The "Nazca Mummies," 2017–2024: Dolls of Bone and Glue
Three-fingered bodies said to come from the Nazca desert were shown to Mexico's Congress in 2023 as non-human.
Tag: Hoaxes
16 case files, newest first.
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The Kaimanawa Wall: A "Pyramid" That Is Rock
A block-like outcrop in New Zealand's central North Island was promoted in the 1990s as the remains of a pre-Māori pyramid.
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The Klerksdorp Spheres: Grooved Balls From Ancient Rock
Small grooved spheres found in pyrophyllite mines near Ottosdal, South Africa, have been promoted as 3-billion-year-old manufactured objects.
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The Patterson–Gimlin Film, 1967, and the Reel From the Safe
A 2026 documentary shows a 16 mm reel it says was a rehearsal for the most argued-over minute of Bigfoot film.
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The War of the Worlds Panic That Mostly Wasn't, 1938
On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre broadcast a Martian invasion as fake news bulletins.
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The Tucson Lead Crosses and the Kingdom of Calalus
Between 1924 and 1930, lead crosses and swords with Latin inscriptions came out of the caliche beside an old lime kiln on Silverbell Road.
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The Kensington Runestone, 1898: A Viking Message in a Minnesota Field?
In 1898 a Swedish farmer in Minnesota pulled up a slab carved with runes dated 1362. Scholars have argued over it ever since. Here is where it stands.
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Vernon, Kansas, 1897: The Airship That Rustled a Heifer
During the 1897 airship wave, a Kansas rancher's story of a craft that lassoed his heifer became one of the era's best-known yarns.
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Aurora, Texas, 1897: The Martian Who Hit a Windmill
In April 1897 a Dallas paper said an airship hit a judge's windmill in Aurora, Texas, killing a pilot 'not of this world.'
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Tucson's Main Street Spook, 1894: A Ghost for Commercial Purposes
For a month in the autumn of 1894, people on South Main Street in Tucson reported a night prowler that changed shape: a dog, a hog, a burro, a man on all fours.
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The Seven-Headed Serpent of the Santa Cruz, Tucson 1891
Weeks after the Salton serpent, a Tucson paper had a seven-headed monster rise from the flooded Santa Cruz to preach.
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The Salton Lake Sea Serpent, 1891
In the summer of 1891 the Colorado River spilled into the dry Salton Sink and made a real new lake.
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Tombstone's Winged Monster and the Thunderbird Photo That Never Was
In April 1890 the Tombstone Epitaph reported that two ranchers had shot a 160-foot winged creature in the desert.
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The Fox Sisters' Confession, 1888: Raps From a Big Toe
Forty years after the Hydesville rappings, Margaret Fox Kane stood on the stage of New York's Academy of Music and made the famous raps with her toe joint.
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The Live Moa Reports: a Waiau Shepherd (1873) and the Browning Pass 'Capture' (1874)
In 1873 a Dunedin paper announced that a live moa had been seen “alive and in the flesh” in Southland.
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The Great Moon Hoax, 1835: When a New York Paper Found Man-Bats on the Moon
In August 1835 the New York Sun reported that Sir John Herschel had seen bat-winged people on the moon. It was invented. Here is how the hoax worked.
