Hoax

Deliberately publicised falsehood meant to deceive

A hoax is a widely publicised falsehood deliberately created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with either malicious or humorous intent. In ufology and exopolitics, the "hoax" label is itself contested: while some UFO cases are acknowledged fabrications, disclosure proponents hold that the hoax explanation is also deployed as a debunking or disinformation instrument to discredit authentic evidence of non-human intelligent beings without engaging it — the hoax theory.[citation needed]

This article incorporates material from the Wikipedia article "Hoax", as of 2026-06-18, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

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