Have there ever been any notable hoaxes on the main page? Major points if the hoax was Today's Featured Article. After searching a little, I can't seem to locate any, but it seems overwhelmingly likely that at least a few hoaxes have slipped into DYK over the years. Ten points if the hoax wasn't found until after it was already off the main page.

There have certainly been DYK hoaxes, including at least one in 2008 (I can't remember any of the details, but I remember it happening). I very much doubt that there have been any outright hoaxes as TFA, but I suspect that some TFAs have had deliberately incorrect information in them at the time they went live.

I should have searched a bit better. Baldock Beer Disaster was a DYK hoax. For a list of some other ones, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ashibaka/Hoaxes

Bavarian Pigeon Corps

That one was written by an admin, made the main page as DYK and was soon after found out to be a hoax following an unsuccessful (and pointy) AFD.

What happened to the admin? Bet he wasnt banned!

She wasn't, and now she's telling tales of her exploits on Wikipedia-related message boards.

(In the admin's defense, however, she doesn't seem to have realized that it was a hoax at the time of creation.)

Why does the page redirect to "Pigeons in aerial photography" and feature such spectacular fakes as this one?

Yea, they didn't ban me. I didn't know it was a hoax, and apparently neither do The Smithsonian, The FBI, a couple college professors in the states, some chick that writes for Reuters. I had quality sources... they'd just all been duped.

Hans Adler pulled up a whole bunch of German sources about the work of Neubronner. A lot of the article was factual, but the birds were never in combat, and there was never a little squad of them named the Bavarian Pigeon Corps. But they did fly with chest-mounted cameras designed by Neubronner. Sorry, JohnA. Those images aren't a hoax.

Sherurcij (T-C-L-K-R-D) got busted for trying to pass a hoax DYK nomination through the vetting process by inserting it in the "five days ago created" list just hours before it was due to expire. That did not obligate any admin to accept the nomination, but an unsuspecting admin might have put it on the main page had not some alert reviewer caught the subterfuge. So it did not make the main page, but it could have. Sherurcij admitted it was a breaching experiment. He was not blocked because he had oodles of experience points, but he was told on the Administrators' Noticeboard to behave himself. I don't remember when this was; but an archive search should turn it up.

those pigeons could use some backpacks, helmets, and cigarettes.

Pigeons on the grass alas, alas...

So a model editor (and Wikinews reporter) like Sherurcij gets carpeted for that and some admins do things 1000 times worse and nothing happens to them?

There's already a wiki on the famous "Project X-ray" WW II Bat bomb (incindiary bomb carrrying bats, to be dropped over Japan, where they would roost in dark wooden attics and eves, until going off). It would probably have worked, as it destroyed some US installations in testing. Needs a good photo. A bat can carry its own weight in flight, unlike a pigeon.

I thought the phrase the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit was a pretty good hoax: two jokes in seven words.

Here is the ANI discussion.

He did this stunt shortly before his yearly Wikisource sysop reconfirmation, which is one of the more lively reconfirmations we have had over on Wikisource. In the end, he was reconfirmed.

Hm. Why dont they let the community on WS run WP? Seems theyd do a much better job.