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The historical hoaxes covered in this episode of The List Show may seem unbelievable, but someone (in some cases, many people) did actually believe them. We cover the Swiss spaghetti tree, the horse who did math, and more. People who had high hopes for the 1985 Mets season and rabbit lovers will want to watch. In case you forgot, The List Show is a trivia-tastic, fact-filled show for curious people. Subscribe here for new Mental Floss episodes every Wednesday: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpZ5qUqpW4hW4zdfuBxMSJA?sub_confirmation=1 Don't miss a video! Subscribe NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFloss?sub_confirmation=1 About Mental Floss: Mental Floss is where curious people come for trivia-tastic information. Mental Floss produces lists of fun facts, debunks common misconceptions, and tells untold stories from history, science, culture and more. Website: http://www.mentalfloss.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mental_floss Facebook: https://facebook.com/mentalflossmagazine Copyright Notice: This video and YouTube channel contain dialog, music, and images that are property of Mental Floss. You are authorized to share the video link and channel, and embed this video in your website or others as long as a link back to this YouTube Channel is provided. 2025 Mental Floss 6 Hoaxes People Actually Believed | Mental Floss https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFloss
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Your parents always told you that money doesn't grow on trees, but what about spaghetti
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Hi, I'm Erin McCarthy and this is The List Show. Today we're going to talk about some of the most unbelievable hoaxes in history, starting
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with the twisted tale of a pasta perennial that grows in Switzerland
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Let's get started. On April 1, 1957, a BBC current events show called Panorama aired a segment that showed
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a woman picking spaghetti strands from trees in Switzerland. The pasta was collected in wicker
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baskets, then laid out to dry in the warm alpine sun, in the words of the broadcast. The anchor
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a solemn, trusted public figure named Richard Dimbleby, discussed how it had been a banner
0:41
year for the crop thanks to the disappearance of the dreaded spaghetti weevil. Of course
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most people knew the idea was absurd and noted the April 1st air date. But enough viewers were
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fooled that the BBC received a number of calls about the spaghetti tree, including inquiries
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about how to grow one. They were prepared. Staff answering the phone supposedly instructed
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callers to plant a spaghetti sprig in a can of tomato sauce and hope for the best
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When the hoax was eventually revealed, the BBC caught a lot of flack for duping trusting
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people. But they clearly didn't regret it. The BBC now has a long history of airing rather
1:14
convincing April Fool's Day stories. In 2004, the Spaghetti Tree segment's original scriptwriter David Wheeler reported that he
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wasn't sorry, saying, It was a good idea for people to be aware they couldn't believe everything they saw
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on television, and that they ought to adopt a slightly critical attitude to it
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We can't write a show about hoaxes without mentioning Mary Toft, or Tofts as her name
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was originally seen in the records. In April 1726, Toft was working in a field in Surrey, England, when she was startled by
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a rabbit. Thinking it would make a great meal for her family, she tried to catch it, but failed
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The incident caused her to have rabbit on the brain, and for the next three months
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supposedly thought of nothing but eating rabbit. Sadly, in August, she miscarried a baby. Then
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in September, she miscarried a cat. Yes, you heard that right, a cat. And then a rabbit's head
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And then the legs of another cat. And then nine dead baby bunnies. As Mary's improbable births
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continued over a number of days, word began to spread all the way to London that something
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strange was going on in Surrey. The king even sent doctors to investigate this odd phenomenon
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After studying the rabbit internal organs one of the doctors noted that there was no way their lungs had developed while inside of Mary He also discovered that another rabbit had hay and corn in its excrement Suffice it to say not many mothers are capable of growing crops in their wombs
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But other doctors were completely hoodwinked, believing that Mary suffered from a case of
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maternal impression. At the time, maternal impression was a not uncommon theory that mothers could influence
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the development of a baby with their thoughts and fears. So when Mary was startled by the rabbit, the doctor reasoned, her thoughts caused the freak
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bunny babies. Let's hop to the end of the tale. Eventually, it came to light that Mary and a few accomplices
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were manually inserting the rabbits into her body, where they stayed for weeks on end before
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the miraculous births. I… no. She even bribed visitors to smuggle her animal parts while she
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was being closely watched by doctors. Mary eventually confessed after being told she would
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have to undergo a painful surgery to get to the bottom of the problem. It was probably best that
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her hoax came to an end when it did. Birthing dead rabbit after dead rabbit had caused quite
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the infection, which was making Mary very ill. She spent a few months in jail for fraud, but after
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that it seemed she lived a pretty quiet existence for another 40 years. Mr. Ed had nothing on Clever
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Hans. In 1904, people worldwide were captivated by a horse who could seemingly perform math
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equations, tell time, recognize colors, identify composers by listening to music, and perform a
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number of other mind-boggling tricks. It already sounds like a hoax, doesn't it? Scientists
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veterinarians and psychologists of the day all thought so, too. Clever Hans was exhibited by his
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trainer, a math teacher named Wilhelm von Osten. So, of course, people suspected him of somehow
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providing Hans with the correct answers. Hans was tested thoroughly by a number of researchers
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and none of them could figure out the trick. Hans was successful again and again
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even when von Osten wasn't anywhere near him, and even with people the horse had never met before
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Eventually, folks were forced to conclude that some animals are able to think like humans
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It wasn't until 1907 that biologist and psychologist Oskar Fuenst cracked the code
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After observing and testing Hans, Fuenst noted that the horse was rarely correct if his questioner
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didn't also know the answer. Further examination showed that Hans also couldn't answer if his questioner wasn't
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visible to him. The conclusion? Hans didn't know the answers. But he was so in tune with the microscopic facial reactions and cues of his questioners
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that he was able to react the way they were expecting him to, stamping his hoof on the
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ground the correct number of times. Today the term clever Hans is still used by behavioral researchers to refer to the risk of accidentally providing cues to a research subject It might not be entirely fair to call the poor horse a hoax Clever Hans really was
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clever. It takes quite an intelligent animal to be able to intuit such minute details in
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the faces of so many different humans. But Hans wasn't communicating on the level that people had been led to believe he was
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and so they became disenchanted with the schtick rather quickly after it was exposed
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The next time you find yourself in the Olympic National Forest in Washington, avert your
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eyes from the deer and elk and look up instead. You might just catch a glimpse of the elusive Pacific Northwest tree octopus
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At least that's what a website created by Lyle Zapato has been telling people since 1998
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The website, which is still live, by the way, is dedicated to saving the endangered PNT
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octopus from extinction. The site reports that although the tree octopus prefers to live in water, the damp conditions
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of the Olympic National Forest are perfect for octopuses to roam along the branches using
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tentaculation. Sadly, the tree octopus has many natural predators that lead to their dwindling
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numbers, including house cats, bald eagles, and sasquatch. Also contributing to its endangered status is the fact that loggers regard a tree octopus
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sighting as bad luck, so they often kill them on sight. What can you do to help the species survive? Write your representatives, place a tentacle
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ribbon on social media, and boycott companies that use wood-harvesting practices that are
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unsafe for the tree octopus. Of course, there is no tree octopus. But the website is so convincing
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with sections for sightings, links to other real octopus research, and more, that plenty of people
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fall for it. The site is often used today to help students understand how to discern credible
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internet sources from bunk. But why did Zapato perpetrate such an elaborate internet hoax
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Well, he maintains that the Pacific Northwest tree octopus is real, writing in his FAQs
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Would someone with a website lie to you? It turns out even the military turns to Hollywood for inspiration sometimes
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British Army officer Dudley Clark was inspired by the film Five Graves to Cairo to execute
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Operation Copperhead, one of the most infamous military hoaxes of all time
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First, you have to know a little bit about then-General Bernard Montgomery
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During World War II, Montgomery was a high-ranking British commander, so the German military
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was closely monitoring his movements to try to predict where an invasion would happen
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Dudley Clark scouted M.E. Clifton James, an actor who looked similar to Montgomery, and
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hired him to make random appearances from Gibraltar to Algiers keeping the real General whereabouts top secret James hung out with future Oscar winner David Niven and even spent time with Montgomery to learn his mannerisms While James was making his rounds Allied intelligence was planting false information amongst the enemies
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Rumor has it that Operation Copperhead ended when James was seen carousing around Algiers
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something the teetotaling Montgomery would never have done. So, did the hoax work? Well, we're not really sure. Some think the outlandish trick was crucial
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to winning the war because it successfully confused Hitler. Although he was apparently
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aware that Allied forces had some diversionary tricks up their sleeves, this line of thinking
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goes, he got the particular strategy wrong. Hitler believed General Montgomery had been
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sighted in Algiers, a whole continent away. When he got word about the upcoming Normandy invasion
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he believed it was just a diversion to pull his attention away from the real attacks
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since Montgomery was abroad. Of course, we know that Montgomery most certainly was at Normandy
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And the rest is history. And again, most World War II historians think the elaborate ruse
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amounted to a whole lot of nothing. Maybe the real hoax was the friends we made along the way
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Have you ever heard the one about major league baseball player slash Buddhist monk who can throw
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a 168-mile-per-hour fastball and play the French horn as well as he pitches? If so
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you've probably read the tale of Sid Finch, the mysterious New York Mets recruit who had the
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sports world buzzing in 1985. Finch was the subject of a 13-page feature in Sports Illustrated
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written by acclaimed journalist George Plimpton, the co-founder of the Paris Review. It was partially
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Plimpton's credibility that led readers to accept the outlandish tale he wrote about the baseball
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phenom. The article claimed that Finch wore a single hiking boot when he pitched, leaving the
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other foot bare. The pitcher had, in Plimpton's telling, mostly lived abroad, except for a brief
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stint at Harvard. He was orphaned at a young age when his archaeologist father died in a plane crash
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in Nepal. The piece was accompanied by photos of Sid and quotes from people like Mel Stottlemyre
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the Mets' actual pitching coach. Sports Illustrated received more than 2,000 inquiries from readers
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who had not noticed the date on the front of the magazine, April 1st. With the Mets' cooperation
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on quotes and photos, they let the elaborate hoax play out for two weeks, even reporting that Finch
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had gone missing after the intense media spotlight. Eagle-eyed readers would have known it was a hoax
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from the start, because Plimpton left them a clue. The subtitle read, He's a pitcher, part yogi
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and part recluse. Impressively liberated from her opulent lifestyle, Sid's deciding about
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yoga and his future in baseball
#education