爱思英语编者按：有一个叫Hoaxes的网站研究了愚人节的历史然后选出了世界范围内最有创意、最有历史意义、受骗人数最多、最恶搞的100个恶作剧，以下为前十名。

The Top 10 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time

#10: Nixon for President尼克松又要竞选总统了

April 1, 1992: National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation revealed that Richard Nixon, in a surprise move, was running for President again. His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." Accompanying this announcement were audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy speech. Listeners responded viscerally to the announcement, flooding the show with calls expressing shock and outrage. Only during the second half of the show did the host John Hockenberry reveal that the announcement was a practical joke. Nixon's voice was impersonated by comedian Rich Little.

1992年愚人节，全国公共广播电台宣布，尼克松又要竞选总统了，他的竞选宣言是：我没做错事；我也不会再做错事。新闻中还穿插了一段尼克松的讲话。愤怒而惊讶的听众纷纷打电话来质问。随后主持人承认这是假的，尼克松的声音也是一个喜剧演员模仿的。

#9: Sidd Finch传奇投手西德·芬奇

The April 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated revealed that the New York Mets had recruited a rookie pitcher named Sidd Finch who could throw a baseball at 168 mph — 65 mph faster than the previous record. Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never played baseball before, but he had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery. Mets fans couldn't believe their good luck and, accepting at face value the peculiarities of Sidd Finch's past, flooded Sports Illustrated with requests for more information. But in reality this amazing player only existed in the imagination of author George Plimpton, who had left a clue in the sub-heading of the article: "He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga —and his future in baseball." The first letter of each of these words, taken together, spelled "H-a-p-p-y A-p-r-i-l F-o-o-l-s D-a-y — A-h F-i-b".

1985年愚人节，运动画刊杂志发布一条假消息，称一个名为Sidd Finch的新人棒球投球手，能投出168mph时速的球，比当时记录高出65mph；而且这位新人之前都没有玩过棒球！他在一个西藏的寺庙里学会了投球的艺术。大批棒球粉丝因此被骗。其实这个只是文章作者瞎编的。

#8: UFO Lands in London伦敦惊降UFO

March 31, 1989: Thousands of motorists driving on the highway outside London looked up in the air to see a glowing flying saucer descending on their city. Many of them pulled to the side of the road to watch the bizarre craft float through the air. The saucer finally landed in a field on the outskirts of London where local residents immediately called the police to warn them of an alien invasion. Soon the police arrived on the scene, and one brave officer approached the craft with his truncheon extended before him. When a door in the craft popped open, and a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in the opposite direction. The saucer turned out to be a hot-air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the 36-year-old chairman of Virgin Records. The stunt combined his passion for ballooning with his love of pranks. His plan was to land the craft in London's Hyde Park on April 1. Unfortunately, the wind blew him off course, and he was forced to land a day early in the wrong location.

1989年的3月31日，成千上万的人都目睹了一架发光的飞碟突降伦敦郊区。热心的人们纷纷报警告知外星人入侵。警车很快到达现场，一名勇敢的警察挥着警棍慢慢靠近飞碟。接着飞碟的门打开了，一名矮小的穿着银色衣服的人型生物慢慢出现，警察吓得跑掉头就跑。结果这个飞碟只是维京唱片老板理查德·布兰森的一只热气球，人家只是很爱热气球，爱恶作剧。他本来想开着气球在第二天去伦敦海德公园吓人，结果大风把他刮了下来。

#7: The Taco Liberty Bell墨西哥饼店买下自由钟

April 1, 1996: The Taco Bell Corporation took out a full-page ad that appeared in six major newspapers announcing it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed, a few hours later, that it was all a practical joke. The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale. Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known, he said, as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

1996年Taco Bell快餐公司宣称已经从联邦政府手中买下了自由钟，并将它更名为Taco自由钟。成百上千号市民勃然大怒，纷纷致电收藏此钟的费城国家历史公园表达他们的愤慨。几个小时后当Taco Bell公司披露这是个恶作剧时，他们的情绪才逐渐平息下来。受该事件启发，恶作剧的经典之作出炉了。当白宫新闻部长迈克·麦凯瑞被问及自由钟售卖一事时，他回答说：不仅如此，林肯纪念馆也被出售给了另一家公司，现已更名为福特·林肯-水星牌汽车纪念馆。

#6: Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity行星连珠减小地心引力

April 1, 1976: During an early-morning interview on BBC Radio 2, the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced that at 9:47 AM that day a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur. Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, and this planetary alignment would temporarily counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment the alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, the station began receiving hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman reported that she and her friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room. Moore had intended his annoucement to be a spoof of a pseudoscientific theory that had recently been promoted in a book called The Jupiter Effect, alleging that a rare alignment of the planets was going to cause massive earthquakes and the destruction of Los Angeles in 1982.

1976年英国天文学家帕特里克·摩尔在英国广播公司2号电台宣布，上午9：47时将会出现百年一遇的天文现象，届时听众在自己家里就可以体验到。冥王星将会从木星后面经过，从而出现冥王星、木星和地球三颗行星连成一条直线的短暂现象，这种“行星连珠”现象将会抵消并削弱地心引力。摩尔告诉听众如果他们在行星连珠时跳跃，将会体验到一种神奇的漂浮感。到上午9：47时，英国广播公司2号电台接到了无数听众打来的电话，声称他们已经体验到了漂浮感。一位妇女甚至报告说她和她的11个朋友已经从椅子上腾空而起，漂浮在房子里。

#5: San Serriffe神秘岛国San Serriffe

April 1, 1977: The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic said to consist of several semi-colon-shaped islands located in the Indian Ocean. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Only a few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology. The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April Foolery that gripped the British tabloids in subsequent decades.

1977年愚人节，英国卫报发行了长达7页的增刊，全是介绍San Serriffe这个印度洋上的小岛国的，据说那里有好几个分号形状的小岛。文章中大肆渲染了这里的风情和民俗，介绍了它的城市和首都，甚至总统的名字。据说报纸发布当天卫报编辑室的电话都被读者打爆了，大家都想知道这样美好的度假胜地在哪(真是有钱没地方花呀)。只有少数人注意到，首都名字Bodoni 是印刷术语，是一种印刷字体的名称。

#4: The Sydney Iceberg悉尼湾的冰山

April 1, 1978: A barge towing a giant iceberg appeared in Sydney Harbor. Sydneysiders were expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman, had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations provided blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.

 1978年的愚人节，一座巨大的冰山在万众期待中从南极洲被拖进了悉尼湾。而此次事件的策划者就是当地的富翁Dick Smith，他还承诺会将大冰山切成一小块一小块的售卖给群众。可是天公不作美，下了一场雨将冰山上的消防泡沫和剃须膏冲掉了，露出了下面的塑料板块，群众这才发现受骗啦。

#3: The Eruption of Mount Edgecumbe埃奇克姆火山喷发

April 1, 1974: The residents of Sitka, Alaska woke to a disturbing sight. Clouds of black smoke were rising from the crater of Mount Edgecumbe, the long-dormant volcano neighboring them. People spilled out of their homes onto the streets to gaze up at the volcano, terrified that it was active again and might soon erupt. Luckily it turned out that man, not nature, was responsible for the smoke. A local practical joker named Porky Bickar had flown hundreds of old tires into the volcano's crater and then lit them on fire, all in a (successful) attempt to fool the city dwellers into believing that the volcano was stirring to life. According to local legend, when Mount St. Helens erupted six years later, a Sitka resident wrote to Bickar to tell him, "This time you've gone too far!"

1974年的愚人节清晨，阿拉斯加锡特卡镇上的居民醒来后被眼前的一幕惊呆了：黑色的浓烟从附近的埃奇克姆火山滚滚而出。人们纷纷跑到街上看着不远处的火山，担心着火山马上就要喷发了。幸运（还是不幸？）的是，这只是当地一个叫Porky Bickar的人的一个恶作剧，他空运了好几百个旧轮胎到火山口，然后点燃了制造成火山苏醒的假象。据当地人说，当六年后圣海伦斯火山真的爆发时，还有人写信给Bickar说：“你这次真的玩儿得太过分啦！”

#2: Instant Color TV尼龙袜速制彩色电视机

April 1, 1962: Sweden's SVT (Sveriges Television) brought their technical expert, Kjell Stensson, onto the news to inform the public that, thanks to a new technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to display color reception. At the time, there was only the one TV channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and white, so this was big news. Stensson explained that all viewers had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen, and the mesh would cause the light to bend in such a way that it would appear as if the image was in color. He proceeded to demonstrate the process. Thousands of people were taken in. Many Swedes today still report remembering their fathers rushing through the house trying to find stockings to place over the TV set. Regular color broadcasts only commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.

1962年愚人节，当时瑞典还只有一个电视频道，而且是黑白的。电视台的技术人员当天在新闻中说，彩色电视已经研发成功，用户只需拿一双尼龙袜盖在电视屏幕上就行。还真有人信了。

#1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest意面大丰收

April 1, 1957: The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." Even the director-general of the BBC later admitted that after seeing the show he checked in an encyclopedia to find out if that was how spaghetti actually grew (but the encyclopedia had no information on the topic). The broadcast remains, by far, the most popular and widely acclaimed April Fool's Day hoax ever, making it an easy pick for number one.

1957年愚人节BBC新闻中说，瑞士的Spaghetti Trees（意面树）大丰收，农民都在树上收割面条。大量观众上当受骗，打电话来咨询面条树的种植方法。BBC对此的回复是：把一根面条插在番茄酱里，然后就等着吧。真是有爱。

BBC当年很认真的报道：