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Date: 2015-10-07; view: 506.

TOPIC 11

WHAT A STORY!

Some famous untrue stories

History is full of hoaxes – those invented stories that trick or fool others. Here are the stories of three of the most famous.

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!

In 1917, two young British girls were playing in their garden in Cottingley, England, when they met some fairies. The girls, Elsie Wright (16), and Frances Griffith (10), took photographs of the fairies and many, many people believed that the photos were real, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle even wrote a book, called The Coming of the Fairies, in which he told the world that he was certain the photos were genuine. The photos remained a mystery for over 60 years until 1981 when the girls admitted that some of the photos were fakes – the fairies were cardboard cutouts. However, Elsie continued to claim that one of the photos was genuine and that she and Frances had seen fairies.

Do you want to buy the Eiffel Tower?

In 1925, the Eiffel Tower was rusting and it was beginning to look old. This gave Czech conman Victor Lustig an idea of a way to make a bit of money. He pretended to be a French government official and offered the tower for sale to businessmen. Lustig arranged a secret meeting for six metal dealers at the famous Hotel de Crillon in Paris. He told them that the government would sell the tower to the highest bidder. After the meeting, he took the businessmen in a limousine to visit the tower. Finally, he told them that the plan to sell the tower was a state secret, and that they must not tell anyone about the meeting. One of the dealers, Andre Poisson, believed Lustig and actually paid him for the tower. When the hoax was revealed, Poisson was so embarrassed that he refused to report Lustig to the police. Lustig escaped to Vienna with Poisson's money. A month later he returned to Paris and tried to sell the tower a second time. This time he was unsuccessful.

What are these crop circles doing here?

In the late 1970s, lots of people in Britain were talking about some strange circles that were appearing in wheat fields around the country. The circles, known as crop circles, appeared suddenly overnight and no one could explain how they were made. Some people thought that the circles were made by UFOs landing in the fields. At first the circles were very simple, but soon they began to become more and more complicated. Years passed, but still no explanation was found. Finally, in 1991 two men from Southampton, England, claimed that they had made the crop circles. Doug Bower and Dave Chorley used pieces of wood, wire and rope to make the circles. To prove their claim, they created a twelve metre crop circle in only fifteen minutes. The whole thing had been an elaborate hoax.