Unbelievable but true…
If you've never heard of the "Octopus Tragedy" that struck the Staten Island ferry in New York in 1963, it's because it never happened.
It was that year that a giant octopus supposedly wrapped with its huge tentacles one of the famous orange ships of the suburban line, dragging everything to the bottom.
Although the monument still stands in a Manhattan park today, it was the work of a New Yorker who described it as a tribute to the city he had adored and spent his entire life.
His name is Joseph Reginella and he continues to live on Staten Island. He is a sculptor and in parallel with his professional activities, he resorts to humor to exorcise the dangers of the metropolis.
So a few years ago he was on the ferry with his little nephew, who disturbed him in the children's questions about the threats of water. Reginella thus told him a fantastic story about a huge octopus that had swallowed the liner in the 1960s, leaving the bomber with its mouth open.
And then he thought of erecting a monument to the fantastic tragedy! Scramble a regular story with names and dates and everything. The ferry, now known as the Cornelius G. Kolff, had "disappeared without a trace" into a sea of "large tentacles" and sent 400 passengers from Staten Island to Manhattan on November 22, 1963. . Yes, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated!
Thus ensuring the fact that the unknown tragedy was buried in the press by the other news, equally colossal. Later he set up a show with some friends and now the whole spectacle was audiovisual: from photos from the shipwreck and "teased" news of the time to a short documentary about the naval tragedy. The atheist even obtained eyewitness testimonies by setting up a first-rate prank.
In the end, he pretended that there was even an "Octopus Museum" on Staten Island, so he wrote at least the pamphlet he distributed to the tourists of the park that houses his statue.
At some point, however, the media began to play its story, when everything was revealed. Although despite the lie, the monument has not lost its charm…