Hoax Collection

Operation Mincemeat - naval ID card of Major Martin
Fake naval identity card of Major William Martin

Photographic evidence of the Loch Ness Monster
Photographic " evidence" of the Loch Ness Monster

Uk / Chartism / Punch, 1848
Cartoon of a hoax petition which included the signatures of Queen Victoria, seventeen (!) Dukes of Wellington and others!

Operation Mincemeat - site of grave of Major Martin
Site of the grave of Major William Martin in the Nuestra Senora cemetery in Huelva, Spain, whose body was found washed up on shore in Spain on 30th April 1943

Operation Mincemeat - gravestone of Major Martin
Gravestone of Major William Martin in the Nuestra Senora cemetery in Huelva, Spain, whose body was found washed up on shore in Spain on 30th April 1943

Peking Man A new link in human evolution. Chimpanzee, Pithecanthropus, Peking Man and Piltdown Man (later shown to be a hoax). Date: 1929

A discussion on the Piltdown skull by John Cooke
Portrait group of well-known British scientists examining the Piltdown skull

Piltdown Man memorial, 1938
The site of the discovery of the Piltdown skull: the monolith memorial unveiled by Sir Keith Arthur on 22nd July 1938

Rev Francis Ward Monck and William Oxley, spiritualists
Rev Francis Ward Monck (right, c. 1842-?)) and William Oxley (1823-1905), spiritualists. Oxley was a Methodist, Swedenborgian, spiritualist and writer based in Manchester

Piltdown Man reconstructed, 1912
Piltdown Man, as imagined by Illustrated London News special artist Amedee Forestier, soon after the discovery of the bones was made public in 1912

Piltdown Man article- The most ancient inhabitant of England
The most ancient inhabitant of England: the newly found Sussex Man

Geologists at Piltdown
Geologists Association party visiting the pit at Piltdown on 12 July 1913

Piltdown forgery meeting
Meeting to present the extent of the forgery at the Geological Society of London at Burlington House on 30 June 1954

Mary Celeste / Fosdyk 1872
ABEL FOSDYKs STORY All the crew, except Fosdyk, are eaten by sharks : he survives on drifting wreckage of the fallen quarter-deck (almost certainly a hoax)

The Turk, 18th century chess-player robot hoax
The Turk, fraudulent robotic chess-player invented by Hungarian inventor Wolfgang de Kempelen 1734-1804. In fact, a man was hidden inside the machine. Given to Maria Theresa of Austria in 1769

Thomas Parr, famous aged man of Shrophire, 1483-1635
Thomas Parr, who died at the age of 152 years. Old Tom Parr or Old Parr married Jane Taylor at age 80, had an affair with Katharin Milton at age 105, and married Jane Adda (or Jane Lloyd) at age 122

The Pig-Faced Lady, famous in London circa 1815
The Pig-Faced Lady, with fur muff, famous in London circa 1815. "The Wonderful Miss Atkinson

UFO over Balwyn, Melbourne
Unidentified flying object photographed over Balwyn, a suburb of Melbourne. A hoax seems likely... Date: 2 April 1966

The Dreadnought Hoax
THE DREADNOUGHT HOAX The Emperor of Abyssinia and his suite prepare to inspect the Royal Navy : Virginia Stephen (Woolf) on left, Horace Cole on the right Date: February 1910

Corpse Deception World War Two 1943 Operation
corpse, deception, world, war, two, 1943, operation, mincemeat, body, major, william, martin, second, wwii, ww2, death, dead, hoax, british, intelligence, glyndwr, michael, the, of, and, a, to, in

Little Women - Mrs March and Jo read a letter
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - Mrs March and Jo read a letter, purporting to be a love letter to Meg from John Brooke, but actually a practical joke and forgery. 1880

The Kitchener Coffin Hoax: Frank Power, freelance journalist
The Kitchener Coffin Hoax: Frank Power (real name Arthur Vectis Freeman), freelance journalist

The Venus de Gonon, 1938
Photograph of the Venus de Gonon statue, which was unearthed by a farmer in the Loire district of France in 1938. At first it was believed to be an ancient Greek sculpture

Theodore Hook
(1788-1841). He was an English man of letters and composer and briefly a civil servant in Mauritius. He is best known for his practical jokes, particularly the Berners Street hoax in 1810

Operation Mincemeat - body of Major William Martin
Corpse of the supposed Major William Martin

The Loch Ness Monster in Invermoriston
The Loch Ness Monster obliges the photographers Invermoriston

The Loch Ness Monster at Foyers. " You can t do that there ere" 1959

Operation Mincemeat - photograph of girlfriend
Photograph of " Pam"

Letter from Ummo
A LETTER FROM UMMO to researcher Hilary Evans : purporting to be a group working with aliens, this Spanish organisation was almost certainly a hoax

The Dreadnought Hoax, report in The Sketch
Page from The Sketch magazine reporting on the Dreadnought hoax

Azurine or Blue Roach -- a fish that didn t actually exist, but still managed to wriggle its way into a few 19th century reference books. Date: 1865

The Loch Ness Monster at Castle Urquhart

Operation Mincemeat - possessions of Major Martin
Personal possessions of Major William Martin, found when his body was washed ashore in Spain on 30th April 1943 carrying sensitive documents

Ted Serios, American thoughtographer
Theodore (Ted) Judd Serios (1918-2006), American thoughtographer. He took photographs which he claimed were infuenced by his own psychic powers, though several people claimed it was a trick

Mr Monck Masons Aerial Machine
The Model of Mr Monck Masons Aerial Machine now exhibiting at the Royal Adelaide Gallery, Lowther Arcade, Strand Date: 1843

Martin Alister Campbell Hinton (1883-1961)
Portrait of Martin Alister Campbell Hinton, a zoologist and keeper of zoology at the British Museum (Natural History). From Piltdown, A Scientific Forgery

Papilio ecclipsis, hoax butterfly species
This insect was uncovered as hoax by John Curtis. It is infact a European brimstone butterfly with patches carefully painted on its wings. Specimen from the Linnean Society photographed by the NHM

Barkham Manor, Piltdown
The Barkham Manor Piltdown I site, c. 1912, from vantage point due east of the manor house

Great Moon Hoax
THE GREAT MOON HOAX A scene of life on the Moon, alleged to have been observed by Herschel through his telescope; it was a journalists fabrication

Comet of 1857 Paris
A comet is seen over Paris: in fact the " Comet of 1857" was a hoax. Date: 1857

Cartoon, Chancellor Bethmann and his work, WW1
Cartoon, Chancellor Bethmann and his work, showing the German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, replacing the German eagle with a duck (canard, an idiom for a hoax or rumour). Date: 1916

Cartoon, A false rumour, WW1
Cartoon, A false rumour from the Western Front. Four market women talk about cannibalism among the troops. Date: 1916

Cartoon, The tall story, WW1
Cartoon, The tall story. Showing a rumour circulating, from two men at the top of the Eiffel Tower down to two women at the foot of a staircase

The hoax Captain of K�ick
The sham Captain of K� ick and his triumph of genius. 1. the sham captain signing the receipt for the municipal money; 2

Inverfarigaig calling, the Loch Ness Monster
Inverfarigaig calling, Loch Ness Monster speaking Hello Everybody!

The arrival of the Loch Ness Monster at Inverness
Captivated! The arrival of the Loch Ness Monster at Inverness! Date: 1960

Piltdown Man: reconstructed skulls compared
Ape-Man of Modern Man? The two Piltdown skull reconstructions. A page from the Illustrated London News, debating the merits of Dr. A

Piltdown Man: mandible and skull compared
Ape-Man of Modern Man? The two Piltdown skull reconstructions. A page from the Illustrated London News, debating the merits of Dr. A

The Piltdown jaw: a reconstruction by W. P Pycraft
A drawing by W. P Pycraft of the restored jaw of the Piltdown Man, showing a pronounced forward thrust. Date: 1912

Piltdown Man: brain capacity compared
A page from the Illustrated London News, debating the merits of Dr. A. Smith-Woodwards reconstruction of the Piltdown Mans brain over the reconstruction proposed by Professor Arthur Keith s

Piltdown Man: Dawson and Smith-Woodward search for more bone
Seeking remains of the oldest known Englishman: looking for relics of the Piltdown Man. Charles Dawson and A

Georgina Houghton, spiritualist writer and medium
Georgina Houghton (?-1887), spiritualist writer and medium, seen here with her mothers spirit hovering behind her. The photographer was later exposed as a fraud. Date: 19th century

The Piltdown man excavation site
Excavation at Piltdown c. 1913 with Cyril Woodward showing scale

Fannia scalaris, fake fossil fly in amber

The Piltdown (Skull) Gravel Pit
The site where the Pitdown specimens were claimed to have been discovered (1912-1915). Photograph believed to have been taken during the winter of 1913

Barkham Avenue, Piltdown, Sussex
View looking down the drive c. 1912, including from left to right, Venus Hargreaves, Arthur Smith Woodward (with the goose Chipper), Charles Dawson, and Robert Kenward Snr

Searching for the Piltdown Man

Excavations at Piltdown circa 1913
Charles Dawson (left) and Dr A Smith Woodward (right)

Workers at Piltdown

Pongo sp. Mandible and molar (Piltdown 1 & 2)
Lateral lingual view of Piltdown 1 mandible with Piltdown 2 left molar. Held at The Natural History Museum, London

Homo sapiens cranium (Piltdown 1)
Two pieces that represent the Piltdown 1 cranium held at The Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown Stegodon tooth
Piltdown, Sussex item E.620, part of a molar tooth of the extinct mammal Stegodon, of the Pliocene to the Pleistocene epochs. Held at the Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown Mastodon tooth
Piltdown, Sussex item E.622, edge view of molar of the extinct mammal Mastodon. Held at the Natural History Museum, London

Pongo sp. Mandible with canine (Piltdown 1)
Left lateral view of the Piltdown mandible reported to be that of a newly found homind species in 1913 but then revealed as a forgery in 1953. Specimen held at The Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown flake implement
Piltdown, Sussex item E.612 held at The Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown flints
Collection of Piltdown flints held at The Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown Eolithic flint
Piltdown, Sussex item E.614 held at The Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown rolled flake
Piltdown, Sussex item E.613 held at The Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown flint implement
Piltdown, Sussex item E.605 held at The Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown Palaeolith flint
Piltdown, Sussex item E.685 held at The Natural History Museum, London

Equus sp. horse
Upper molar tooth from a species of the Equus genus. Item E. 602 of the animal fossil specimens found at Piltdown, Sussex, 1912-15, held at the Natural History Museum, London

Castor fiber, Eurasian beaver
Lower molar tooth of a Eurasian beaver. Item E. 603 of the animal fossil specimens found at Piltdown, Sussex, 1912-15, held at the Natural History Museum, London

Echinocarys, echinoid hoax
A hoax fossil echinoid found at Piltdown, Sussex. Specimen now held at the Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown memorial
July 1938, Sir Arthur Smith Woodward next to the memorial marking the site of the discovery of the Piltdown skull by Charles Dawson. Photograph loaned to Museum by Charles Taylor Trechmann

Professor J. S. Weiner
Pretoria born scientist who became Reader in Physical Anthropology at Oxford. In 1953 he famously exposed the Piltdown Man as a fraud

Piltdown 1 jaw
Left lateral view of Piltdown 1 jaw. Held at The Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown 1 jaw and Piltdown 2 left molar
Occlusal view of Piltdown 1 jaw with Piltdown 2 left molar. Held at The Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown 1 cranium
Five pieces that represent the Piltdown 1 cranium (not including jaw). Held at The Natural History Museum, London

Piltdown 1 molar
Scanning electron microscope view of molar surface showing scratch marks

Piltdown skull
Three-quarter view of model reconstruction of the Piltdown skull

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