Wonderful Achievers No One Ever Knew About

• Sports Illustrated, in its April 1985 issue, published an article by George Plimpton reporting that Mets team has struck a pot of gold by discovering a new rookie pitcher for them named Sidd Finch. This wonder player was reported to throw a baseball with pinpoint accuracy at 168 mph (65 mph faster than anyone else till then). What was more wonderful was the fact that Sidd Finch, who was the student in a Tibetan monastery till then under the training of the monk known as Lama Milaraspa, had never played the game before! The excited Mets fans eager to know more about this gifted player were disappointed to know that hey had been hoaxed.
• In 1981, the upright and kind Londoners were much moved by the report published by the Daily Mail about a Japanese long-distance runner, Kimo Nakajimi, who entered the London Marathon. According to the story, Timothy Bryant, an import director, who translated the rules to him had been learning Japanese just for two years and by mistake translated 26 miles, the distance the participants had to run, to 26 days. Thus, the athlete mistaking the race to be one of the very long races organized in Japan is determined to finish the race. Many people called in to say that they had spotted Nakajimi on the roads of England but could not flag him down. The only thing was that there was no such participant in the first place.
• In 1998, a big party was organized at Jeff Koons's New York studio. The party was meant to honor the memory of the late Nat Tate (1928-60) who was a great American abstract artist. He was said to be troubled and committed suicide by leaping to his death from the Staten Island ferry after destroying 99% of his work. The superstar David Bowie read aloud passages from Tate's biography written by William Boyd that was to be released soon. Critics kept appreciating Tate's work throughout the party, not even guessing that the work and the person they appear to know about so well were just the pieces of satirical fiction created by William Boyd. Only people to know the truth were Bowie, Boyd and Boyd's publisher.
• The famous Red Herring Magazine published an article in its April 1999 issue about the invention of a new technology to compose and send email telepathically by the company called Tidal Wave Communications. The Estonian computer genius Yuri Maldini was said to be the mastermind behind the technology and he claimed that he developed it using the encrypted communications systems used in Gulf War by the army. It was said that he even sent e-mail to the reporter interviewing him telepathically as a demonstration. Many readers later admitted that they were really fooled by the article.
• A semi-naked man with 'Soy Bomb' crawled on his chest shocked the viewers, the audience and Bob Dylan by managing to reach the stage and dancing out there during Bob's solo performance at the Grammys that was broadcasted in February 1998. He was quickly escorted away by security guards. Later, on April 1, Rhino Records made a startling announcement that it had signed Soy Bomb for two-year contract, during which he would record six albums and his very first album would include popular classics such as 'Dancing Machine' and 'You Dropped a Bomb on Me'. Apparently, they had been moved by his courageous and bold performance!