Why are people so quick to believe any old story they’re told? Simple: Because this world is a crazy place, and crazy things happen all the time. Here are two classic hoaxes, and one recent one.
THE ICEBERG COMETH
April 1, 1978, was a gloomy, overcast day in Sidney, Australia. But that didn’t stop hundreds of people from going to the harbor to await the arrival of local entrepreneur Dick Smith, owner of Dick Smith Foods. He’d promised to show up in a barge hauling an iceberg. Then, he said, he was going to break up the massive iceberg and sell the pieces as “dickcicles”—ice cubes made from pure Antarctica water. A lot of the onlookers figured it was just a big April Fool’s Day joke and Smith wouldn’t show up at all. But then, off in the distance, they could see the barge…and it really was hauling an iceberg. A few minutes later the Dickenberg I, as a local DJ dubbed it, floated into Sydney Harbor.
And then it started to rain.
Within minutes, the “iceberg” was revealed for what it really was: a floating platform slathered in a ton of shaving cream. Unfazed, Smith docked and gave everyone cold drinks (the ice cubes came from the barge’s beer cooler). He later said the stunt was worth a million dollars in free advertising.
On March 29, 1950, a blonde, buxom actress named Nicole Riche was starring as a kidnapping victim in the noir play No Orchids for Miss Blandish at the Grand Guignol Theatre in Paris, France. Between Acts I and II, stagehands witnessed Riche pick up a note, read it, and then run out the backstage door. She never returned for Act II. Theater manager Alexandre Dundas canceled the rest of the performance and called the police. Investigators found the note—which Riche had dropped on the floor—and suspected kidnapping. A massive manhunt commenced.
Headlines across Europe told the “life imitates art” story of the beautiful woman who was abducted while starring in a play about a beautiful woman who gets abducted. Two days later, Riche, still wearing the negligee and fur coat she had worn on stage, stumbled into the Pigalle district police station and told her story: Two men had dragged her into a car and driven her to a hideout outside of Paris, where they berated her for being in an immoral play, and had then left her in the woods. She said she’d found some “kind Gypsies” who gave her a ride back to Paris, but when pressed for a description of her abductors, all she could say was that they were “Puritans.” Police chief Marcel Cambon smelled a rat, so he kept pressing her for the truth, and Riche finally came clean: It was a hoax orchestrated by Dundas to drum up publicity for his financially strapped theatre. Riche had to pay a fine for creating a public nuisance…but the play drew much larger audiences after the fake abduction.
Length of the average criminal sentence in Colombia: 137 years.
In November 2009, General Felix Murga, head of Peru’s Criminal Investigation division, held a national press conference: “There is a horrible crime being committed in the jungles.” A gang called the Pishtacos—named after a mythical Peruvian creature who kills people for their body fat—was kidnapping and killing people for their body fat. A police drawing depicted racks of human carcasses strung up like sides of beef. The Pishtacos, he said, were selling bottles of the fat for up to $60,000 per gallon. The story made headlines; no one in the Peruvian press was talking about anything else. But then that was the whole point. Before that, everyone in Peru had been talking about another scandal, in which a police “death squad” illegally executed 46 criminals. It dominated the news…until the fat story. And then people began to question that story. Reporters cited a prominent plastic surgeon who noted that “human fat has no value.” And police in Huanaco, where the Pishtacos were supposedly based, had never even heard of the fat-stealing gang until General Murga’s press conference.
A few weeks later, the Peruvian daily La Republica reported that the fat story was a complete fabrication—nothing more than a “grease screen.” The press immediately went back to reporting about the death squads, demanding an explanation of the government cover-up. After initial denials, Peru’s chief of police, Miguel Hildago, finally acknowledged the hoax with an announcement that General Murga had been fired for “sullying the reputation” of his department.
Impressive…or just lazy? The Australian pygmy possum can hibernate for more than a year.