About the Museum of Hoaxes
The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about whatever dubious-sounding claims come across our path on a day-by-day basis. In our archives we have hundreds of articles about the most fascinating and notorious deceptions throughout history, from the middle ages to the present.
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Swiss Spaghetti Harvest Skeptic
If there's one thing I've learned from running a website it's that you can't please everyone. And apparently my selection of the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest as the #1 April Fool's Day Hoax of All Time hasn't pleased Mike Jones, staff writer for the Gaylord Herald Times. I recently stumbled upon this comment he made in his column:All-time hoax, not!
One thing we like here at the old “5 Nuggets of Knowledge” is “best of and top 10” lists. We recently came across “The Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time.”
Again, you be the judge. The list was supposedly compiled based on “notoriety, creativity and number of people duped,” and this apparently is the best they could come up with.
Drum roll please: No. 1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest — This hoax occurred in the more simple, gentle and gullible time of the 1950s in Great Britain. Apparently a BBC news program announced a mild winter had eliminated the dreaded spaghetti weevil and Swiss farmers had harvested a bumper crop of spaghetti. News footage showed Swiss peasants harvesting strands of spaghetti down from trees and large numbers of viewers were taken in by the hoax.
One thing we like here at the old “5 Nuggets of Knowledge” is “best of and top 10” lists. We recently came across “The Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time.”
Again, you be the judge. The list was supposedly compiled based on “notoriety, creativity and number of people duped,” and this apparently is the best they could come up with.
Drum roll please: No. 1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest — This hoax occurred in the more simple, gentle and gullible time of the 1950s in Great Britain. Apparently a BBC news program announced a mild winter had eliminated the dreaded spaghetti weevil and Swiss farmers had harvested a bumper crop of spaghetti. News footage showed Swiss peasants harvesting strands of spaghetti down from trees and large numbers of viewers were taken in by the hoax.
I'll admit that a lot of the April Fool's Day hoaxes on that list are somewhat arbitrarily placed. After all, it's impossible to be objective about something like that. But come on! How can he question the selection of the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest as #1? That's like April Fool's Day sacrilege! It's obviously #1, if for no other reason than it's, hands down, the most famous April 1st hoax ever.
If Mike ever reads this, I'd be curious to know what he thinks should be the top pick.