Phone

After digging to a depth of 100m last year, Russian scientists found traces of copper wiring dating back 1000 years, and came to the conclusion that heir ancestors already had a telephone network 1000 years ago.

So as not to be outdone, in the weeks that followed, American scientists dug 200m, and headlines in the US newspapers read "US scientists have found traces of 2000 year old optical fibres, and have concluded that their ancestors already had advanced high-tech digital telephone 1000 years earlier than the Russians."

One week later, the Sri Lankan press reported the following: "After digging as deep as 500m, SriLankan scientists have found absolutely nothing. They have concluded that 5000 years ago, their ancestors were already using mobile phones."