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Kingetter
25-Oct-06, 10:58
What are your favourite hoaxes - April Fools or other?

As a starter, try these, maybe you'll remember them?

The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the BBC diplomatically replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/spaghetti.html

San Serriffe
In 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement in honor of the tenth anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology. The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April Foolery that then gripped the British tabloids in the following decades.

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 going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his 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 felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

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 on their city. Many of them pulled to the side of the road to watch the bizarre craft float through the air. 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, and one brave officer approached the craft with his truncheon extended before him. When a door in the craft popped open, and a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in the opposite direction. The saucer turned out to be 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. The stunt combined his passion for ballooning with his love of pranks. 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.

Whistling Carrots
In 2002 the British supermarket chain Tesco published an advertisement in The Sun announcing the successful development of a genetically modified 'whistling carrot.' The ad explained that the carrots had been specially engineered to grow with tapered airholes in their side. When fully cooked, these airholes caused the vegetable to whistle.

Drunk Driving on the Internet
An article by John Dvorak in the April 1994 issue of PC Computing magazine described a bill going through Congress that would make it illegal to use the internet while drunk, or to discuss sexual matters over a public network. The bill was supposedly numbered 040194 (i.e. 04/01/94), and the contact person was listed as Lirpa Sloof (April Fools backwards). The article said that the FBI was going to use the bill to tap the phone line of anyone who "uses or abuses alcohol" while accessing the internet. Passage of the bill was felt to be certain because "Who wants to come out and support drunkenness and computer sex?" The article offered this explanation for the origin of the bill: "The moniker 'Information Highway' itself seems to be responsible for SB 040194... I know how silly this sounds, but Congress apparently thinks being drunk on a highway is bad no matter what kind of highway it is." The article generated so many outraged phone calls to Congress that Senator Edward Kennedy's office had to release an official denial of the rumor that he was a sponsor of the bill.

jemmima-june
25-Oct-06, 11:14
have nothing to add except "thank you" i enjoyed reading the post :)

willowbankbear
25-Oct-06, 11:35
Wind ups are better than April fools.

We had a young man on top of the the helipad on wur rig with a glass jar collecting fog samples.

Another man who believed there was a cat on the rig & `fed` it 2 times a day for 12 days until he was shown there wasnt a cat, even then he was unbelieving.

Another chap in Wick was told he had to pay for Bed & Breakfast on the rig for the 2 weeks he was there, so he was on his way to the Rig manager/OIM s office but had to be stopped by mates with tears in their eyes[lol]

Another lad was told to bring the Chopper down with hand signals!! They have radio communications out there

Moggy Cattermole
25-Oct-06, 11:55
Wind ups are better than April fools.

We had a young man on top of the the helipad on wur rig with a glass jar collecting fog samples.

Another man who believed there was a cat on the rig & `fed` it 2 times a day for 12 days until he was shown there wasnt a cat, even then he was unbelieving.

Another chap in Wick was told he had to pay for Bed & Breakfast on the rig for the 2 weeks he was there, so he was on his way to the Rig manager/OIM s office but had to be stopped by mates with tears in their eyes[lol]

Another lad was told to bring the Chopper down with hand signals!! They have radio communications out there

My favourite is to send a Roustie out to turn the Windsock round .. as we cant fly with it in that direction.

Have recently got a Safety Man by telling him that there was no such word as Gullible in the Dictionary .. came back proudly an hour later saying "Yes there is .."

Makes you wonder doesnt it ??

willowbankbear
25-Oct-06, 11:58
My favourite is to send a Roustie out to turn the Windsock round .. as we cant fly with it in that direction.

Have recently got a Safety Man by telling him that there was no such word as Gullible in the Dictionary .. came back proudly an hour later saying "Yes there is .."

Makes you wonder doesnt it ??

You wont get this roustie to fall for that windsock 1 now lol, Doesnt surprise me about the safety man though;)

MGB1979
25-Oct-06, 11:58
Wind ups are better than April fools.

We had a young man on top of the the helipad on wur rig with a glass jar collecting fog samples.

Another man who believed there was a cat on the rig & `fed` it 2 times a day for 12 days until he was shown there wasnt a cat, even then he was unbelieving.

Another chap in Wick was told he had to pay for Bed & Breakfast on the rig for the 2 weeks he was there, so he was on his way to the Rig manager/OIM s office but had to be stopped by mates with tears in their eyes[lol]

Another lad was told to bring the Chopper down with hand signals!! They have radio communications out there

LMAO, pure gold :D

j4bberw0ck
25-Oct-06, 12:33
Radio Orkney and The Orcadian can usually be relied on for a good April Fool; Radio Orkney caused some excitement here with a story about domestic waste - most of ours goes to Shetland, baled for incinerating. The story went that Shetland had complained because of the amount of polystyrene waste, baby's nappies, dirty glass and other waste which was causing problems with their machinery and causing the incinerator to break down. An interview with a senior Council figure, Drew Ratter, confirmed that Shetland was seething about the sloppy, lazy rubbish sorting by Orcadians, and so the Orkney Council had agreed to put in place compulsory waste sorting.

And of course, OIC had appointed an Inspector, who would tour Orkney inspecting folk's black waste sacks at the roadside to make sure the waste was sorted as the Shetlanders required. If he found unsorted waste, he'd have the power to levy on-the-spot fines. The job had been given to someone previously in the Planning Dept - a well-known local figure - and he was interviewed to confirm how important his new job was and how much he was looking forward to ensuring that Orkney folk sorted their waste properly.

Another good one from Radio Orkney was SEPA levying a new tax of £1500 a year on septic tanks...... people got fair excited about that one, too.

gleeber
25-Oct-06, 13:49
I have an admission to make. I saw the original Panorama programme on the very first night my auntie got her first TV set. I believed that spaghetti grew on trees and never questioned it for 20 years. When I was a kid spaghetti came in tins with tomato sauce and was good mashed in with tatties. I remember mashing everything in with tatties. I only discovered what spahgetti was when I left Thurso. Honest to God, that's a true story.:)

Kingetter
25-Oct-06, 13:52
I have an admission to make. I saw the original Panorama programme on the very first night my auntie got her first TV set. I believed that spaghetti grew on trees and never questioned it for 20 years. When I was a kid spaghetti came in tins with tomato sauce and was good mashed in with tatties. I remember mashing everything in with tatties. I only discovered what spahgetti was when I left Thurso. Honest to God, that's a true story.:)

You admit to it, good on you - but I bet there are many who wouldn't, and many more who've been fooled by other similar ones.

Kingetter
25-Oct-06, 14:03
Here's another for all of us on the 'net -

Internet Spring Cleaning
In 1997 an email message spread throughout the world announcing that the internet would be shut down for cleaning for twenty-four hours from March 31 until April 2. This cleaning was said to be necessary to clear out the "electronic flotsam and jetsam" that had accumulated in the network. Dead email and inactive ftp, www, and gopher sites would be purged. The cleaning would be done by "five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots (Toshiba ML-2274) situated around the world." During this period, users were warned to disconnect all devices from the internet. The message supposedly originated from the "Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff, Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology." This joke was an updated version of an old joke that used to be told about the phone system. For many years, gullible phone customers had been warned that the phone systems would be cleaned on April Fool's Day. They were cautioned to place plastic bags over the ends of the phone to catch the dust that might be blown out of the phone lines during this period.

Ann
25-Oct-06, 14:18
Oh I love these! I remember Grampian TV doing them; one being that the North Sea levels were falling because of the oil industry creating great wells in the sea bed and when they were empty the sea water drained into them. They even had a reporter out on the beach front showing where the water used to reach and where it reached after the oil inustry started!

Another one was not long after the decimalisation of our money; there was an announcement that clocks were going the same way; ten hours in the day instead of twelve. I would tell you all that my sister fell for that one but she would beat me up as usual. ;)

Kingetter
25-Oct-06, 14:23
Not long after North Sea Gas started getting piped in to homes in the UK, a lady wrote into the Daily Telegraph asking if it was correct that as the gas was coming from the (North) Sea, did that mean you used less salt in cooking? It wasn't in April that was written but it may as well have been.

DrSzin
25-Oct-06, 15:01
Another one was not long after the decimalisation of our money; there was an announcement that clocks were going the same way; ten hours in the day instead of twelve. I would tell you all that my sister fell for that one but she would beat me up as usual. ;)I remember the version that went around THS in the 70s - see last part of old post here (http://forum.caithness.org/showpost.php?p=53170&postcount=14).

Andy Coyne
25-Oct-06, 15:15
We had a young lad in our workshop who refused to fall for any of the old wind ups (go to the stores for a long weight, tartan paint, bubble for a spirit level etc) but who happily went to the stationery stores and asked the ladies for a length of fallopian tube…

sapphire
25-Oct-06, 16:41
We had a young lad in our workshop who refused to fall for any of the old wind ups (go to the stores for a long weight, tartan paint, bubble for a spirit level etc) but who happily went to the stationery stores and asked the ladies for a length of fallopian tube…

LMAO! I loved the one about the fallopian tube!
I'm ashamed to say that a physics teacher caught me with the 'long weight' many moons ago...and of course the chemistry teacher helped him!:(
Lol I was gullible then!....and if truth be told it probably wouldn't be that hard to catch me unawares again.....I'm far too trusting!:lol:

Errogie
25-Oct-06, 20:48
I once sprayed a number of very large goose eggs with gold paint and placed one of them in each of my neighbours hen houses in the middle of the night.
Might be time to try it again next year with the new children next door!