The Dreadnought Hoax

The Dreadnaught Hoax was an elaborate prank orchestrated by members of the Bloomsbury Group. The plan was set in motion on February 7th 1910 when Horace de Vere Cole, who is described as an ‘eccentric prankster’, had a telegram, apparently signed by the Foreign Office, sent to the naval ship HMS Dreadnought notifying the captain of the imminent arrival onboard of a group of Abyssinian princes. 

Under the pseudonym Herbert Cholmondeley, Cole then escorted his entourage, who, including Virginia Woolf (far left in photo), had disguised themselves by darkening their skin and dressing in turbans with false beards, to Paddington Station where he demanded a special train to Weymouth where the Dreadnought was moored. The stationmaster duly arranged a VIP carriage for them.

Upon their arrival in Weymouth the group was met with an honour guard. Unfortunately, no Abyssinian flag could be found so, oddly, the flag of Zanzibar was hoisted instead and Zanzibar’s national anthem played for the esteemed guests. The ‘princes’ then inspected the fleet and attempted to bestow fake military honours on the officers, speaking all the while in gibberish - frequently showing amazement or appreciation with cries of “Bunga! Bunga!”. An officer friend of both Cole and Woolf failed to recognise either of them.

When the hoax was eventually discovered the Royal Navy became a object of ridicule due to the Bloomsbury Group’s pacifist views. The Navy first called for Cole’s arrest, however, he had not broken the law. They then sent two officers to cane him but Cole countered this by arguing it was they who should be caned for allowing themselves to be fooled in the first place.

[Sources: Image | Dreadnought Hoax | Horace de Vere Cole]

A prank from the 1930s.

Isaac Bickerstaff

As society teetered between its medieval past and the “Age of Reason,” the practice of astrology held wide appeal in early 18th-century London [and] No astrologer was more influential than John Partridge, who delivered a healthy sense of impending doom to thousands of discerning readers each year.

However, all that was to change in January 1708 [when] curious predictions were published by a previously-unheard-of astrologer identifying himself as “Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.” He wrote:

“My first prediction is but a trifle… It relates to Partridge the almanack-maker; I have consulted the stars … and find he will infallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever.”

And indeed, on the 30th of March [a] letter circulated around the city. The author reported sitting at Partridge’s bedside on March 29. He recalled how Partridge had fallen ill three days earlier and had confessed to being a fraud before succumbing to his fever at 7:05pm—just four hours off the time predicted by Bickerstaff.

The news left London in a state of shock, though it’s likely that no one was as surprised to hear the news as Partridge was, for, as it happened, he was alive and well. It wasn’t difficult to work out that the letter had been written by Isaac Bickerstaff.

The hoax would plague Partridge for the rest of his life. Mourners, who believed him to be dead, often kept him awake at night crying outside his window; an undertaker arrived at his house to arrange drapes for the mourning; an elegy was printed and a gravestone carved [source]. But others reveled in tormenting him; stopping him in the street [to enquire] how his widow was coping, or to chide him for lacking the decency to be properly buried.

Partridge would spent the rest of his days trying to discover Bickerstaff’s true identity, to no avail. However, the answer that eluded Partridge was not lost to history. It was eventually uncovered that Bickerstaff was a pseudonym for none other than Jonathan Swift. Swift often amused himself by terrorising his friends and enemies with elaborate pranks on All Fools’ Day. Not a fan of charlatan astrologers to begin with, Swift had taken a special interest in Partridge after some sarcastic remarks the cobbler had made about Swift’s employer: the Church of England.

In the end, half of Swift’s prophesy came true: John Partridge eventually died. The precise date fell somewhere around 1715, putting Swift’s prediction off by a mere 62,000 hours—the blink of an eye on fate’s great cosmic scale. [Edited from Source]

Vintage Prank 1938 (LIFE Magazine):

1. When the lady gets a run in her stockings, she calmly takes the compact out of her purse, removes the beetle and places him at the bottom of the run.

2. The wise little bug, knowing just what is expected of him, starts immediately to work.

3. He crawls up the lady’s leg, his expert mandibles repairing the run as he goes along.

MORE.

The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals because ‘a nude horse is a rude horse.’

G. Clifford Prout was a man with a mission, and that mission was to put clothes on all the millions of naked animals throughout the world. To realize his dream, Prout founded an organization, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (abbreviated as SINA). Prout first appeared before the American public to promote his organization on May 27, 1959. His appearance generated a huge viewer response and soon thousands of letters were pouring in to SINA’s headquarters. People were either outraged by the idea of SINA, or quite supportive of it. One woman in Santa Barbara reportedly tried to donate $40,000 to the cause. 

Prout’s campaign continued for a number of years until it reached a high point on August 21, 1962, when SINA was featured on the CBS News. As the segment was airing, a few CBS employees recognized that Prout was actually Buck Henry, a comedian and CBS employee. SINA was subsequently revealed to be an elaborate hoax. MORE.