Hoaxes in History

 

 

    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."

 

Resources:

www.ourcouriousworld.com

www.Listverse.com

www.wikapedia.com

www.bizzarebytes.com