https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47114840/4401386
A great friend and mentor Pat "the rat" Riggs April fools day jokes made headlines around the world , the CMF, the airforce and the Army were mobilized......after she reported in the local rag, The Maclaey Argus,on April 1 1969 at the height of the cold war that 10 russian merchant ships had taken shelter in Trial Bay and were requesting asylum.... The locals knew it was getting serious after F1-11;s started visually strafing the bay.... woops. The report was accompanied by a a doctored photo that included famous ships such as "The Bounty, The looflirpa (Aporil fool spelt backwards) and the Titanic supeimposed onto Trial bay
An extract below from Pats biography
https://trove.nla.gov.au/people/775075?c=people
"Having said that, Pat was also very loyal to those friends and family in her corner and she was generous to a fault to those in need. She had a wicked sense of humour, no better illustrated than by the April Fools Day joke she played (with the help of editorial staff and local radio station 2KM) on April 1, 1969.
At the height of Cold War tensions, Pat wrote a story about the arrival of the ten vessels from the Russian merchant fleet taking refuge at Trial Bay, on the coast near Kempsey.
Two hundred of the crew of the ship the Joker had jumped overboard, fearful that Australian authorities would shoot them as spies. Sailors from the pride of the fleet, the Looflirpa, planned to do the same.
The story was accompanied by a doctored photograph that featured pictures of Titanic, the Bounty and other highly recognisable vessels crammed into Trial Bay. Unfortunately for Pat, the trick worked a too well.
Concerned citizens from around the district rushed to the scene, with clothes, blankets and food, to provide comfort to the deserters, only to find themselves duped. Representatives of the Salvation Army were particularly peeved to have spent the cost of a taxi fare and demanded reimbursement from the paper.
Pat was forced to lay low for a while, but the story made news around the world and was reported in Poland and several South American countries."
I have a copy of the Newspaper ...somewhere and an article written about it in a 1970's Post magazine
Springyzone.. the top link in this post comes from an 1980's womens weekly magazine.. here are the spaghetti trees
"
But it is doubtful that any of these has
equalled the Great Spaghetti Hoax of
1967, based on the classic BBC April
Fool skit by Richard Dimbleby in 1957.
For this segment Channel 7 personal-
ity Danny Webb visited a "spaghetti
farm" in the foothills of the Grampians.
He interviewed colleague Damien Ryan,
who posed as a farmer in front of
passionfruit vines draped with cold
Ryan was supposedly representing
1500 Sicilian spaghetti farmers whose
crops had been destroyed by a plague of
spagworm or proglotides pasta.
Many viewers rang Channel 7, having
placed bets that spaghetti grew on trees."
and i raise you.. this 1983 grape story
Last year's prank claimed develop-
ment of a new breed of grape which
A Melbourne scientist was said to have
discovered a way of reducing the grape's
sugar to ensure a riesling grape was be-
ing grown and not a moselle grape.
Thousands of viewers took to the idea
of their favourite riesling fermented on
the vine, although a senior sergeant of
police warned that breath analyser
squads would have to be stationed out-
side fruit shops and that grape-munching
drivers would be treated as severely as
TELL ME AND I WILL FORGET, SHOW ME AND I MAY REMEMBER,, INVOLVE ME AND I WILL UNDERSTAND Confucius 450bc
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