55 years ago, at the height of UFO hysteria, two young barbers and a butcher took a dead monkey in 1953, lopped off its tail and applied a liberal dose of hair remover and some green coloring to the carcass. Then they left it on an isolated road north of Atlanta in the pre-dawn hours of July 8, 1953, burning a circle into the pavement with a blowtorch before a police officer came around the curve in his patrol car. Result Word of the discovery spread like wildfire. The whole world got psyched about this new mars monkey thingy. USA had the Air Force and everybody else trying to find out about it. Conclusion The 3 mastermind behind this -- Watters, Wilson and Payne -- eventually admitted to the hoax and Watters paid a $40 fine for obstructing a highway. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation still have that monkey on display.