5. Taco Bell’s 1996 April Fool’s day prank.
One of America’s famous fast-food chains, Taco Bell, decided to pull an extreme stunt in 1996 through a newspaper ad. The fast-food chain took out a full-page ad in six major newspapers, which described that it had purchased the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the “Taco Liberty Bell”. The prank sparked wide outrage among citizens and the real victims of the prank were hapless National Park Services employees. The employees were unaware of the stunt and were flooded with phone calls from angry citizens who had to be reassured that the monument was not sold to anyone.
6. Burger King’s left-handed Whopper.
Burger King is known for their publicity stunts, but in 1998, they decided to take it one step further. The fast-food chain published a full page advertisement in USA Today that announced a new item on their menu: the Left-Handed Whopper. The advert specified that it was specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. The new burger from their menu included the same ingredients as the original Whopper but the condiments were rotated 180 degrees. Once the advertisement was published, thousands of customers went into restaurants to request the new sandwich while others requested to have their regular right handed ones.
7. Loch Ness monster’s dead body.
The Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, inhabits Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. Though there has not been any scientific evidence to prove that Nessie actually exists, the citizens as well as thousands around the world, believe that she’s indeed real. Nessie was brought to worldwide attention in 1933 after a photograph, believed to have captured the creature, was published in local newspapers. The photograph was proven to be scripted and the whole story was debunked. On April 1, 1972, Nessie made the headlines again. Newspapers started to publish stories that the dead body of the Loch Ness Monster had been discovered. While a team of zoologists from Yorkshire’s Flamingo Park Zoo were at Loch Ness searching for proof of Nessie’s existence, they came across a carcass that was floating in the water the day before. The carcass weighed a ton and a half and was 15½ feet long. Upon closer inspection, Nessie turned out to be a bull elephant seal.
John Shields, the zoo’s education officer later confessed to the prank. He admitted that the seal had died a week before and he had shaved off its whiskers, padded its cheeks with stones and kept it frozen for a week, before dumping it in the Loch.
8. NASA’s 2002 prank that claimed that the moon was made out of cheese.
Moon, the Earth’s only satellite, is not made of fatty dairy products. The myth that the Moon is in fact made of cheese and has an expiration date on it began centuries ago. When it came to April Fool’s day in 2002, NASA just couldn’t resist from joining in. On April 1st, NASA uploaded an image to their website that said the Moon is made out of cheese and comes with an expiration date. They explained that the picture was taken by the Ranger 9 probe in 1965, just minutes before landing. To further convince people, they estimated a date to which the Moon may go bad and explained that we had to devour it before it did.
