Washington had been discovered to be petrified. The reporting was attributed to the Washington correspondent of the San Francisco Chronicle. It was only a matter of time before people realized that Washington's remains had not turned to stone. Nevertheless the news continued to circulate as a true story for many months. More→

During the 1870s and 1880s Joseph Mulhattan was perhaps the most famous hoaxer in America. He was a traveling salesman, not a reporter, but he was notorious for repeatedly succeeding in having his farfetched tales reported as news. If an outrageous or bizarre story appeared in the news, reporters would often assume it was the work of Mulhattan. The media showered him with epithets. They called him a "professional liar," "the author of more hoaxes than any other man living," "Munchausen Mulhattan," and the "liar-laureate of the world." He was also widely known by his pseudonym, "Orange Blossom." More→

Six years after the Wright brothers succeeded in making the first flight in a heavier-than-air craft, aviation technology was still fairly primitive. Planes could only fly a few miles. But in 1909, a Massachusetts inventor, Wallace Tillinghast, announced a breakthrough. He claimed to have built a plane capable of flying 300 miles, carrying three passengers, and maintaining a speed of 120 mph. But he refused to show the plane to anyone, saying he was worried about other inventors stealing his ideas. But he did reveal that in a test flight (conducted at night) he had flown from Massachusetts down to New York City, circled the Statue of Liberty, and flown back.

Tillinghast's announcement generated enormous excitement. In the next few weeks thousands of people throughout New England reported seeing his plane flying in the sky at night. But as the months went by and Tillinghast failed to offer any tangible proof of his claims, the media came to realize he was lying to them. He had no airplane. One man confessed that the lights people had seen in the sky were actually small lanterns he had tied to the legs of owls as a practical joke. More→

By November 1918 it seemed that the four-year-long conflict between the Allied and Axis powers might finally be coming to an end. Word leaked to the president of the United Press, who was in Europe at the time, that an armistice had been signed on November 7. Excitedly he cabled the news to America, where it then appeared as front page news across the country and sparked nationwide celebrations. The only problem was that the armistice hadn’t actually been signed. Apparently a German agent had planted the false news in order to demonstrate that the public in the Allied countries would welcome peace rather than a continuation of the conflict. The agent had actually read the political and public mood correctly. He was just a few days early. The real armistice was signed on November 11.

On February 5, 1952, a small ad ran on the theatrical page of the Washington Post offering the services of a company of "ghost artists": "Too busy to paint? Call on the Ghost Artists? We paint it, you sign it."

The idea of ghost artists caught the interest of the media, and a report about the company went out over the wire services and appeared in newspapers nationwide. The ghost artists were said to be earning lucrative fees from executives who wanted to impress their friends. Satisfied clients included military men, government officials, doctors, businessmen, and a Wall Street broker who commissioned an entire exhibition in order to break into "arty circles." More→

G. Clifford Prout was a man with a mission, and that mission was to put clothes on all the millions of naked animals throughout the world. To realize his dream, Prout founded an organization, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (abbreviated as SINA). It was left unexplained why the society was 'for indecency' not 'against indecency'. 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.

Many child stars achieve success and stability as adults, but some child stars go from stardom to the opposite extreme of anonymity and failure, as if dragged down by the weight of their early fame. According to a segment that aired on ABC News's 20/20 in October 1990, this appeared to be the fate of the actor who had played Buckwheat in the 'Our Gang' comedies of the 1930s and '40s.

Buckwheat was the wide-eyed, African-American character played for almost ten years by William Thomas. He was famous for his signature phrase, "O-Tay!" After leaving the show, Thomas dropped from the public eye. 20/20 claimed that it had tracked him down to Tempe, Arizona where he was working at a low-paying job as a grocery bagger. It aired an interview with him in which he talked about the cruel twists and turns his life had taken.

Unfortunately for 20/20, the man they interviewed was not William Thomas. Thomas had worked as a film lab technician before dying in 1980 at the age of 49. The man 20/20 interviewed was an imposter named Bill English who had been claiming to be Buckwheat for the past 30 years. The week after it aired the segment, 20/20 admitted its mistake. In the ensuing scandal, a producer was fired and 20/20 was sued for negligence by the son of the real William Thomas.

In the early 1990s, Grunge emerged as a popular new hard rock musical style. Its characteristic image was of greasy-haired, lumberjack-shirted garage bands playing punk-metal guitar rock. Groups such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney epitomized this new Seattle-based sound.

On November 15, 1992 the New York Times published an article analyzing the roots and evolution of the grunge movement. It theorized that Grungers had embraced greasy hair and lumberjack shirts as a way to rebel against the vanity and flashy style of the eighties. The Times also reported that, just like any self-respecting subculture, the Grungers had developed their own lexicon of "grunge speak." More→

A press release distributed to the media in Columbus, Ohio announced the formation of a new charity that would benefit the homeless by providing them with guns and ammunition. It was called the "Arm the Homeless Coalition." News of this charity was soon picked up by the national media and generated enormous controversy. But when an Ohio reporter tried to track down the Director of the Arm the Homeless Coalition, his investigation led him instead to a group of Ohio State University students who admitted the entire thing was a joke. More→

In March 1999, an ad appeared in a variety of weekly magazines, such as the L.A. Weekly and the Village Voice. It read, "Death got you down? At last an alternative! www.finalcurtain.com"

The website that it led to announced the imminent launch of a novel kind of cemetery. At the Final Curtain Cemetery artists would be allowed to design their own graves before they died. The result would be a cemetery that would be part memorial, part art gallery, and part theme park. As the website explained:

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It is legal to sell donor eggs to infertile couples. However, Ron Harris, an erotic photographer, proposed taking this process one step further. He established a website, Ronsangels.com, at which nubile supermodels auctioned off their eggs to the highest bidders. The concept outraged other members of the infertility industry. More→