30 of the Dumbest Scams People Thought Were Real

On October 15, 2009, Richard and Mayumi Heene alerted their local NBC affiliate that their son Falcon had, unbeknownst to them, climbed in the basket of a large, flying-saucer-shaped balloon just before takeoff. The story quickly grew into a media sensation with stations all over the country covering it, helicopters tracking the balloon and planes being rerouted to avoid it.

After 90 minutes, the balloon landed and Falcon wasn’t inside. While some feared he’d fallen out, it was soon discovered that the child was hiding in the attic of the Heene’s house. During an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Falcon accidentally gave away that the whole thing was a hoax. When asked why he was hiding, Falcon replied to his dad, “You guys said that, um, we did this for the show.”

The hoax quickly unraveled from there, and the Heenes were charged with a $36,000 fine and jail time. All in all, it was pretty dumb — almost as dumb as naming your kid Falcon.

That’s just one example of a stupid thing everyone thought was real, and Redditors provided a bunch more, for your reading pleasure below.