Think back to the best April Fool's prank you ever pulled. It was probably something along the lines of telling your parents you got kicked out of college and were going to pursue your dream of opening a body piercing parlor, or having your buddy's girlfriend convince him she was pregnant. With twins.

While it may have been hysterical to watch your buddy spend an entire day in a cold sweat, and you thought you were at the top of your pranking game, you were an amateur compared to the people who pulled off some of the most elaborate pranks of all time.

The Museum of Hoaxes has come up with their Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of all time, based on notoriety, absurdity, and the number of people duped. Which in a lot of cases was hundreds of thousands of people. Proving that no matter how ridiculous something may sound, scores of people will believe it. (Somewhere on Madison Avenue ad execs are smiling.)

These are well thought out, widely distributed hoaxes that had people fooled all over the world. And below are the top ten of all time. Which should give fuel to your next April Fool's fire. The other 90 (should you have that kind of time), can be found here, along with links to the full story of each prank.

#10 - Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity
Prank: In 1976, British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur. He said the planet Pluto (still a planet back then), would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing an alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. So, if they jumped in the air at that exact moment, they would experience a strange floating sensation.
Result: BBC2 got hundreds of phone calls from listeners swearing they felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

#9 - Hotheaded Naked Ice Borers
Prank: Discover Magazine announced in its April 1995 issue, that highly respected wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer. (Pictured.) These newly found creatures had bony plates on their heads that could become burning hot, letting them bore through ice at high speeds, allowing them to effectively hunt their favorite delicacy: penguins.
Result: Discover received more mail in response to this article than they had received for any other article in their history. (Mostly from frightened penguins.)

#8 - The Left-Handed Whopper
Prank: In 1998 a full page ad appeared in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to Burger King's menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper". It was specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans and included the same ingredients as the original Whopper, but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for their benefit.
Result: Thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich while many others, according to a BK press release, "requested their own 'right handed' version."

#7 - Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
Prank: A newsletter called "New Mexicans for Science and Reason" published an article in its April 1998 issue claiming the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0.
Result: After making worldwide rounds on the Internet, the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the new legislation.

#6 - Nixon Runs for President. Again.
Prank: In 1992 National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation (always known for its sense of humor), announced that Richard Nixon was running for President again, with the campaign slogan "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." and played audio clips of Tricky Dick giving a candidacy speech.
Result: The show was flooded with calls from people expressing shock and outrage. During the second half of the show they admitted it was a hoax and "Nixon" was actually impersonator Rich Little.

#5 - The Republic of San Serriffe
Prank: In 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean. Consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse, with its capital Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica.
Result: The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Few people noticed that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology. (San serif, upper case, lower case, the typeface Bodoni, etc.)

#4 - The Taco Liberty Bell
Prank: In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. (And given the mass acquisition of commercial naming rights to anything and everything, you can imagine how many people believed this.)
Result: Hundreds called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia to express their anger.

#3 - Instant Color TV
Prank: Back in Sweden in 1962 there was only one TV channel, and it only broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to announce that, thanks to a new technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to display color reception by simply pulling a nylon stocking over their TV screen.
Result: Thousands of Swedes spent the afternoon pulling stockings over their sets and wondered, in frustration, why their picture didn't display in color.

#2 - Mets Rookie Pitcher Sidd Finch
Prank: In its April 1985 issue, Sports Illustrated published a story about a new Mets rookie pitcher named Sidd Finch. Among his skills was the ability to hurl the ball at 168 mph, 65 mph faster than the previous record. Even though he had never played the game before, Finch apparently had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the "great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa."
Result: Mets fans were overcome with joy, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. Until they learned he only existed in the imagination of George Plimpton.

#1 - The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
Prank: In 1957 BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop, and showed footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees.
Result: Huge numbers of viewers called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. They were told they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

www.museumofhoaxes.com