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April Fools' Day April Fools' Day
Said to have originated with the adoption of the new Gregorian calendar in place of the old Julian calendar in 1582, All Fools' Day or April Fools' Day has been observed for centuries.
It has become tradition to pull pranks on 1st of April and even the normally serious news media consider April Fools' Day hoaxes fair game. Here is a list of top 10 media generated April fool hoaxes.
The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
The BBC television programme Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing the Swiss are harvesting spaghetti from trees and spaghetti’s oddly uniform length was explained as the result of years of dedicated cultivation. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees or how can they buy a spaghetti plant for themselves. After more than 50 years this is arguably the best media generated April fool’s Joke.
Nixon for President
In 1992 National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation program announced that Richard Nixon was running for President again. Accompanying this announcement they also showed audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy speech. Listeners responded to the announcement, flooding the show with calls expressing shock and outrage. Only during the second half of the show did the host John Hockenberry reveal that the announcement was a mere joke and that Nixon's voice was impersonated by comedian Rich Little.
Instant colour TV
In the black and white television days of 1962, the only TV network in Sweden announced that thanks to the advent of new technology, viewers could convert their existing black and white sets to colour reception by pulling a nylon stocking over the screen. The method was even demonstrated on air. Thousands of people reportedly fell for it and they even called up TV station to thank them for such wonderful information.
Assassination of Bill Gates
In 2003, it was claimed by many Chinese and South Korean websites that CNN reported Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, had been assassinated. This created a state of panic everywhere, resulting in a 1.5% drop in the Korean stock market.
Left-Handed Whopper
In the year 1998, Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing that they had launched “Left-Handed Whopper” specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day, Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich.
Water on Mars
In the year 2005 a news story was posted on the official website of NASA with pictures of water on Mars. The picture actually was just a picture of a glass of water on a Mars Candy Bar. A large number of people commented on this and they are eager to know more about the findings.
Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity
In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM, a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was about to occur - something that listeners could experience in their very own homes. He told his listeners that planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. He informed listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have experienced this sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.
Mall of America West
The "Mall of America West" prank carried out several years ago by radio duo Kevin and Bean from KROQ was an all-time classic. They claimed to be at the Mall of America West, the biggest mall in the world, located between Angels Stadium and Disneyland. Offering great "grand opening" deals to anyone who came to the (non-existent) Mall that day. Very soon, excited people began to flock to the area, causing huge traffic jams which made getting to Disneyland quite a chore. This lasted all day even after the TV and radio news reported that it was an April Fool's joke.
Wisconsin State Capitol Collapses
In 1933, the "Madison Capital-Times" announced that the capitol building had collapsed after a series of strange explosions that they attributed to "large quantities of gas, generated through many weeks of verbose debate in the Senate and Assembly chambers."
UFO Lands in London
On March 31, 1989, thousands of motorists driving on the highway outside London looked up in the air to see a glowing flying saucer descending onto their city. The saucer finally landed in a field on the outskirts of London where local residents immediately called the police to warn them of an alien invasion. Soon the police arrived on the scene, when a door in the craft was opened it was found that it was a hot-air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the 36-year-old chairman of Virgin Records. His plan was to land the craft in London's Hyde Park on April 1. Unfortunately, the wind blew him off course, and he was forced to land a day early in the wrong location.
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