Even though this is the kind of scheme that is a staple of slapstick comedies, it turns out that this is actually illegal, for some reason. Ford was arrested immediately, with officers showing him security camera footage of him and his buddies leaving a shop carrying booze. Ford was sentenced to 16 weeks, and his girlfriend later told media, "He was a total idiot. I've made that clear to him. But it was one-off and our relationship is otherwise very strong. I know Leigh loves me and he has done his best to make things up to me." Score one for the power of love! Maybe!

Related: The 5 Most Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught In History Class

No, she made the dangerously stupid report in order to break up the engagement. You know, by getting her sister's fiance tagged as an enemy of the state. In court, she said, "My sister was my best friend and then one day she was gone [to live with her future husband]. I was so devastated. It happened so quickly and then I did something foolish and terrible. I ended up thinking of no one but myself." Side note: This is a great premise for Bridesmaids II: Judgement Day.

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Of course, since this was all a hoax to test people's gullibility, there was no magician. After waiting for a while, the audience started to get steadily angrier, and finally decided to make their own entertainment. After someone threw a candle on stage in protest, the audience began to tear up the seats and benches. They took everything that they could carry out of the theater and lit it on fire in the streets, stole the box office receipts, and even ripped the curtain down to use it as a makeshift flag. All in the name of a magic show that didn't happen.

You can only imagine the consequences for the two men behind the fiasco. And I mean literally that you can only imagine them, because there were none. It would be years before they would even be suspected as the pranksters, and it appears they suffered no punishment whatsoever. Hell, to them, the whole riot thing probably just made it funnier.

Related: The 5 Most Ridiculous Lies Ever Published As Non-Fiction

Pitcher Roger Clemens felt so inspired that he decided to get Johnson a custom motorcycle helmet with his unit logo on it as a birthday gift. Clemens checked around, but couldn't find which unit his manager served under, so he called Johnson's wife. Since they apparently never talked Full Metal Jacket at the dinner table, she told Clemens that it never happened. Word spread, and soon the media got wind of the sweet smell of bullshit in the morning.

It turned out Johnson had indeed served in the Marine Corps, but he was stationed in California and never saw combat. After a drawn-out and very public shaming, Johnson was fired from the Blue Jays in 1999, and his career hasn't recovered in the two decades since. He found work managing a team in Mexico, where reportedly one cheeky sports agent asked whether he was "telling his players he fought at the Alamo."

While we're on the subject ...

Related: A Terrifying True Fable That Will Make You Never Lie Again

The lie was exposed after a major who had, incredibly, gotten wounded during the fake battle, blew the whistle on it. A commander also became suspicious of the abnormally high level of kills reported. Of course, there was also the fact that Pakistani forces didn't seem bothered by, or even aware of, their spectacular defeat, and that some of the footage was missing a common feature of battle: gunshots.

After an investigation, the country's defense ministry found that Indian soldiers were pretending to be dead Pakistani troops. The same officials also admitted that military operations based on inflated or false information is kind of a common thing. It's just that most don't go as far as to choreograph an action scene to back up their claim. Maybe in the future, soldiers on the ground will fight entire wars this way, just faking for the cameras until their leaders decide to negotiate a truce.

Devin Pacholik is a Canadian writer known for being a decorated astronaut, sexy neurosurgeon and completely honest guy from Saskatchewan. He has a website or you can follow him on Twitter.

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