What is the biggest hoax in all of human history?

[W5DXP]

The title says it all. How about the top ten hoaxes of all time, in order?

[N8YX]

Radio-Mart's eBay auction offerings?

[AD5MB]

have you ever

in your life

heard of one single person anywhere

who got stomach cramps and drowned

from swimming right after eating?

[KL7AJ]

The title says it all. How about the top ten hoaxes of all time, in order?

Oxygen free copper wire.

[WF7A]

Radio-Mart's eBay auction offerings?

Bahahah! Good one!

Just to get the goat of some vociferous Zedders:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming

Scariest hoax:

Presidential candidacy hoax

(Christopher) Walken became the subject of a hoax controversy in October 2006 when a fake website started in August of that year by members of internet forum Genmay.com announced that he was running for President of the United States. Some believed it was authentic, until Walken's publicist dismissed the claims.[25] When asked about the hoax in a September 2006 interview with Conan O'Brien, Walken was amused by the hoax; and when asked to come up with a campaign slogan, he replied, "What the Heck?" and "No More Zoos!"[25] The site, Walken2008.com, remains online.

[W2ILP]

I would say that the biggest hoax was the operations of Nikola Tesla in Colorado Springs, CO. Tesla claimed to have received a radio signal from Mars. He also claimed that he could transmit a significant amount of electrical energy wirelessly. If someone made such claims today instead of in 1899 he would certainly have been recognized as a hoaxer, more certainly than the recent Colorado balloon boy hoax. In spite of this, Tesla remains recognized as the inventor of radio by many who should know better.

w2ilp (I Liked Pupin) He like Tesla was a Serb who studied electrical engineering in Europe and brought it to the US. Unlike Tesla he was not the mad scientist type and although he was recognized by his engineering peers, he was not well known by the public because he never made any fantastic claims..nor did he create hoaxes.

[NA4BH]

KWW........ Oh sorry, I thought you said joke.

[KD0EAH]

the original broadcast of "war of the Worlds."

[N0SYA]

Eat this and you shall be as god, knowing both good and evil.

[AB8MA]

There really was only one.

Spring, 1968. Burlington High School in Vermont. I was sitting in Honor's English class, from which that day mysteriously missing were the class Valedictorian, class President, and several other "high ranking" members of the senior class.

Over the intercom came an unusual message from the school principal asking that all students report immediately to the school auditorium.

Now, it should be noted that the school auditorium was not designed to hold the entire school student body at the same time.

All this turned out to be a prank, designed and implemented by those same students missing from a certain Honor's English class. I never learned how they got a recording of the principal's voice.

They were all suspended.

Of course, they all graduated.