In the UFO area and regarding this website I'll say the Caret drone episode was pretty intense here, I can't imagine another time like that on this website, older posters might but for me thats still king here.

I posted to this thread a while back saying that I believed that religion was the greatest hoax of all time but I am now changing that. I have moved religion to the number two spot. The number one spot is now FREEDOM. We are losing our freedom more and more each day and it now seems we never really were free to start with. TPTB only let us think we were. Now they are tired of pretending and they are taking away what little they let us think we had.

#1=FREEDOM
#2=RELIGION

Now as I think about it a bit those two really go hand it hand and I guess they could tie for the #1 spot.

Could be the concept of nationality and thereafter, patriotism.

Edit: Ooh and John Titor!

YOU IS

This thread went to south starting already from the first response which said "my three ex-wives" - although, admittedly, I could appreciate the sarcasm.

Also political or economical events, acts of terrorism or catastrophes or any kind of religion / belief systems do not in my opinion belong within this discussion.

I thought of the ones that are known hoaxes but still succeeded to break into the mainstream media.

Here we go with my top three choices:

1 - Uri Geller

What was his supposed skill? To bend spoons with his mind - in which he failed miserably during The Tonight Show in year 1973. Aside that, various other mind powers Geller claimed to possess have been later proven non-existent.

Despite these frequent failures Geller enjoys some kind of steady fan base and has friends in high places of the society.

The man has written 16 books, owns a spoon-laced Cadillac, has received gifts from range of celebrities, bought an tiny island near Scotland for about $45000 and had Michael Jackson (yes, that Michael Jackson) as his best man in his wedding when Geller renewed his vows.

2 - The alien autopsy

The hoax was discussed in Time Magazine, sold to 32 countries and shown in countless well-known senders, among others Fox Network. Last mentioned in 1995 had over 11 million viewers with 14% share to watch the English-made puppetry showing raspberry jam and chicken joints bought from London-based butches.

When accused as faker, the maker of the video (Ray Santilli) changed his story from the film being authentic to that he had reconstructed it, due that "the original film had not survived aside two frames".

When the whole alien autopsy video was confirmed as a fake, Fox Network boosted that it had undisclosed one of the most significant hoaxes of all time - and gathered again masses of viewers. Only this time it was not claiming what was seen on TV sets was anything real.

There was also a movie made about the story of "alien autopsy" and as late as 2006 Santilli claimed that some of the footage in the original one sold to TV networks had authentic material in it. Conveniently, this happened at the same year as the movie came out.

3 - Erich Von Däniken

"I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of von Däniken."

— Carl Sagan, Foreword to The Space Gods Revealed

Von Däniken's books misinterpreting history to create ancient aliens theory have printed 30 million copies (although the man himself claims over 65 million) and translated to 35 different languages. Von Däniken's claims have been debunked countless times by academics and world-famous scientists and to even start pointing here all the flaws von Däniken's theories make is flogging a dead horse.

Nevertheless, with tens of millions books sold mediocre Swiss-born sci-fi novelist is laughing his way to the "Mystery Park" he opened 2003 in Interlaken, Switzerland.