Throughout history, there have been some hilarious, controversial, and confusing hoaxes that have been created. Hoaxes are different from urban legends, rumors, pseudoscience, or even jokes since a hoax is a deliberate and intentional attempt to create something that is false but present it as the truth. We will look at ten of the most interesting hoaxes that fooled a lot of people.
4. Zero Gravity Day
In order for this hoax to make sense, you must first understand the backstory. Like many hoaxes, there is some reason for decieving people into believing the hoax. For the Cardiff Giant, the main goal was to make the fundamentalist Methodists look silly. Zero Gravity Day was meant to make some scientists look silly.
In 1974, a book was published called "The Jupiter Effect", written by John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann. In the book, they wrote about the rare occurrence where all the planets were alligned in order on one side of the sun, an event which happens only once every 179 years. The previous occurrence was in 1803, which meant that 1982 would be the next time (8 years after the book's publication). What Gribbin and Plagemann were worried about was the massive earthquakes that would be caused by the forces of gravity from all the planets alligned in order. The book focused specifically on Los Angeles to be at a greater risk than any other US city. This effect on the earth was called The Jupiter Effect. Many scientists thought that the Jupiter Effect was a hoax by itself, and many pointed out the obvious: there were no massive earthquakes in 1803, the last time the planets alligned in such a way. However, many people still seemed to believe the theory.
In 1976, the Jupiter Effect was still fresh in people's minds. In the morning of April 1, an astronomer named Patrick Moore went on the BBC and announed that at 9:47, Jupiter and Pluto would line up and cause the forces of gravity to be negated, causing people to temporarily feel weightless if they jumped into the air. So, at 9:47 am, Moore said over the radio: "Jump now!" A minute later, the BBC's phone lines began ringing off the hook with people calling to say that it had worked. One woman claimed her and her husband floated around the room together; one man said he and eleven friends (including the table they were sitting around) began to float; one man called and demanded money because he jumped and hit the ceiling and injured himself.
Having spoofed the Jupiter Effect predicted in the book from Gribbin and Plagemann, Moore set about writing letters of disapproval to any place that gave any promotion of the Jupiter Effect. The prediction itself faded into obscurity when nothing happened in 1982. Gribbin and Plagemann wrote a sequel to "The Jupiter Effect" where they tried to explain that the actual earthquakes and such happened in 1980, which is what caused Mount St. Helens to blow up. However, this book didn't hardly sell. In 1999, Gribbin turned his back on the whole Jupiter Effect theory, wishing he'd never gotten involved with it.
But for one day, some strange people swore that they felt the weightlessness caused by a joke given on the radio. Moore was able to get his joke out, and the effect it had in the scientific community was large. Between his joke and the fact that nothing happened in 1982, Gribbin and Plagemann couldn't successfully sell their silly ideas about the Jupiter Effect.
Bet you didn't know that!
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