Steinzeitschwindel

Personae dramatis:

1. Manuel Elizalde, a wealthy Filipino looking for eternal fame
2. Dafal, a Mindanao hunter looking for a little extra cash
3. About 25 Mindanao villagers
4. A few empty caves
5. The mysterious and adventurous appeal of "uncontacted peoples"
6. A little more cash to grease the wheels
7. Some fake stone axes.

A Tasaday family operating a Palaeolithic fire drill

The result: the "Tasaday", the most primitive people on earth, whose technology had not progressed beyond the "Stone Age". Elizalde announced his discovery in 1972; articles in the National Geographic as well as a tv documentary ensued, and the area where the Tasaday lived was fenced off to "protect" them from outside interference.

In 1986, shortly after the demise of the Marcos regime, the hoax was exposed by Swiss anthropologist Oswald Iten. Being among Marcos' closer associates, Elizalde had already fled the Philippines with $35 million dollars from the non-profit organization that he had set up to promote the Tasaday's interests. He ended up in Costa Rica, where he became addicted to drugs, and died impoverished in 1997.
 

Manuel Elizalde in 1970, two years before his "discovery"