In the first quarter of the 18th century, a scientist at the University of Würzburg named Johann Beringer became the victim of an elaborate hoax by colleagues who apparently disliked him for his arrogance, and so decided to teach him a lesson. The fraudsters set about carving limestone into shapes of improbable fossils and made sure that Beringer would find them. Beringer was so convinced by the fossils' authenticity that he published a book, even going so far as to say the limestone may have been chiseled by the hand of God to test mankind's faith. Upon revelation of the hoax, Beringer spend all the money he had trying to buy up every existing copy of his book.
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