The hoax ‘documentary’ about human flesh-eating that shocked the UK

And TV viewers have learned to be especially wary on April Fool’s Day. As far back as 1 April 1957, the BBC’s current affairs programme Panorama carried a report about that year’s bountiful spaghetti tree harvest. Australia’s This Day Tonight once reported that Sydney Opera House was sinking. France 3 claimed that the French government was going to release giant pandas in the Pyrenees. Russian Public TV carried a story that a spring in the Caucasus mountains could cure male baldness.

But the TV hoax without equal was not an April Fool’s gag. British TV “event” Ghostwatch was broadcast on BBC One on Halloween 1992. Presented as a live broadcast hosted by Michael Parkinson, its supposed purpose was to gather evidence of the supernatural. It featured footage of poltergeist phenomena and culminated in a malevolent entity taking over the TV studio. It was genuinely terrifying, resulting in tens of thousands of calls to the BBC and outrage in the newspapers.

“Ghostwatch was always intended to be two things,” its writer Stephen Volk tells BBC Culture. “First of all, a scary ghost story. Secondly, there was going to be a subtext of satire regarding television itself and the way the media was going. The idea of a BBC light entertainment show exploring the metaphysics of paranormal research using well known TV personalities was just too delicious and potent and irresistible a mix.”

“Centrally, as a drama – and this gets overlooked in the obsession with it being a ‘prank’ – Ghostwatch was about, who do you trust? Do you trust this broadcaster? This expert, just because they have a caption in front of them? Do you trust this image we are showing you? Do you trust your eyes?

“We now live firmly in the age of fake news – even before we get into AI – so there’s never been a more important time to get people to question where they are getting their information, from whom, and whether they can trust it.”

The influence of Ghostwatch has been visible in a number of TV specials since, among them Derren Brown: Séance, in which the famed illusionist purported to hold a live séance. Who knows what future shows might be cooked up as a result of Miracle Meat?

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