Are there any VMS-type hoaxes?

[nablator]

George Psalmanazar, an 18th-century European con artist became a celebrity in London by pretending to be the first person from Formosa (modern-day Taiwan) to visit England. He fooled high society by inventing an entire culture, writing system, and made-up language.

Psalmanazar's book also described the Formosan language, an early example of a constructed language. His efforts in this regard were so convincing that German grammarians included samples of his so-called "Formosan alphabet", in books about language, well into the 19th century, even after his larger imposture had been exposed.

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So it's a conlang, not a nonsensical language, but made-up nonetheless.