Gotcha! A Grab Bag of Famous Hoaxes

True Crime Campfire

We’ve had a pretty heavy summer on TCC, haven’t we? Nazis and Norwegian black metal murders, and those last two cases were gnarly. So we thought maybe this week, you’d appreciate something a little lighter—something just for fun. So we decided to talk about hoaxes. Sometimes hoaxes are hilarious, like the time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pranked five of his friends by sending them all an anonymous letter saying “We are discovered. Flee at once,” and then watched in amazement as one of ‘em up and left town the next day. Sometimes they’re kind of a public service, reminding us that we can’t believe everything we see on TV or the internet. Sometimes they’re sick burns—humiliating revenge against a stuck-up snob who deserved it. But whatever the motive, and whether anybody ends up in jail or not, pranking the crap out of our fellow humans is almost always entertaining. Join us for a grab bag of hoaxes through history--from Mary Toft and her miraculous "rabbit births" to the infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast that terrified America, to a Canadian woman who faked a pregnancy and abducted a real baby, and more.
Sources:
Toronto Star: https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/i-m-not-a-bad-person-says-gta-baby-snatcher-with-guilty-plea/article_928babfb-b457-5942-bbee-7daf500d3eb6.html
CBS's "The Dr. Phil Show," episode "I Abducted a Baby/I am a Psychopath"
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-war-on-paper-operation-mincemeat
Time Magazine: https://time.com/6174289/operation-mincemeat-netflix-true-story/
The Smithsonian Mag: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/infamous-war-worlds-radio-broadcast-was-magnificent-fluke-180955180/
NPR: https://www.npr.org/2014/03/14/290119435/society-for-indecency-to-naked-animals
The Ringer: https://www.theringer.com/music/2017/11/8/16615842/grunge-new-york-times-slang
Paris Review: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/07/05/an-extraordinary-delivery-of-rabbits/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2017/05/21/sneaky-teen-texting-codes-what-they-mean-when-worry/101844248/
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