These types of hoaxes are semi-comical or private "sting operations" intended to expose people. They usually encourage people to act foolishly or credulously by falling for patent nonsense that the hoaxer deliberately presents as reality.
The British television series Brass Eye, which encouraged celebrities to pledge their support to nonexistent causes to highlight their willingness to do anything for publicity.
The avant-garde "music" of the fictitious Piotr Zak.
Venus de Brizet, a statue discovered in a French farm field and declared a monument historique for presumed ancient Roman origins, before being revealed to have been buried as a publicity stunt by a living artist.
Journalistic hoaxes
Deliberate hoaxes or journalistic scandals that have drawn widespread attention include:
Fuckart & Pimp, a hoax exhibition at London's Decima gallery which purported to be the show of a female artist having sex with clients to consummate the sale of her paintings, created a worldwide media scandal but was later revealed to be a hoax.
The Great Wall of China hoax of 1899, a fake news article describing bids by American businesses on a contract to demolish the Great Wall of China and construct a road in its place. The story was reprinted by a number of newspapers.
Johann Hari, journalist for The Independent, The New York Times, The Huffington Post and other media organizations, who committed acts of plagiarism, fabricated sources and quotes, and posted malicious comments to social media and edits to the Wikipedia biographies of his critics and opponents. Hari was forced to return the Orwell Prize (which he won in 2008) after it was withdrawn by the Orwell Prize Council.
Edgar Allan Poe created a hoax of moon travel in "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall," as well as The Balloon-Hoax, a hoax newspaper article about the first transatlantic balloon trip (1844).
"A Rape on Campus", an article written by Sabrina Erdely and published by Rolling Stone magazine that reported an alleged gang rape of a female college student by college men in graphic detail, but was later found to have been entirely fabricated by the "victim" and the journalist.
San Serriffe, a fictional island nation made the subject of an extensive report created for April Fools' Day 1977 by Britain's Guardian newspaper.
Frank Scully's columns for Variety magazine and his 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers, which said the US government had recovered crashed flying saucers and bodies of extraterrestrials. His sources were the con men behind the Aztec crashed saucer hoax, but he refused to admit he had been hoaxed despite national magazine exposés.
The Sultan of Llang-Llang was the creation of Robert A. McLean, a Marine Corps recruiter working in Manhattan in 1919. His story, expected to be a one-day gag, became a national–and even international–sensation.
Other hoaxes
This list does not include hoax articles published on or around April 1, a long list of which can be found in the List of April Fools' Day jokes article.
A–C
Cedric Allingham, a fictitious author who wrote a book about meeting the pilot of a Martian spacecraft. Allingham was created by British astronomer Patrick Moore and his friend Peter Davies.
Alternative 3, a 1977 British mockumentary about a global government conspiracy to evacuate world luminaries to Mars before an expected apocalypse. The film is a work of fiction meant to satirize conspiracy theories, but some conspiracy theorists believed it was part of an actual conspiracy.
The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, a book about the purported sexual enslavement of a nun.
The Aztec crashed saucer hoax, a 1948 flying saucer crash in Aztec, New Mexico, concocted by two con men to sell equipment said to have been recovered from the site. Although the pair was convicted of fraud for this enterprise, reports of the crash—notably those written by Frank Scully—were later taken seriously by ufologists.
The balloon boy hoax, about a boy reported to be traveling uncontrollably at high altitude in a homemade helium balloon, but was later discovered to be hiding in the attic of his house.
Franz Bibfeldt, a fictitious theologian originally invented to provide a footnote for a divinity school student, which later became an in-joke among academic theologians.
Pierre Brassau, a pseudonym for a chimpanzee whose art was exhibited in a gallery under the presumption that Brassau was a real human artist. The chimpanzee received positive reviews from several critics.
The Cardiff Giant, a hoax of a hoax; P. T. Barnum had a replica made because he could not obtain the "genuine" hoax item.
Otis T. Carr's flying saucer, which he claimed would be capable of space travel using "free energy" principles developed by Nikola Tesla.
The CERN ritual, a supposed occult sacrifice on the grounds of CERN.
China Under the Empress Dowager, co-authored by Sir Edmund Backhouse, 2nd Baronet using a forged diary as a major source, with a manuscript of Backhouse's memoirs also being mostly fiction. He also falsely represented himself as representing the Chinese Imperial Court in business deals and donated forged books to the Bodleian Library.
Crop circles; English pranksters Doug Bower and Dave Chorley claimed they started the phenomenon, and hundreds of "copycat" circles have been fabricated since by other hoaxers.
Going Places, a public media debate on the nature of art provoked by University of Leeds art students pretending to take a week-long vacation in Spain, then presenting the vacation as their end-of-year project.
The Gorgeous Guy, an apparently motiveless hoax which gained the perpetrator some media attention.
Grávida de Taubaté, a Brazilian woman who pretended to be pregnant with quadruplets in 2012 and gained national media attention before her pregnancy was revealed to be bogus.
Hamas baby beheading hoax, refers to claims, since refuted, that Hamas killed and beheaded dozens of babies and toddlers during the October 7 attacks which it led in southern Israel in 2023.
Hanxin, a DSPmicrochip claimed to be developed completely by Chen Jin himself, later found to be a Motorola microchip with its original trademark sanded away.
Tania Head (Alicia Esteve Head), who claimed to be a 9/11 survivor and received widespread media attention.
"Here Comes Sophie", an alleged animated movie based on the Belgian comic Sophie. A number of posters circulated on the Net, but eventually it was found to be a hoax.
Hurricane Shark or Street Shark, a recurring hoax appearing to show a shark swimming in a flooded urban area, usually after a hurricane. A 2022 video of such a shark or large fish, however, proved to be real.
The Trevor Jacob plane crash, which Jacob deliberately staged in 2021 for YouTube views, claiming it was an accident caused by engine failure.
Pope Joan, a woman who allegedly served as pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 855–857 while posing as a man, and was reportedly killed after unexpectedly giving birth.
Killswitch A videogame that was supposedly created in the late 1980s by a company called Karvina Corporation. The player could choose to play as a woman called Porto or as a demon-like character named Ghast, and the game deleted itself from the disk upon completion.
Lenin was a mushroom, a television hoax by Soviet musician Sergey Kuryokhin and reporter Sergey Sholokhov. It was first broadcast on 17 May 1991 on Leningrad Television.
The Ligma-Johnson hoax, hatched by two amateur actors pretending to be recently fired Twitter employees.
The Majestic 12 papers documenting a secret US government committee investigating UFO activity in the 1950s. The existence of the committee remains disputed, but the papers are broadly agreed to be forgeries produced by ufologist Bill Moore or supplied to him as a prank.
The Mars hoax (also called the Two Moons hoax), a yearly hoax started in 2003 that falsely claims that at a certain date, Mars will appear as large as a full moon.
The Masked Marauders, a non-existent album "reviewed" as a prank by Rolling Stone magazine. The album was alleged to feature a jam session between Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney. Shortly thereafter, Rolling Stone hired several celebrity impersonators and session musicians to record the album.
Eva and Franco Mattes have perpetrated a number of hoaxes, including the fake Vatican web site "vaticano.org" and the fictitious artist Darko Maver.
The Maury Island incident, a 1947 flying saucer hoax that Fred Crisman and Harold Dahl concocted to sell to a science fiction magazine. The men initially said that a mysterious stranger in a dark suit warned them to keep quiet; this may be the first report of men in black, later a common element in UFO folklore.
Han van Meegeren, a prolific Dutch art forger who revealed his craft to defend himself from criminal charges in the Netherlands for having sold the Nazi leader Hermann Göring a fake Vermeer painting believed by experts to be an authentic national treasure; he painted another fake Vermeer in prison to prove he was a virtuoso forger who had defrauded Göring, for which he became a national hero.
The Microsoft acquisition hoax, a 1994 hoax claiming that Microsoft had acquired the Roman Catholic Church. The hoax is considered to be the first hoax to reach a mass audience on the Internet. Despite debunking by Microsoft, similar stories about Microsoft and other companies implementing unrealistic acquisitions continued.
The Miscovich emeralds hoax, an attempt by a diver to pass modern emeralds off as treasures from a sunken Spanish galleon.
The Maggie Murphy hoax, a hoax that claimed that a farmer grew an oversized potato.
N–P
Naked Came the Stranger: a 1969 novel by a group of American journalists attempting to satisfy, and thus expose, what they perceived as degraded standards in popular American literature; it succeeded, selling about 90,000 copies before the hoax was revealed.
Ompax spatuloides, a "fish" supposedly discovered in 1872 in Australia as a practical joke on Karl Theodor Staiger, which also fooled Francis de Laporte de Castelnau into writing a scientific description of the "species". It was made of a mullet, an eel, and the head of a platypus.
Our First Time, an early popularized Internet hoax involving two purported 18-year-olds who claimed they would live broadcast themselves losing their virginity.
The Persian Princess, a mummy of an alleged princess which surfaced in October 2000. It proved to be an archaeological forgery and possibly a modern murder victim.
The Piltdown Man, whose remains were purported to be "the missing link" between apes and humans.
Plainfield Teachers College, a fictitious school whose football scores ended up in major newspapers in 1941.
The Poppy Fields, a made-up band that earned a number 24 hit for "45 RPM", a song they had not recorded.
Prester John, fictitious 12th-century king of a powerful but vaguely described and non-existent Christian empire in Asia, and the alleged writer of a famous forged letter likely written to build support for the Crusades.
Princess Caraboo, also known as Mary Baker, a woman in England who alleged to be a princess from a far-off land.
James Reavis, so-called Baron of Arizona, an American forger who planted fake Spanish documents indicating he was the rightful owner of a very large, fictitious land grant in the western United States.
Tamara Rand's prediction of the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, which was actually made after the fact (Randi 1982:329).
Redcore, a Chinese browser purported to be developed in-house, but was revealed to be based on Chromium.
"Rejecting Jane", an article that chronicles publishing houses' rejection of the opening chapters of Jane Austen novels submitted to them under a pseudonym by British writer David Lassman.
The Report from Iron Mountain, a literary hoax claiming that the United States government had concluded that peace was not in the economy's best interest.
Rhinogradentia, a fictitious order of mammals with noses adapted to perform a variety of functions. Members of the order were purported to be endemic to one Pacific archipelago, and to have gone extinct due to nearby nuclear testing.
The Rosenhan experiment, involving the admission of healthy "pseudopatients" to twelve psychiatric hospitals.
The skvader, a form of winged hare supposedly indigenous to Sweden.
The Sloot Digital Coding System, a method of data compression claimed by inventor Jan Sloot to be capable of compressing digital video into far less memory than is believed to be mathematically possible. Sloot died and his design notes were never found, but the device he used for demonstrations was found to have been rigged.
Stardrive 2000, a 1986 radio advertising hoax in Portland, Oregon to promote the effectiveness of radio advertising by advertising a fictional automobile.
Fool's errand, a type of practical joke where a newcomer to a group, typically in a workplace context, is given an impossible or nonsensical task by older or more experienced members of the group.
Clark, Jerome (1998). The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial. Detroit, Michigan: Visible Ink Press. ISBN1-57859-029-9.
Hamel, Denis (November 2007). "The End of the Einstein-Astrology-Supporter Hoax". Skeptical Inquirer. Vol.31, no.6. pp.39–43.
Graff, Garrett M. (2023). UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here–and Out There. New York City: Avid Reader Press. ISBN978-1-9821-9678-3.