Hoax

A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. Generally there is some material object involved, which is actually a forgery. Unlike a fraud or con (which usually has an audience of one or a few), which are made for illicit financial or material gain, or a fraud which is perpetrated to support a false religion, a hoax is often perpetrated as a practical joke with a humorous intent, to cause embarrassment, for personal aggrandizement or to serve political purposes. Still, many confidence tricks and the like have also been labeled as hoaxes.

Historically important hoaxes

• Orson Welles' Mercury Theater radio broadcast on October 31, 1938, entitled "The War of the Worlds" has been called the "single greatest media hoax of all time," though it was not intentionally so, and thus does not rank among genuine hoaxes. The broadcast was heard on CBS radio stations throughout the United States. Despite repeated announcements within the program that it was a work of fiction, many listeners believed that the world was being attacked by invaders from the planet Mars. Rebroadcasts in South America also had this effect.
• Bathtub hoax, perpetrated by American journalist and satirist Mencken in the 1920s, was credited even after it was exposed by the author.
• Great Moon Hoax, which helped to establish the marketposition of the New York Sun.