File this one under the heading "It Looked Better on Paper." In 1999, presenters at KSJJ Radio in central Oregon announced on air that the Ochoco dam had burst, potentially causing dangerous flooding (is there any other kind?) to downstream areas. Making the hoax more credible was that, during the previous year, hundreds of homes in the region had been damaged for real when the Ochoco creek flooded, meaning that frantic homeowners were now ready to evacuate the area. When the DJs confessed that it was all a joke they were apparently "having a little fun" one imagines they didn't just lose lots of listeners but had to put up with a flood (ahem) of complaints for some time to come.
Top 10 Shocking Hoaxes
Georgians were in for the shock of their lives on March 13 when the progovernment Imedi station reported Russian tanks were invading again, barely 18 months on from the short war of 2008. In honor of this bizarre news hoax, TIME takes look at more of history's most outrageous deceptions