Can it Be Any More Dumb? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Camel spider

While 'camel spiders' do exist, they are in fact one tenth of the size of those purportedly playing havoc with the U.S. troops in Iraq in around 2003. It was also said that if they bite you, the flesh and muscle fall off, leaving a hole; and that their venom contains a powerful anaesthetic that numbs their victims' limbs so they can gnaw away without the victim realising.

Answer: Charles Bertram

Entitled 'De Situ Brittaniae', the document pointed to the existence of an unknown Roman province and detailed a number of Roman landmarks that hadn't previously been recorded. Charles Bertram was a teacher of English working in Denmark in the mid-1700s who created the fraudulent documents and sent a copy to well-known antiquarian William Stukeley. Stukeley was thrilled, and postulated various theories about the origin of the work. Because Stukeley lent the documents his cachet, many people were similarly excited about the find.

However, about a hundred years later, German historian Karl Wex discovered that the documents were in fact a mish-mash of information by a series of Roman authorities that had no basis in fact.

Answer: Burger King

Taking a full-page ad in 'USA Today' in 1998, Burger King announced the Left-Handed Whopper. They illustrated the accommodations they had made for their left-handed customers; all the ingredients were rotated 180 degrees to allow a better grip by the left-handed consumer; the sesame seeds were strategically placed to ensure minimal loss during consumption; and the lower bun was realigned to compensate for a shift in weight. Even the condiments were rearranged for greater enjoyment.

Thousands of left-handers rushed in to stores, asking for the 'left' Whopper. Just in case they were given the wrong Whopper, right-handed folks were verifying their 'handedness' to the staff.

As a marketing ploy, this hoax was a winner!

Answer: A 10-foot giant

Carved in gypsum sourced from a quarry near Fort Dodge in Iowa and buried in the ground to be 'discovered' on a farm in Cardiff, New York in 1868, the Cardiff Giant was at once a huge commercial success. People came from miles away and paid good money to see what was purported to be an almost-complete petrified figure of a giant. Indeed, it became so popular that PT Barnum tried (unsuccessfully) to buy it. It was exposed as a hoax by palaeontologist Othniel C. Marsh.

In 1875, Mark Twain wrote a story based on this hoax, called "A Ghost Story".

Answer: Jarno Smeets

Dutchman Jarno Smeets (actually filmmaker and animator Floris Kaayk) posted a video showing a successful 'test flight' of a winged-suit contraption. The video shows him wearing an outfit with huge kite wings, taking a run up and launching into the air then 'flying' for some 300 feet. He alleges that the wings 'amplify' his muscles, making them imitate bird movement.

Smeets said he would share his 'techniques' so others could build similar suits, but the story was so implausible that it was immediately questioned by Ryan Martin, technical director at George Lucas's Industrial Lights and Magic effects house, who was sceptical about the lack of detail given. After the hoax was exposed, Smeets said that it was 'online storytelling'.

Answer: Australia

Some university students were at the heart of the hoax. They thought that the relay of the Olympic torch, on its way from Cairns to Melbourne for the 1956 Games, was being treated with a bit too much reverence. Barry Larkin and a number of fellow students decided to appear early at a scheduled hand-over point to give a fake torch to Sydney's mayor. The mayor was going to give a short speech and then pass the torch onto another runner and send it on its way to Melbourne.

When the mayor, Pat Hills, received the torch amidst a cheering crowd, he realised the handle of the torch was sticky, and another dignitary whispered to him that it wasn't the torch. In fact, the fake item was a wooden chair leg topped by a plum pudding can inside of which a pair of burning kerosene-soaked underwear. Acting with great aplomb, Mr Hills said "That was a trial run. Our friends from the university think things like this are funny. It was a hoax by somebody. I hope you are enjoying the joke." When the real flame appeared a few minutes later, police cleared a path for the flame-bearer to get through. Larkin was given a hero's reception back at the university, and when the Games came again to Australia for the 2000 Olympics, precautions were taken to prevent a similar incident.

Answer: Microsoft

While not perpetrated by the company, Microsoft issued a formal denial after an online news story reporting that Microsoft had "acquired a major world religion" caused an outcry. The article, purportedly issued by the Associated Press, circulated mostly via email, was given authenticity as it had a Vatican City dateline. Though much of it was obviously a hoax, there was enough careful wording to fool many.

Included in the article was the assertion that "the combined resources of Microsoft and the Catholic Church will allow us to make religion easier and more fun for a broader range of people." It also 'quoted' Bill Gates, saying that Microsoft senior vice-presidents Michael Maples and Steven Ballmer were to be invested in the College of Cardinals.

A fake follow-up announced that IBM had bought the Episcopal Church. The authors of the fake articles are unknown.

Answer: Fairy

Cousins Frances Griffith (aged 9) and Elsie Wright (16) lived next door to each other and originated an elaborate hoax that even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed. They constructed a picture that showed Elsie a playing with a gnome-like creature with wings; another in which Frances was shown with four fairies dancing in front of her; and another with Elsie appearing to talk with another Cottingley fairy. Conan-Doyle, who also believed in the Piltdown Man, was convinced of the reality of the photographs and asked permission to use them in the Christmas edition of the Strand magazine.

The hoax was maintained for many years; it was in 1983 when Elsie finally confessed to the hoax, though Geoffrey Crawley, the editor of the British Journal of Photography, concluded they were fakes earlier in the 1980s.

Answer: Fiji

Mermaids have been a matter of speculation for centuries and many people were happy to believe in the Fiji (or Feejee) Mermaid. Though presented by P.T. Barnum as "curiosity supposed to be a mermaid" caught by a friend, the Fiji mermaid was the work of an Indonesian fisherman. He had used the torso and head of a baby monkey, and sewn it to the back half of a fish, then covered it all in papier-mâché.

It was copied many times and it is thought that the original was lost in a fire in Barnum's museum in the 1860s. A facsimile was later also exhibited by Robert Ripley.

Answer: Prescott Jernegan

In 1896, British chemist Edward Sonstadt estimated there was approximately one grain of gold in every ton of sea water (at the time it was estimated there was around $48,000,000,000,000 floating around the ocean). Jernegan approached jeweller Arthur Ryan with a view to persuade him to go into business, explaining that his invention simply had to be left in the sea water overnight, and in the morning, electrified mercury (mixed with a secret ingredient) would have sucked gold out of the water.

Ryan and a few friends tried it out near Providence, Rhode Island, and they were excited to find the next morning that there was indeed gold embedded in the mercury. A company was formed, and they started producing gold. Shares in the company were initially offered at $33, but quickly rose to $150. When Jernegan disappeared with an associate, each taking around $200,000 (about USD $6,262,238 in 2012), the gold stopped appearing in the Accumulator. Jergenan's associate was a diver who had been seeding the mercury with gold in the devices.