On April Fools’ Day 1957, the BBC told Britain that spaghetti grows on trees. Many people believed it. 🍝

BBC’s Panorama showed a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti after a mild winter, with the “spaghetti weevil” nearly gone, narrated in a serious voice by Richard Dimbleby. About 8 million people watched. Spaghetti was still exotic in Britain, mostly known from tins, so some viewers were convinced. The next day hundreds of them phoned to ask how to grow their own. The BBC’s reply: “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.” The idea came from cameraman Charles de Jaeger, who remembered his school teachers teasing classmates for believing spaghetti grew on trees. CNN later called it “the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled.”

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