Nothing like a good old UFO
On a summer day in London, not one or two, but hundreds of people spotted a flying saucer drop into a field. Local residents wasted no time in calling the police, and a brave policeman decided to confront the aliens with a truncheon held bravely in front of him. When someone in a silver suit emerged, the policeman ran for his life. It turned out that it was a hot air balloon cleverly designed to look like a flying saucer.
For lefthanders!
Another hoax to take in the foodies, Burger King announced on April 1st that it was introducing the first of its kind, ‘left-handed whopper’ burger that was supposed to be designed for the millions of the lefthanders living in America. What’s the difference between the original and this version? All ingredients are exactly the same, but rotated 180 degrees to make it more suitable for left-handed customers. If you’re wondering who would even fall for this – apparently thousands of customers ordered this and yet many others wanted their ‘original right-handed’ burgers.
For the love of spaghetti
Back in 1957, the BBC aired a TV show Panorama that informed viewers about a bumper spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. Charles de Jaeger, a cameraman who came up with this brilliant hoax, had gained inspiration from one of his school teachers who had once commented in class, “Boys, you’re so stupid, you’d believe me if I told you that spaghetti grows on trees.” So many people were taken in that BBC received many calls about growing their own spaghetti trees!
Times are changing!
A popular show in Australia pulled a really mean trick on people. They literally played with something we’ve taken for granted all along – time! The show revealed that the country was going to switch to ‘metric time’ and would have 100 seconds in a minute, 100 minutes in an hour and 20 hours in a day. Imagine the terror and confusion! It is reported that a man had even called in asking how to convert his brand new digital clock to display metric time!
Flying penguins become a video rage
Did you know that an April fool’s trick made into a video became one of the most viewed videos on the internet? The BBC did it again! They described how Adelaide penguins in the Antarctic took to the air and actually migrated thousands of miles to reach the South American rainforests to chill out in the tropical weather!
Smell what’s brewing on television
In 1967, a television feature showed a device called ‘Smellovision’ that allowed people to not just see and listen but also smell what was produced in the television studio. The professor offered a demonstration by cutting up some onions and brewing fresh coffee. Nobody knew how many people actually could smell the onions and coffee in their homes – call it the brain trick!
Picture Credit : Google
