Q 01/05

Which food did a 1957 BBC Panorama April Fools' report show a Swiss family harvesting from trees?

A) Chocolate

B) Spaghetti

C) Marshmallows

D) Cheese

Answer · why

B) Spaghetti

Spaghetti was an exotic delicacy in 1950s Britain, so hundreds of viewers phoned the BBC to ask how to grow their own. They were told to place a sprig...

Q 02/05

In 1726, Englishwoman Mary Toft tricked several doctors into believing she had given birth to which animals?

A) Kittens

B) Piglets

C) Puppies

D) Rabbits

Answer · why

D) Rabbits

Rabbits were Toft's claim, and a surgeon to King George I's household judged the case genuine. Under close scrutiny she confessed and was imprisoned a...

Q 03/05

Which famous author championed the Cottingley Fairies photographs, taken by two young cousins in 1917, as genuine?

A) Arthur Conan Doyle

B) George Bernard Shaw

C) Rudyard Kipling

D) J. M. Barrie

Answer · why

A) Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle, a prominent spiritualist, used the photographs in The Strand Magazine. The cousins later said they were too embarrassed to admit t...

Q 04/05

The 1934 'Surgeon's Photograph' of the Loch Ness Monster was later revealed as a model head mounted on what?

A) A wooden canoe

B) A fishing float

C) A toy submarine

D) A beer barrel

Answer · why

C) A toy submarine

A toy submarine bought from Woolworth carried the wood-putty head. Hoaxer M. A. Wetherell wanted revenge on the Daily Mail, which had ridiculed him ov...

Q 05/05

Which showman displayed a plaster copy of the Cardiff Giant when the fake petrified man's owners refused to sell?

A) P. T. Barnum

B) James A. Bailey

C) Harry Houdini

D) Robert Ripley

Answer · why

A) P. T. Barnum

P. T. Barnum had the giant secretly modelled in wax, then claimed his copy was the real one and the original the fake. The original is still displayed...