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Creative Pranks and Hoaxes in History

Khalid Elhassan February 2, 2020 33 min

1. “The Devil Made Me Do It”

Shinichi Fujimura was caught on camera while burying artifacts. Neo Trouve

Fujimura’s spectacular streak of discoveries – and his reputation – came to a screeching halt and crashed in 2000. That year, Japan was rocked when a daily newspaper published three photographs showing the respected and celebrated archaeologist planting supposedly ancient stone age tools at a dig site.

Fujimura was forced to confess after he was caught on film, red-handed. He admitted to planting evidence not only at that site, but in other locations across Japan, and throughout his entire career. When asked why he did that, a sobbing Fujimura tearfully responded “the devil made me do it“.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Ancient History Encyclopedia – Donation of Constantine

Archaeology Magazine, Volume 54, Number 1, January / February 2001 – “God’s Hands” Did the Devil’s Work

Ball, Warwick – Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire (2000)

Cracked – 4 Impressively Weird Pranks From Centuries Ago

Cracked – The 6 Most Amazing Pranks (You Won’t Believe Worked)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Donation of Constantine

History Collection – 10 Remarkable Fraudulent Discoveries and Inventions that Shook the World

Guardian, The, December 11^th, 2003 – Keely’s Trickster Engine

King, Ross – Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture (2013)

Listverse – 10 of History’s Most Prolific Con Artists and Their Famous Cons

Live Science, June 25^th, 2008 – A Savage Hoax: The Cave Men Who Never Existed

Lock Haven University – The Keely Motor Hoax

Marketplace, October 31^st, 2018 – What Orson Welles and ‘War of the Worlds’ Taught Us About Economic Panic

Museum of Hoaxes – Keely Motor Company

Natural History Museum – Piltdown Man

New Yorker, The, October 21^st, 2017 – Moon Shot: Race, a Hoax, and the Birth of Fake News

Palestine Herald Press, June 2^nd, 2009 – Waco Attorney Still Going Strong at 91

Smithsonian Magazine, December 15^th, 2009 – Crop Circles: The Art of the Hoax

Smithsonian Magazine, July 2^nd, 2015 – The Great Moon Hoax Was Simply a Sign of Its Time

Smithsonian Magazine, October 16^th, 2017 – The Cardiff Giant Was Just a Big Hoax

Wikipedia – Japanese Paleolithic Hoax

Wikipedia – Piltdown Man

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.