[marlor]

A few guys in my PhD office 15 years ago used to have a hobby of doing something similar.

They’d invent a “fact”, spin up a webpage with that fact, add the fact to Wikipedia and cite the webpage to add plausibility.

Then one of them would occasionally Google to see if any “reputable” sources were repeating that “fact” (after reading it on Wikipedia) and add/swap their references in to strengthen the Wikipedia text.

As long as the “facts” were trivial enough, it worked.

[prox]

Reminds me there was a woman who made up wholly fictional histories, it was featured on HN not too long ago.

[snickerbockers]

When i was a kid i thought the Pacific Northwest tree octopus was real.