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Reference.org
Spaghetti-tree hoax
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<p>The spaghetti-tree hoax was a three-minute <a href="/facts/Hoax/AsSvg6Tp">hoax</a> report broadcast on <a href="/facts/April_Fools%2527_Day/KXnQtCTX">April Fools' Day</a> 1957 by the <a href="/facts/BBC/qFateIz8">BBC</a> current-affairs programme <i><a href="/facts/Panorama_(British_TV_programme)/r7rwQ5cR">Panorama</a></i>, purportedly showing a family in southern <a href="/facts/Switzerland/LcGuxeTe">Switzerland</a> harvesting <a href="/facts/Spaghetti/Cl6uU6Vs">spaghetti</a> from a "spaghetti tree". At the time of the report's broadcast, spaghetti was relatively unknown in the United Kingdom, and a number of viewers contacted the BBC afterwards for advice on growing their own spaghetti trees. Decades later, <a href="/facts/CNN/kEYsUQqr">CNN</a> called this broadcast "the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled". </p>