You've probably seen the photo. Grainy and gray, it shows the neck and head of some type of large sea monster rising from the freshwater of Scotland's Loch Ness. When the photo first appeared in 1934, many people believed it was real. After all, it was taken by Robert Wilson, a respected London doctor, and stories of a monster in the loch had been swirling around Scotland for more than 1,400 years.
But in the 1990s, the photo was exposed as a hoax. Ian Wetherell and his stepbrother, Christian Spurling, confessed they had created it by attaching a monster head to a toy submarine [source: Naish].
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Hoaxes like the Loch Ness monster have been around for centuries, created by people as jokes, or for profit or attention. And as crazy as some of them seem in hindsight, people are always willing to buy into them. Maybe believing in seemingly unbelievable things is part of the human psyche. Or maybe we just like to believe in whatever scientists and experts don't. Whatever the reason, don't think you'll never be fooled. Because sages and fools alike have been tricked by the following 13 hoaxes.