It was April 1st, a day that had pranks baked into its DNA, and the world, as usual, was bracing for impact. The morning sun had barely yawned over the horizon when the first signs of mischief began bubbling to the surface.

Take, for instance, the time when the BBC—an organisation renowned for its stiff-upper-lip credibility—decided to loosen its collar and let the absurdity flow. It was 1957, a simpler time when the internet wasn’t around to fact-check in real-time and when people still believed that trusted news organisations wouldn’t dare engage in tomfoolery. That was the year the BBC aired a segment about the “Swiss Spaghetti Harvest”.

With the authority of a national broadcaster and the deadpan seriousness of a wartime announcement, the BBC showed footage of farmers in Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from trees. Neatly hung strands of pasta dangled from branches like ripened fruit. The voiceover explained that thanks to an exceptionally mild winter, the Swiss had been blessed with an especially bountiful spaghetti crop that year.

Aghast at their culinary ignorance, viewers flooded the BBC’s phone lines. “How do we grow our spaghetti trees?” They wanted to know. “What kind of soil does one need?” Does it require pruning? The hoax had been so well-executed that it took quite some time before the public realised they had been played. But by then, the BBC had already secured its place in April Fool’s history as the first news agency to make pasta the punchline of a global joke.

That was merely the beginning of April Fool’s Day hoaxes that left the world chortling, gasping, and, in some cases, profoundly regretting their gullibility.

In 1998, “Burger King” pulled off a culinary prank with their grand announcement: the “Left-Handed Whopper”. The advertisement, which ran in USA Today, claimed that the new Whopper was explicitly designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans, with all the condiments rotated 180 degrees for maximum left-handed convenience. The next day, thousands of right-handed customers requested right-handed Whoppers, and lefties proudly ordered what they thought was a revolutionary new burger. The restaurant chain had to clarify: all Whoppers, regardless of orientation, were equally edible by people of all hand preferences.

Sometimes, the hoaxes weren’t merely meant for innocent fun but had the power to shake entire industries, sending them into a spiral of confusion. Take the infamous “Taco Liberty Bell Hoax” of 1996. Taco Bell, in an elaborate joke, announced that they had purchased the “Liberty Bell”- yes, the very symbol of American independence—and were renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. The response was immediate and explosive. Outraged citizens called the National Park Service, demanding how the government could dare sell off a historic monument to a fast-food chain. It wasn’t until several hours later that Taco Bell admitted the prank, though by that point, the news cycle had already combusted with debates, fury, and plenty of belly laughs.

But nothing beats the time a volcano eruption was faked just for the sheer thrill of an April Fool’s Day joke. The year was 1974, and in Alaska’s sleepy Sitka town, a particularly mischievous prankster named Oliver “Porky” Bickar decided to give his neighbours the fright of their lives. At dawn, he and his accomplices scaled the dormant volcano Mount Edgecumbe and set hundreds of old tyres on fire inside its crater. Thick, ominous black smoke billowed into the sky.

The townsfolk panicked. This was it—the day of reckoning. Mount Edgecumbe was about to blow. Authorities scrambled, aircraft were sent to investigate, and the terror continued until a pilot flew close enough to read what had been painted in massive letters along the rim of the crater: “APRIL FOOL”.

Even law enforcement wasn’t immune to getting caught in the chaos of April 1st. Police departments worldwide have, knowingly or unknowingly, found themselves both the perpetrators and the victims of April Fool’s shenanigans.
One of the most classic cases occurred in London in 1980. A local newspaper published a piece claiming that “Big Ben was going digital”. The historic clock tower, a symbol of British identity, would eliminate its traditional hands and display the time in a flashy LED format. Londoners lost their collective minds. Radio stations were bombarded with irate callers who couldn’t believe how the administration could tolerate such an act of vandalism. The outrage reached such proportions that officials had to publicly assure everyone that Big Ben was staying as it was—no digital transformation was in the works.

Not to be outdone, in 2014, a police department in the United Kingdom decided to prank the public by announcing that crime could now be reported through smell. They unveiled what they called the Odour Identification System, claiming that victims of theft or assault could now visit police stations and identify suspects purely through their scent profile. Despite the obvious absurdity of the claim, some people genuinely inquired about how the system worked and whether it could be used in unsolved cases.

One of the most riotous law enforcement pranks happened in the United States when a sheriff’s department decided to announce that drug dealers should register their products with the police to ensure “safety and quality control”. The department went as far as to set up an actual phone line and invited drug dealers to come in to have their contraband tested for purity voluntarily. To the astonishment (and amusement) of everyone, a few overly trusting individuals showed up—only to be promptly arrested.

Even corporations have gotten in on the prankster action, with “Google being the undisputed king of April Fool’s jokes”. Every year, tech enthusiasts wait in eager anticipation to see what elaborate hoax the company will pull. Some of their best pranks include the time they announced a scratch-and-sniff search engine (Google Nose), an “AI-powered plant translator” (Google Tulip), and their claim that “YouTube was shutting down permanently to declare a single winner from all uploaded videos”.
One of their more elaborate hoaxes was the Google Mic Drop in 2016. This added a special “send” button to Gmail that attached a GIF of a Minion dropping a mic, ending the conversation. It was supposed to be a fun joke, but it backfired when users accidentally sent this Minion mic drop to bosses, clients, and serious email threads. Google had to turn off the feature within hours and apologise profusely.

Despite the annual absurdity, there is something deeply human about April Fool’s Day. It reminds us that for all our deadlines, responsibilities, and worries, “we are still creatures who love to laugh”. We love absurdity, the unexpected, the thrill of deception that doesn’t hurt but instead delights.

Pranks that almost go too far, but pull back just in time.
Mornings when you wake up thinking the world is running as usual—only to find that someone has claimed spaghetti grows on trees, that your favourite landmark is about to be rebranded by a taco chain, or that your local volcano has suddenly decided to burst into flames.

And somehow, for one day in April, we embrace it. We suspend disbelief, get caught in the game, and let ourselves be fooled for just a few hours. Deep down, we know that laughter is the best prank of all.

• By JAYANTH MURALI
  Retired IPS officer of the rank of Director-General of Police.