10 of the Eeriest Halloween Hoaxes of All Time

“They should have whipping posts for people like you.” That was the admonishment of Judge Benjamin Segal of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who meted out justice to 52-year-old Jack Thomas in the fall of 1969. The father of three was accused of burying razor blades into apples and then handing them out for Halloween. Unable to post the $10,000 bail, he was remanded to jail.

Within days, however, the girls aged 10 to 14 who accused Thomas of attempting to maim them recanted: It was all a hoax. Thomas was released, though it’s doubtful he found any humor in it. Angry neighbors had been threatening to burn his house down.

Stories of tampered candy and treats have persisted for decades around Halloween—almost all of them unfounded—but they’re far from the only mischief hoaxers have kept busy with during the haunted season. Check out some memorable Halloween tricks that fooled police, the public, or both.

1. The Ghostwatch Hoax
2. The Pend Oreille River Skeleton Hoax
3. The Alien Invasion Hoax
4. The Russian Invasion Hoax
5. The Jail or Trick-or-Treat Hoax
6. The Satanic Cult Hoax
7. The $20 Bill Hoax
8. The Abandoned Baby Hoax
9. The Rainbow Fentanyl Hoax
10. The Train Tracks Body Hoax

The Ghostwatch Hoax

The British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, is often held up as a standard of journalistic excellence—and that’s exactly why Stephen Volk thought he could convince people ghosts were real. In 1992, Volk partnered with the channel to produce Ghostwatch, a primetime news special in which familiar BBC presenters Sarah Greene, Craig Charles, and Michael Parkinson hosted a documentary-style profile of the Early family. The Earlys claimed a ghost they dubbed “Pipes” was causing disturbances in their home. A camera crew recorded every eerie noise as viewers—most of whom had missed print and onscreen disclaimers that the special was fictitious—grew increasingly frightened. By the time one of the presenters was being “possessed” by Pipes, they were apoplectic.

The special resulted in several complaints and even a case study in the British Medical Journal, which profiled two boys who were said to be suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of the show; one woman reportedly went into labor during it. The BBC balefully fielded criticism, including a scolding from parapsychologist Susan Blackmore.

“It treated the audience unfairly,” Blackmore said. “It can be exciting to play on the edge of fantasy and reality, or stretch the accepted norms of television conventions, but this was neither true to its format nor fun. It was horrid to watch the distress of the girls, real or faked. I found it over-long and occasionally disgusting … The lack of adequate warnings was irresponsible.” (Some years later, in 1999, U.S. viewers would experience a similar fright when the pseudo-documentary Blair Witch Project fooled some into believing it was actual footage.)

The Pend Oreille River Skeleton Hoax

In October 2023, paddle boarders navigating the Pend Oreille River in Washington were dismayed to find what appeared to be skeletal remains nestled in a cave off the water. Numerous agencies, including the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, responded to the report. When a WDFW official and Pend Oreille detective swam out to the cave, they found the “skeleton” was really just a beer bong in the shape of a skull and spinal column that had been weighed down with rocks.

The Alien Invasion Hoax

In 1938, radio personality Orson Welles had some fun at the expense of his audience. On Halloween Eve, Welles used his Mercury Theater on the Air performance troupe to perform a loose adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel War of the Worlds on CBS. The (seemingly) real news bulletins stoically informed listeners that aliens had arrived in New Jersey. (In the Wells book, it’s Great Britain.)

“I had conceived the idea of doing a radio broadcast in such a manner that a crisis would actually seem to be happening,” Welles later said, “and would be broadcast in such a dramatized form as to appear to be a real event taking place at that time, rather than a mere radio play.”

While the mass panic the show was believed to have incited is likely exaggerated—as few as 2 percent of the listening audience was tuned into the broadcast—it fooled enough people that Welles had to stand before a jury of reporters and explain his actions. Whether he meant to teach listeners a lesson about believing everything they heard on the radio or he earnestly wanted to deliver a drama remains open to interpretation. Either way, it remains the most well-known of all Halloween hoaxes.

The Russian Invasion Hoax

Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938 apparently inspired one mischievous student of Dominguez High School in Long Beach, California, some 50 years later. In October 1986, the student utilized the school’s public address system to announce that Russia had just declared war on the United States. Students heard that the country had shot down U.S. warplanes over the Mediterranean Sea and that then-president Ronald Reagan was preparing to retaliate.

Some kids were so distraught they burst into tears; others fled their classrooms. After a public outcry, principal Fred Easter admitted he had approved of the prank; the announcement was read in an adult woman’s voice, leading some to believe a faculty member was involved. “I don’t see why this is newsworthy,” Easter was quoted as saying.

The Jail or Trick-or-Treat Hoax

Trick-or-treaters in Denver, Colorado, got a little taste of their own medicine in 2019 when social media-savvy hoaxers circulated a list of local Halloween ordinances. Among them was an ordinance noting that anyone over 12 caught knocking on doors for candy could be jailed for up to six months. Anyone under 12 caught after 8 p.m. might get 30 days in jail, plus fines. Denver police refuted the information, though some municipalities set up a trick-or-treat cap at age 12, hoping to deter older pranksters. It’s unlikely, however, that a violation would result in jail time.

The Satanic Cult Hoax

Satanic Panic ran rampant in the 1980s, with rumors of demonic activity circulating across the country. (At one point, even McDonald’s was rumored to be in league with the devil; it was said the company was donating to the Church of Satan with proceeds from McNuggets.) In Wilton, Connecticut, in 1986, parents were concerned over stories of a cult looking for child sacrifices and blood that purportedly had been spilled on church steps. Several school principals even sent letters home cautioning that “normal precautions” should be taken regarding child safety. Police never found any substance to the rumor.

The $20 Bill Hoax

Listeners of WRVW in Nashville, Tennessee, got a scare in October 1998, but not from any ghosts. As part of a Halloween hoax, announcers informed those tuned into the radio station that all $20 bills were set to expire at the end of the working day to make room for newly minted currency. The bit caused customers to wade into local banks and attempt to explain the problem to puzzled tellers. The station then had to make an exchange of its own: Instead of promoting the prank, they began airing an hourly retraction and apology.

The Abandoned Baby Hoax

In 1965, Robert Wilson and his wife decided to pay back their neighbor in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for her ceaseless Halloween pranks. On October 31, the neighbor, Mrs. Voeltz, was greeted by a live, mewling infant on her front steps.

“At first, I thought it was someone’s laundry,” she said. “But then we saw something move.” The Wilsons let Mrs. Voeltz panic about an abandoned baby for a few fleeting minutes before admitting the infant belonged to their houseguests.

The Rainbow Fentanyl Hoax

In 2022, reports of a devious distribution of the addictive drug fentanyl were circulating. Drug cartels, as the story went, were producing “rainbow” fentanyl that resembled candy in the hopes of creating young addicts. But no such fentanyl has ever been discovered—during Halloween or any other time of the year. Despite decades of rumors, there have been hardly any documented cases of contaminated treats.

The Train Tracks Body Hoax

Halloween 1879 was an eventful one for residents of Cincinnati, Ohio. According to The Cincinnati Daily Star, kids terrorized the city with the “spirit of devilment,” stringing rats along a meat shop entrance and switching signs to create confusion. But the most severe infraction was when a group of boys arranged for a stuffed sack vaguely resembling a man to get sprawled out across train tracks. The train’s engineer braked in time to “save” the dummy, only to be jeered at by roughly 200 delinquents standing nearby.

The old dead-body chestnut is a popular one at Halloween. In 1958, pranksters in Mount Vernon, Illinois, smeared two mannequins with ketchup and left them to be discovered. A traffic pile-up resulted before police could identify the ruse.

But not all such cases have a relatively harmless ending. In 2018, a skull was delivered to the Oakland Police Department by someone who said they discovered it in a grassy area of their apartment complex. Officers assumed it was a Halloween prank until closer inspection revealed it was an actual human skull. The remains have yet to be publicly identified.

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