A Giant Hoax

http://www.trivia-library.com/b/famous-hoaxes-history-of-the-cardiff-giant.htm

In 1869, on a little farm in New York, two workers uncovered a gigantic fossil of a man. The impressive fossil was about ten and a half feet tall. Once the media got a hold of this story, masses of people started pouring into the farm to have a look at the fossil. Not surprisingly, the owner of the farm, William Newell, charged the people a lot of money to see the fossil. He basically made a fortune within a few weeks. Expert paleontologists declared that the fossil was real. However some skeptics believed it was carved by a professional sculptor. Someone hired a professional sculptor to come examine it, and he noticed chisel marks all over the "fossil". He almost immediately could tell it was a fake. Then some rich guy came and tried to buy the "fossil" from Newell because he saw how much money Newell was making. When Newell refused to sell it, the rich guy simply hired a sculptor to duplicate it. However, both men displayed their "giants" on the same day in New York. But the rich man said he was showing Newell to be a fraud. Eventually the hoax was uncovered. Repoters found out Newell had contracted a sculptor in Chicago to make the statue. Eventually Newell confessed.