Barnum's Fiji Mermaid, an ugly, dried-up, black object about
three-feet (one-meter) long, was promoted as being half-
monkey and half-fish. It was eventually found to be a hoax.

Poet Edgar Allan Poe ran a long-running hoax promotion of a
manned balloon flight across the Atlantic.

Tourists flocked to Palisade, Nevada when the city boasted
its regular gunfights and street brawls. However, what the
visitors didn't know was that all the fights were staged.

A report in The Illustrated London News of February 9, 1856
claimed that a living pterodactyl (an extinct flying rep-
tile) had been discovered in France.

A hotel operator hoaxed tourists to visit his city by crea-
ting a "Silver Lake Serpent" that lured many people to the
area.