Lying is not a not
a new art form. Throughout History people have been making wild accusations,
telling tales and trying to pass them off as true. Sometimes, people believe
these stories for years, causing inaccuracies in History. Other claims are
so far-fetched that one can hardly believe that anyone was gullible to buy it
at all. Most people have heard crazy stories about the Loch ness Monster, Big
Foot and Alien abductions and although most people roll their eyes at the mere
mention of these things, others wonder and possibly believe that these stories are
true. Here are a few examples of Historical hoaxes that have bent our
timeline:
Mary Toft:
Mary Toft
was a young married woman in Godaling, Surry in 1726 who was pregnant. One day she claimed to have seen a rabbit which crossed her path and
startled her. Soon after she began to experience abdominal pains and went into
premature labor. She sent message to the local Surgeon to come as quickly as he could because she
believed that she had just passed the remnants of what looked like a rabbit.
The surgeon
rushed to the scared woman's aid and lifted the bed sheets to find bloody
pieces of rabbit in the be with her. He was astonished to whiteness her continuing
to pass rabbit parts as she miscarried.
In the
following weeks Mary claimed to have given birth to several rabbits, one right
after another. Everyone was talking about this Macabre and unbelievable story.
More Doctors came to see Mary give birth and although most did not witness the
birth itself, they all confirmed that they had seen the mangled pieces of
rabbits.
Eventually
word spread to King George I who was more than a little skeptical of this
outrageous claim. He sent his own personal Surgeon to investigate the claims
and bring the woman to him. Mary continued to state that she had in fact given
birth to rabbits, until she was brought to the Castle to testify in front of
the King. Once she was there she quickly changed her story, realizing that the
jig was up.
Mary Toft
confessed that she had in fact miscarried weeks before and was devastated by it. She had found
a dead rabbit and convinced her husband to put it inside of her and fabricate a
story that she miscarried a rabbit after seeing one. Because of the attention she had received initially,
Mary continued to fake miscarriages of rabbits. Her and her husband and hoped
to make money off of the claims.
Mary was
immediately arrested and several of the Doctors who had been involved in the
claims had their reputations ruined. Mary
Toft was eventually released and continued a quiet existence without rabbits.
Feegee
Mermaid:
It seems that
there are many people who are desperate for Mermaids to be real. This notion
did not escape PT Barnum of the PT Barnum Circus back in 1842 when he created
an exhibit called the Feegee Mermaid.
This strange
creature that toured the country for several years was claimed to be the only
remaining proof in the world that Mermaids really existed. It was a small
skeletal figure with the top half looking vaguely humanoid and the bottom half
clearly fish-like. After a tour around the Country it became a fixture in PT
Barnum's museum of curiosities in New York. After a fire broke out in the museum,
the mermaid was lost however its mystery and the story continued to live on for several
years.
It was finally
revealed after some time that the Feegee Mermaid was in fact a Gaff. It was
created by an artist for PT Barnum out of a fish, the torso of a bay orangutan
and the head of a small monkey. Gaffs were a very popular item at the time, especially in
the traveling Circus' as a curiosity to be seen for a small fee. Since then many
Feegee Mermaids have appeared in Side shows around the world and is considered
one of the most creative Gaffs to be made.
Cottingley
Fairies:
Children have
always been fascinated with Fairy Tales. Some are even creative enough to
create ones of their own. There are a few children that even convince grown-ups
that they are true. That was the case with Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths.
In 1917 the
two girls decided to borrow a camera from Elsie's father without asking. They took the camera into the woods and took five pictures, after they
were done they returned the camera where they found it and spoke to no one
about the pictures they took. Mr. Wright eventually had the film developed and
found five odd photographs of the girls posing in the pictures with tiny
fairies. The father did not believe the photos to be real and reprimanded the girls,
telling them they were no longer allowed to play with his camera. After seeing in
the pictures of the girls with the fairies, Elsie's mother was convinced that
they were authentic.
The mother
showed the pictures around and eventually they landed in the hands of Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes. He decided to write an
article about the photos, claiming that they were authentic and had the article
published in a popular magazine.
For decades
the pictures made several publications. There was a large debate over the authenticity
of the photos; however the girls never said one way or the other. Finally in 1981 both girls stated publically
that four out of the five photos has been faked. They both insisted that the
fifth photo was in fact real.
War of the
Worlds:
Most people have
at least heard of H.G. Wells' famous novel War of the Worlds. This novel paints
a picture of Aliens invading Planet Earth. It was a wonderfully written book on
its own, however made more famous by an unintentional hoax.
On Halloween Eve in 1938, an unknown radio
producer in New York Orson Welles (no relation to H.G. Wells), produced a radio
adaptation of the War of the Worlds. Although Orson Welles did state a
disclaimer at the beginning of the show that the story was in fact fictional,
most people missed it. As the radio show described a horrific scene to carnage
and mayhem in the city streets and Aliens began to invade, there were calls of
panic from people listening to the police station. People began to run into the
afraid that an invasion was really happening. Although the claims of widespread
panic are exaggerated in the story telling of that night, there was enough to
cause emergency workers busy on Halloween.
After the show,
Orson Welles rocketed to fame. His adaption of The War of the Worlds has been
rebroadcasted for decades.
Operation
"Mincemeat"
Sometimes
Hoaxes are used to fool the right people for the purposes to distraction.
Operation Mincemeat was a perfect example of this.
During World
War II the British were trying to figure out how to invade Sicily with the
Germans taking base there. In a stroke of creative genius, they took the body
of a man who had recently died of pneumonia, dressed him up in a Royal Navy
Uniform and handcuffed a briefcase to his wrist with "top secret"
papers that revealed a plan for the British to invade Greece. They planted the
body in Italy and waited.
The Italian
Military discovered the body and turned the top secret papers over to the
Germans. After discovering the British plans to invade Greece they pulled their
troops from Sicily and headed to Greece. This gave the British army the
opportunity they needed to invade Sicily and take over the land with little
fight from the Germans.
Most
Hoaxes don't last long throughout history, many reveling holes in the stories
or a guilty conscious coming clean; however there have been hoaxes that have
lasted decades, even centuries. Some unexplained phenomenon or outrageous
claims still have people torn between believing in the stories or crying fraud.
Like the man at the curtain who claims to have the only remains of a real
Mermaid, "is it real? Only you can decide."
www.ourcouriousworld.com
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