5. Channel 4 Tricked A Bunch Of People Into Thinking They Were Headed For Space
Most hoaxes are fairly low budget. In general, it's not too wise to spend a ton of money on pulling a prank. They're rather unpredictable, and don't always go the way they're planned. They're usually fairly short-lived, too, with the nature of the joke being revealed immediately after the prank or within twenty-four hours. In 2005, Britain's Channel 4 broke both of those conventions, creating the most expensive hoax in the history of English television. Not only that, but the hoax lasted several weeks. It all started with a new reality TV series called Space Cadets. The show was centred on twelve people who were selected to potentially become space tourists. In actuality, the contestants had no idea they were on a reality TV show. They knew they were being filmed, but they believed it was just for training purposes. As it turned out, three of the contestants were actually actors who were in on the whole thing. Channel 4 spared no expense when it came to making the hoax seem as real as possible. For a start, they spent a huge amount of money on acquiring a space shuttle prop (which was used in the film Space Cowboys, and was originally created using a NASA blueprint). Not only that, but several Hollywood special effects artists worked behind the scenes to make it seem as if the winners were actually blasting off into space. In the end, the show didn't even do that well, and only one of the show's winners (if you can call them that) was irritated that they never got to travel into space.
