5 Of the Biggest Alien & UFO Hoaxes Ever Perpetrated

It’s truly an unfortunate thing. With Alien and UFO activity being difficult to prove, many enthusiasts have turned to creating hoaxes in an attempt to provide said proof. Consequently, some of those alien & UFO hoaxes have taken on a life of their own. Here are 5 of the biggest hoaxes ever.

1. Alien Autopsy

We’re just going to start off with the biggest one here. In 1995 a 17-minute black and white film was aired by Fox Television. Millions watched. And while the UFO community tends to be relatively quick to accept new evidence as real, even they had a general feeling that this was a hoax. Here’s the full video below in case you’ve never seen it:

The film was released by an entrepreneur from London named Ray Santilli. He claimed that he got the footage from a retired military cameraman, Jack Barnett. Santilli changed his story multiple times, especially when confronted with the fact that Jack Barnett’s military history could not be verified.

In 2006, Santilli confessed that his film was a ‘reconstruction’. He still never called it a hoax. To this day, however, there are some folks who think it’s real and that Santilli’s confession as a disinformation tactic.

2. The Dead Russian Alien

This hoax was pretty creepy. Siberia has a rich history of UFO activity, and the locals believe strongly in the existence of aliens visitors. In 2011 when a man showed a video that he claimed showed the body of a dead alien, the video went viral.

The alien corpse turned out to be chicken skin stuffed with bread. And just like the alien autopsy, folks still think the hoax is just a cover story.

3. Crop Circles (Well, at Least Most of Them)

In the early 80’s, reports of crop circles appearing in the fields of England conjured images of UFO landing sites. While reports of crop circles go back many years, their heyday lasted through the late 80’s into the early 90’s.

One of the big clues to the fact that crop circles were hoaxes was their progression over time. When they first appeared in the early 80’s they were simple circles or groups of circles. By the early 90’s, they were full-scale pieces of artwork. The gradually increasing complexity was a dead giveaway: hoaxers were just getting better at their craft.

Then in 1991, David Chorley and Doug Bower admitted to creating the crop circles. And while there’s no way they created all of them, it’s likely that their actions created a lot of other UFO hoaxers who learned to create crop circles. The designs continue to appear in fields to this day.

4. The Great Moon Hoax

This one goes way back to 1835. A newspaper called The Sun fabricated a story about an astronomer named Sir Herschel who spotted living creatures on the moon. His observations included unicorns, beavers, bison, and bat-like humanoids on the surface of the moon.

The Sun never actually issued any retraction for the hoax. The newspaper was published up until 1950 and was considered a legitimate newspaper.

5. The Adamski Videos

George Adamski perpetrated one of the most popular of the UFO hoaxes. Interestingly, he still retains credit from the UFO community (I have no idea why).

By today’s standards, Adamski’s videos are obvious fakes. His photos and videos have been proven fakes by independent analysts multiple times. Some were created by simply dangling cardboard cutouts in front of a camera lens with a piece of string.

Adamski cashed in on his UFO hoaxes writing 3 books and making a living claiming strange stories through his life. He claimed that aliens lived on just about every planet in the solar system.

Alien & UFO Hoaxes: Damaging Credibility of Ufologists

It’s incredibly important that ufologists turn a skeptical perspective to all evidence. Without an objective perspective, researchers who study UFOs lose credibility with the public.

While some hoaxers think they’re helping out the cause by providing ‘proof’ of what they already believe to be true, in reality, they’re damaging the unexplained phenomena. UFO hoaxes create extra work for a community of researchers who’re already spread too thin to adequately research the real sightings out there.