It has been a tradition that the big Norwegian media houses have tried to deceive their audience. They stopped doing this a few years ago. The reason was that fake news stories began to appear all year round, which the media thought was very unfunny. With social media, the spread of April Fools’ jokes didn’t stop on April 1st. This made it difficult to understand what was nonsense and what was true. Perhaps it was just as well that the nonsense cases disappeared, because throughout history the media both at home and abroad have gone to a lot of trouble. Here are some of the April Fools’ pranks that went wrong, some horribly wrong for those involved, in random order without ranking. The end of the world Philadelphia’s radio station KYW could announce that the end of the world would happen on April 1, 1940 with the following message: “The world will end at 3 p.m., Monday, April 1.” THE END OF THE WORLD: Thousands were deceived by the radio station KYW when they reported the world’s worst news. Facsimile: Hoaxes.org The channel later had to apologize, but did not take responsibility for the incident. The message had come on 31 March from a man called William Castellini. He was the press officer for the local planetarium. They were to give a lecture on April 1, about possible ways in which the earth could end. The panic led to the emergency numbers being reduced, according to Newsweek. Castellini was fired. THE APRIL SPOKE BACK: Ane Norum Kvistad was supposed to trick a dad in the series Lurt, but was tricked back by the dad. April Fool’s Day results in a prison sentence It is rarely a good April Fool’s Day joke to report that someone is dead or injured. Things got particularly bad when in 1986 Israeli radio picked up what turned out to be a very bad April Fool’s joke from an anonymous intelligence officer. He sent out a message that the Muslim leader Nabih Berri had been the victim of an assassination attempt. This was not well received in a tense Israel. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the time feared that the violence in the country would escalate. Rabin ordered the intelligence officer to be impeached for the prank. Already on April 3, the LA Times reported that the officer had been sentenced to 35 days in the cake cage. Contaminated by H₂O Some who also risked prison were two WWGR morning radio presenters who in 2013 caused panic in Florida. The radio hosts warned of high levels of dihydrogen monoxide in the water taps. Dihydrogen monoxide is just a cumbersome way of describing the chemical formula of water or H₂O. WATER CONTAMINATED BY WATER: Your water also contains dihydrogen monoxide. Photo: Rune Fredriksen / news The Water Board reported that worried radio listeners had called in all morning. – My opinion is that it is an offense to report false water quality problems, said Diana Holm, the information manager in the Florida Department of Health, to USA Today. The presenters were suspended for two days, while the radio channel denied the matter during all the music breaks. Local authorities were satisfied and withdrew the threat of notification. Furthermore, it must be pointed out that high levels of dihydrogen monoxide can actually lead to both urination, webbing and, in the worst cases, drowning. Disaster foretold One person who actually lost his job was TV producer Homer Cilley. In 1980, he made an April Fool’s joke about a volcanic eruption taking place on the Great Blue Hill, a hill outside Boston. His TV spot showed images from the St. Helens eruption, which claimed about 60 lives a few months earlier in Washington state. The president’s warnings from the real disaster were reused in the joke. It didn’t help that Great Blue Hill is neither particularly large nor volcanic, or that the feature itself contained the revelation that it was just an April Fool’s joke. Hundreds of panicked residents called emergency numbers. TV producer Cilley was fired for “his inability to demonstrate good newsmanship,” according to the Christian Science Monitor. MOUNTAINS ON FIRE: Dark smoke from Mt Edgecumbe was a prank. Photo: Harold Wahlmann In a more complete version of the same joke six years earlier, the inhabitants of Sitka Alaska woke up to dark smoke rising from the Mount Edgecumbe volcano. When the Coast Guard’s helicopter left to investigate the mountain, they saw a pile of burning tires next to a message written in the snow: “April Fools.” UFO invasion caused panic In 2010, one of Jordan’s newspapers reported on the front page that UFOs with three-meter-high aliens had landed in the desert town of Jafr. Local security forces were dispatched to find the intruders, and students were kept home from school due to fears of the invasion, according to Mayor Hohammed Mleihan. – People feared that the aliens would attack them. (…) I was close to evacuating all 13,000 inhabitants, Mleihan told the AP news agency. The problem with the joke was that Jordanians were not used to April Fools’ jokes in newspapers. While Egyptians are known as the big jokers in the Arab world, Jordanians are seen as more serious, the BBC reported right after the event. April Fool’s joke pulled after Belieber reactions In 2013, Telemarksavisa chose to withdraw its case that Justin Bieber should perform in Skien, fronted by “concert organizer” Dag Erik Pedersen. The week before, there had been reports that a hundred or so young girls had submitted serious stories of mental illness. They tried desperately to secure tickets for Bieber’s sold-out concerts later that month in Oslo. NO KILLING WITH BIEBER: Telemark newspaper retracted April joke with “concert organizer” Dag Erik Pedersen. Facsimile: Telemarksavisa/VG The organizer of the real concerts in Oslo had contacted the Red Cross, child welfare and the police on the most worrying messages. The organizer believed that the pranksters in Telemark did not understand what emotions they were playing with by making up a Bieber concert. – We have had very good reactions to this joke and many people took it. But for us it is the case that if someone gets into trouble because of this – we don’t want that. April Fool’s Day is for fun and joy – not the opposite, said news editor Ørjan Madsen in Telemarksavisa to VG. Justin Bieber himself had to apologize for his own prank on Instagram six years later when he posted a photo that suggested his wife was pregnant. – I didn’t mean to be insensitive to people who can’t have children, Bieber posted on April 2. Bride imports in Liechtenstein According to the History Collection website, an inappropriate German April Fool’s joke in 1928 led to an international crisis. Then the newspaper Berliner Illustrierte published a case about bride imports to Liechtenstein. The small independent state struggled with a shortage of women because many moved to neighboring countries. To make up for the female deficit, the authorities in Liechtenstein had reportedly started importing women from other countries. According to the joke, the women were transported by wagons to be auctioned off to eager men. Photo: Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung / Hoaxes.org The image of women being carried by goods wagons was also printed in other European and American newspapers. That the women were portrayed as cattle did not seem to upset the authorities in Liechtenstein. But the fact that the women in the photo were overweight was seen as an insult to the men in Liechtenstein. Protests against Playboy article It didn’t go too well either when the men’s magazine Playboy’s Romanian edition tried an April Fool’s joke in 2000. The headline “How to beat the wife … without leaving marks on her body” was followed by a description of violence with images of a woman who was beaten with a baton. PLAYBOY CHIEF POSES: Christie Hefner faced with protests after misogynistic joke. Photo: Dale Atkins / Ap Although the article was supposed to be a joke, the publication led to fourteen women’s organizations in Romania organizing a protest against the magazine. Christie Hefner, the daughter of the magazine’s founder, said the article did not reflect Playboy’s view of women and that the Romanian editor had been reprimanded, according to the New York Times. Release the prisoners – it’s spring From the same year, Romania gets away with another bad April Fool’s joke on the list. In 2000, families of prisoners in Baia Mare prison could read in the newspaper Opinia that the prisoners were to be released. According to the Museum of Hoaxes, sixty people came from far and wide to collect their husbands and sons, only to be told it was all an April Fool’s joke. POLICE JOKE: Tweet from GMP Radcliffe about voting prisoners free from prison. Facsimile: Twitter via Daily Star Manchester police also managed to upset many with their version of the prank in 2015. They pretended to organize a poll on Twitter, where families could vote their loved ones out of prison. The winner would not only avoid serving time, but also win a holiday trip. Schools and roads evacuated There were serious consequences when, on 1 April 1982, a radio channel in Greece asked the population in the center of Athens to evacuate. According to the channel, air pollution had become so high that all schools had to close, and people in cars were asked to leave them and evacuate to more open areas. ACROPOLIS IN HAZE: Athens was supposed to be evacuated according to state radio, but it was just nonsense. Photo: Antonis Lamnatos The problem was that many did not understand that it was a joke since the news came from the state radio station. Poor air quality was and still is a problem in the city, and residents are constantly encouraged to stay indoors. It didn’t help that the radio channel revealed three hours later that it was all nonsense. According to the website Hoaxes.org, the channel was sued. The man behind the prank was fired, and the head of the radio channel quit his job as a result of the April Fool’s joke. April Fool’s joke hits back at the prankster See when presenter Ane Norum Kvistad is tricked into playing her own April Fool’s joke on news TV. POOTING ON HERSELF: Ane thinks she’s going to fool a dad on April 1, but this time it’s herself who’s going to be fooled. This is an April Fool’s Day According to old custom, on April 1 you are allowed to try to trick others, fool April Fools. Anyone who lets themselves be fooled is called an April fool. April Fool’s Day is also used for the joke itself. The custom is widespread across most of Europe and the Western world, an exception being Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries where April Fool’s Day is 28 December. The origin of the custom is uncertain, but it may be a remnant of a southern European folk spring festival. In older Norwegian tradition, it was also common to play pranks on May 1, and whoever was tricked was called a May goose. In recent times, April Fools’ jokes have been popular in newspapers and other news media. (Source: NTB) Sources: Los Angeles Times, VG, Aftenposten, news Innlandet, The Atlantic, USA Today, Reader’s Digest, Christian Science Monitor, BBC, New York Times, Daily Star. Hoaxes.org, History Collection, Newsweek. 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Ten April Fools’ jokes that went wrong – news Trøndelag
