What was/is the biggest hoax in the history in the history of time?

Answer 1

H.G.Wells, War of the worlds

Answer 2

The "attack" by Polish forces on a German radio station which the Nazis used to justify the invasion of Poland. The "Polish" soldiers killed were in fact German prisoners dressed in fake or stolen Polish uniforms. Another German hoax was a concentration camp for Jews that was visited by the Red Cross. This camp had schools, libraries and even a symphony orchestra.

Possibly the most successful and long living hoax lasted 41 years though many people though it was a mistake or indeed a hoax even before it was exposed. That was the Piltdown Man, which was based on pieces of a thick human cranium and an orang-outan jaw planted in a gravel pit south of London and found in 1912. There were many other planted fossils which the hoaxer later used to support his original fakes and some of these were "found" in similar gravels some miles from Piltdown between 1913 and 1916. There is still a controversy about who actually did it but the best guess was a lawyer and amateur antiquarian, Charles Dawson. It was finally exposed in 1953 when a scientist from Oxford University became suspicious of the fact that the exact locations of the later finds, all by Dawson, were not known.

British second world war hoaxes included the "man who never was", the body of drowned serviceman left ashore in Spain with a briefcase containing fake plans for an invasion of Europe. Another Brit. hoax was the arrest of all German spies in the country in 1939. They were given the choice of the rope or to send false information back to Germany using the radios they had been supplied with by the Germans.

Answer 3

Pretending that we landed on the moon!

Flag waving in zero atmosphere?

"tin foil suits" protecting astronaut against the Van allen radiation - if they DID exist, why do we not use there fab tin foil efforts instead of METRES of solid lead at reactors?!

Rocks appearing with shadows the wrong way

If 40 years ago it was done, why are we not even VAGUELY close to be able to do it again?

It was a set-up, anyone who thinks otherwise is just a tiny bit too gullible

Answer 4

War of the Worlds radio broadcast

Answer 5

Piltdown Man and the Cardiff Giant come to mind

Answer 6

Muhammed and the Koran. He never went to heaven and argued with God. But 1.2 billion people believe he did. At least christianity has an empty tomb to show that Jesus rose from the dead.

Answer 7

Y2k and world war 1

Answer 8

I was thinking more along the lines of Loch Ness and Big Foot.Also the Crop Circles were rather amusing.

Answer 9

There once was a radio station that was having a broadcast that actually caused riots, they claimed we were being attacked by aliens.

Answer 10

Christianity