FamilyFun has a list of thirteen pranks that can be played on family members on April Fools Day. The list includes:

• Wake the kids up at 3am and tell them it's time for school
• Sew shut the fly on Dad's underwear
• Create a fake coffee spill (includes a recipe for doing this: mix together equal parts white glue and brown puff paint and let the mixture dry on wax paper... I have no idea what 'puff paint' is)
• Fasten a rubber band around the spray attachment on the kitchen sink

Rubber Chicken has posted an interesting account of their experiment in spreading rumors and misinformation via their internet. What they wanted to do was plant one seed of misinformation, and see how far it would spread. As it turned out, it spread quite far.

Their seed of misinformation was this: they made up a rumor that actor John Rhys-Davies, of Sliders fame, was going to provide the voice for General Grievous, the new CGI villain in Star Wars Episode III. They emailed this rumor to Ain't It Cool News, where it was promptly posted as a hot new piece of movie gossip. They then sat back and watched the rumor spread, which it quickly did. Other movie sites quickly picked up the news, and newspapers such as The Guardian even reported it: "Later reports listed IGN and The Guardian - yes, the god damned Guardian - as sources, which effectively meant the news progressively got more reliable. Barely 48 hours after the original announcement, many were already discussing Rhys-Davies' role as if it were confirmed."

'Billionaires for Bush' placed the American Social Security System up for sale on eBay. Apparently it was quickly pulled, but Billionaires for Bush has archived the auction on their own site:

Due to the surprising failure of carefully staged "conversations" across America to convince the American Public that Privatizing Social Security is a good thing, we have decided to take matters into our own hands. As a favor to President Bush and offered exclusively here to the winning bidder who meets our reserve, (must be a private Brokerage Firm, see details below) Billionaires For Bush can't wait to pull the switch on retirement security by circumventing Congress, the Will of the People, and good sense. Why not cut right to the chase? Concurrent with White House Goals and the Cato Institute, we're AUCTIONING OFF SOCIAL SECURITY!

More news from Ananova, though there's nothing inherently unbelievable in this story:

A burnt rubber doll was mistaken for a badly injured alien and taken to a hospital in Brazil. It happened after people in Aracruz found a burnt 'body' on the ground after seeing a fireball fall from the sky.
A police spokesman told Terra Noticias Populares: "Many people were terrified thinking that an alien invasion was taking place. "They thought the doll was a burnt ET and more than 50 people called the station."
The 'alien' was taken to the local hospital where doctors soon confirmed it was a burnt rubber doll. A hospital spokesman said: "It was obviously a practical joke but we wonder who would do that in such a small and quiet town."

This reminds me of the story of the Great Monkey Hoax.

Some guy (I can't find his name) has put together a huge and fascinating collection of examples of 'adventure art'. Many of the examples he describes are basically elaborate pranks. Some of the stuff is completely insane. Many of the stunts seem to end with the artist's arrest. I haven't had the time to read all of it, but here are a few samples that caught my eye:

• The Austrian artist group produced "Nellanutella" as part of their contribution for the Venice Biennale. The artists threw themselves repeatedly into Venice's canals from café tables, bridges and boats.
• Gordon Matta Clark cut large holes into the walls of Pier 52 on the Hudson River. The work "day's end" resulted in a warrant issued for the artist's arrest and his eventual flight to Europe.
• Doug Fishbone installed a gigantic mountain of bananas - well over a ton of them - in the historic town square in Piotrkow Trybunalski in Poland. The work, which was eaten by the crowd in minutes, was meant as a commentary on greed, globalization, consumerism and violence.

That last guy, Doug Fishbone (the banana artist), actually went to Amherst College with me. We were both in the same year but never hung out together. I haven't seen him since Amherst.

Ssshhh! What I am about to tell you is a secret. Do not tell anyone. On Saturday, March 19, many people on the internet will hoax the world with the biggest mass UFO sighting in years. The craft will zoom around the United States and the world. What will they see? A craft with 4 lights, 2 of which blinked several colors. They will then report their sighting as happening at APPROXIMATELY (not exactly) the appropriate time, and that's it.... Report the sighting to the National UFO Reporting center by calling 206-722-3000. Do not post this information online. Only share it with 'real life' friends.

I received this mystery image via email, and I'm trying to figure out what it is. It may have nothing at all to do with hoaxes or pranks, but I'm wondering if it's some kind of Japanese prank gadget that makes farting noises. Or is it a really badly named perfume spray? I have no idea. Click the image to enlarge.

Here's a fun account of a prank involving an attempt to bring a touch of class to a New York City McDonalds:

The idea was to deck out a fast food joint with all the trappings of a five star restaurant. There would be a Maitre D’ standing behind a podium asking for your reservation, a hostess to seat you, a waiter to take your order, and an attendant in the bathroom. The obvious problem with this idea is that it would very likely be shut down as soon as it begins. I decided to focus on the bathroom attendant aspect, figuring that we could last much longer in a secluded men’s room.

My favorite part is how incredibly excited the group of British kids on a school trip were to find an attendant in the bathroom: "They've got a butler in the bathroom and he gave us sweets!" Also check out the video of the interaction with the store manager (about 3/4 of the way down the page).

In past entries I've written about gnomes that have mysteriously disappeared from gardens and peepshows. Now I think I know where the gnomes have gone. They've travelled to the secret gnome garden that lurks beneath the waters of Wastwater in the Lake District. Authorities report that a gnome garden (which even had a tiny picket fence) was removed from the bottom of the lake a few years ago after some divers died while spending too long searching for it. Now the gnome garden has reappeared, but even deeper beneath the lake, beyond the reach of police divers. Obviously the police are worried that once again divers will be unable to resist the siren call of the gnome garden and perish in the search for it. I think this must be the underwater version of Midgetville. (via The Anomalist)
Update: I managed to find a picture of the underwater gnome garden in this recent article from Cumbria Online.

Residents of Newcastle in New South Wales are experiencing a very unusual problem. Plucked chickens are falling from the sky and crashing onto their houses. Mr. Warrick Slee had one smash through his roof. Mr. Slee observes that "I think you know there's something unusual going on... birds or chickens or whatever it is, they don't just fall from the sky and put holes in people's roofs." Very true. I figure the freefalling chickens could be the work of pranksters with a catapult. Or maybe they're falling from a plane. Or maybe extraterrestrials have given up on sending messages via crop circles and have now moved on to plucked chickens.

For almost twenty years Glaswegians have enthusiastically upheld a tradition of placing traffic cones on top of a statue of the Duke of Wellington that stands in the city center. You can even buy postcards and t-shirts displaying a cone-wearing Wellington. But now the fun might come to an end on account of art historian Gary Nisbet who claims that the cone prank threatens to seriously damage the 160-year-old statue. He's campaigning to get people who climb up on the statue charged with vandalism. Unfortunately this would make a number of the city councillors vandals. Nisbet's proposal doesn't seem to be going over well at all with the residents of Glasgow, most of whom seem to think the cone is the best thing about the statue.

The Tailspinning into Tomorrow Livejournal has posted a picture of a flyer put up by someone searching for their missing monkey. Here's the text of the flyer:



I like how they specify that the monkey isn't trustworthy. But I'm wondering if the flyer might be an example of the classic weird-missing-pet phone prank. An earlier example of this I recorded was A Cat Named Killer. Here's the prank: put out an ad or flyer listing a weird pet as missing; include your friend's phone number as the contact; wait for your friend to gets hundreds of bizarre phone calls.