10 Forward's video: 10 Craziest Hoaxes Of All Time

Here are the top 10 most insane hoaxes that many people actually believed and maybe still do but most on this list are unbelievable! 6. You may have heard of this on the news about seven years back. A young boy, in 2009, apparently flew off in a homemade balloon that was designed to reach very high altitudes. This whole thing was a hoax, but nevertheless, it gained national news time. The parents of this six-year-old boy, Richard and Mayumi Heene, spread the rumor that their son was in the sky, in a balloon that the dad made, floating away. He claimed that his child was in there accidentally and that this was unintended, what was going on, though, was just a public stunt to get attention. It was later discovered that the boy had been hiding in their attic for the duration of this event and both parents were well aware that he was not miles above the surface of the Earth, but merely upstairs. 5. Stephen Glass is a former American Journalist who was reported for falsifying nearly every story he wrote. He constructed and detailed entirely fictional events in legitimate newspapers, specifically The New Republic, where he was considered a rising star. This list of elaborate hoax articles led seemingly to the downfall of his career. He has a law degree from Georgetown, but after his stint as a reporter, when he attempted to pass the bar and become a lawyer in the state of California, he was shunned. Even though he passed the bar, the State Supreme Court decided that he should not be licensed as a lawyer in the state of California. 4. Arthur Ford was an American Psychic and Medium who claimed to have spoken to Harry Houdini from the grave. In 1926 after Houdini had died, his wife Bess began going to seances led by Ford. These were meant to contact her deceased husband, and Ford mustered up a message from beyond the grave to give to her from her husband. Initially she supported his claims, but later on revoked her support of Ford’s work, calling it a farce, and after numerous allegations of falsehood from various sources, Ford was identified as a fraud. However, this did not end his career, and he worked almost until his death in 1971. 3. This is a recent hoax that is quite laughable actually. Scientists know, from years of research, that two species of a different type cannot breed to make offspring. A cat and a dog can’t breed, so why should a human and an elephant be able to. This picture was crafted by Empire News, claiming that this baby was born in San Diego as a result of its mother having sex with an elephant. The article that is crafted for is almost written like a joke or humor article, and it has many scientific discrepancies in it that further prove its falsehood. This hoax has barely gained traction on the internet, but it is a good example of a modern attempt at a hoax. 2. The Fiji Mermaid was a hoax back in the mid-1800’s that was meant to convince people of the existence of mermaids, by showing the mummified corpse of one. Fisherman in Japan and the islands around it have made hybrid animals for a long time for ritual purposes, and this is one of them. It is a monkey’s head, torso, and arms, sewn to the body of a fish. People around the world began to believe in the likely possibility of the existence of mermaids and seeing this corpse just reaffirmed those beliefs. However, they were unfounded beliefs and eventually it was revealed to be a hoax. However, the Fiji Mermaid did still have a place in P.T. Barnum’s American Museum until it was lost in one of the many fires that had occurred there. 1. The chances are that you have heard of crop circles once or twice before. They are considered the most famous hoax of all time, and for a long time, no one knew how they were being done. The theory was that it was aliens coming down and leaving messages in our crops. The hoax started around 1970 as a substantial number of crop circles began appearing in England and around the world. Everyone was completely baffled until 1991 when two Englishmen named Bower and Chorley admitted to starting the crop circle craze by making the ones seen throughout England and additionally attributed the other crop circles of the world to people who copied their idea. They were made by going out into fields that they had planned to make crop circles in and overnight they would carefully form the circles by hewing down crops. This is one of the greatest hoaxes of all time for two reasons; their popularity around the world and the fact that they left people baffled for nearly 20 years.