In 1957 on April 1, the BBC broadcast a three-minute report on their current affairs program. The television program featured a family in Southern Switzerland harvesting a bumper crop of spaghetti from their Spaghetti Trees. This black and white TV segment aired in Great Britain to an audience of about 8 million. The film showed a family plucking spaghetti from branches of a tree and then spreading the noodles out to dry. The ending showed them enjoying a meal of spaghetti at the table. The BBC signed off by mentioning the date of April 1,1957. The entire program is available for you to view on YouTube. I recommend watching it. The producer of the show had been approached by a free lance photographer who pitched the idea of an April fools’ joke on BBC television. The cameraman staged family members reaching for spaghetti high on branches of trees. The spaghetti had been cooked to appear flexible and then cello taped to branches. At the time, pasta was something new to Britain and often found canned in tomato sauce. The producers enhanced the reporting style using a voice-over by a highly respected broadcaster, Richard Bimbleby, who was in on the joke. The narrator went on to explain how farmers were breeding the trees to produce uniform lengths of noodles. The bumper crop was explained by an unusually warm spring and the absence of spaghetti weevils. Following the broadcast, hundreds of people called in to question the authenticity of the program, hundreds more called in to get advice on finding and nurturing their own spaghetti trees. The BBC played this out by telling them, “Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato and hope for the best.” I just love the dry British humor! Before you laugh too much, and call the Brits gullible, I will remind you that we Americans are just as suggestable. On Oct. 30, 1938, a radio drama broadcast of The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells was aired live. The Halloween show began by announcing the story as an adaption of the science fiction book by H. G. Wells. Orson Wells narrated what seemed to be live news flashes from reporters in the field who were describing deadly attacks by aliens. Unfortunately, a lot of radio listeners tuned in too late to hear the disclaimer of fiction and believed they were witnessing a full-scale invasion by ill-tempered Martians. Panic was widespread and police phone lines clogged with callers seeking advice. The police and authorities we not amused. If you think only the general public can be fooled, think again. In 1856, the first Neanderthal fossil was discovered. The scientific community soon became obsessed with finding “The Missing Link” proving a succession from ape to modern man. This wishful thinking overcame the scientific method and provided fertile ground for a hoax. In 1908, Piltdown Quarry in Sussex, England produced fragments of two sculls, which were later declared a primitive hominoid by a Mr. Dawson and another scientist. This hoax on the science persisted for 40 years. The bones were re-examined in 1953 and were found to be a mix of human skulls, orangutan jaw, elephant molar, hippo tooth, canine tooth, and Pleistocene chimp fossil. The bones had been carefully salted in to the quarry dig and promptly “found” by the right people. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was implicated in the hoax. The famous author of Sherlock Homes novels may have been purposely mocking the scientific method of his time. All I’m saying is, don’t believe everything you hear or see. Everyone knows Spaghetti Trees are only found in Italy. By the way, I have this slightly used bridge in Brooklyn for sale, cheap
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