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hit the news, kid pranksters everywhere got hungry for a piece of the action. Armed with cameras, they hurled anything disk-like, from hubcaps to pie plates to saucers, into the sky, faking photos by the dozens. Through a camera lens, an old button on the ground can look like a crashed UFO. Some photos can't be proven fake: the film is untampered with, and the graininess of the photos themselves prevents even the experts from obtaining definitive answers as to just what is depicted.

While Fox Mulder's "I Want To Believe" poster is likely a picture of someone's thrown hat, we'll never be able to 'know' for sure. What we do know for sure, though, is that in the forties, a lot of kids stole mom's good silver to aid in an afternoon's mischief, and continue to occasionally do so today. The rest is a matter of likelihood.

2) Crop Circles (1976 - present)

Urbanites and rural-dwellers alike are familiar with the crop circle, of English origin. A couple Englishmen took some planks, some rope, and some measurements to a field in 1975, and after a few separate tries, convinced the area that something wholly unnatural was bending their crops into pretty shapes.

Without a human confession, it was only natural for curious folk to link the big, mysterious, and complex patterns with those big, mysterious, complex UFOs people claimed to see flitting about once in a while. By the time the original human circle makers admitted to their vandalism in 1996, hardly anyone listened. It didn't matter if crop circles could be easily created with common tools, or that a few people showed exactly how it was done: enthusiasts were determined in their convictions, and continue, despite numerous debunkings, to believe that crop circles are of extraterrestrial origin, even today.

1) Scientology (1952 - present)

Scientology is the biggest alien fraud of them all. Using the pressuring technique of lie detection (via "e-meter"), the guided reliving of traumatic experiences, and the dangling carrot of the "next level," L. Ron Hubbard, a famous but mediocre science fiction writer, schemed to take advantage of the bank accounts of the vulnerable by offering them spiritual salvation. Scientology's followers call it a religion. Everyone else calls it a destructive, dangerous cult.

What does it have to do with aliens, though? Therein lies the cincher: once Scientology inductees have grown brainwashed and vulnerable enough to reach a high level of devotion (OT level 7), they are told of the story of Xenu, which was leaked to the public a few years ago. Many are familiar: Xenu was an intergalactic warlord who, billions of years ago, schemed to commit otherworldy genocide. An entire alien species was dumped into a volcano on Earth, and their ghosts were then shown 'movies' of suffering, war, and human religion. These ghosts became thetans, and thetans are what human souls are made of. They cause all human ills. They cling to our subconscious in their misery and confusion, transferring all their problems to us. Scientology, of course, seeks to solve the thetan problem.

Some say Scientologists have retired the story, but the fact remains that this Weekly-World-News-friendly tale was used for decades by the greedy to strengthen the devotion of weary followers. Scientology is now worth millions of dollars due in part to this back story, making it the most successful and fraudulent UFO hoax ever conducted.

Sources:

Michael Shermer's UFO Hoax: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =o7Tu-28hyow

Captain Disillusion's How to Make a UFO Video

Xenu TV:
http://www.xenutv.com/

Learn more about this author, Currie Jean.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

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