What was the title of the BBC's 2008 flying penguin trailer?
Answer
Miracles of Evolution
Answer
Miracles of Evolution
The BBC's 2008 flying penguin trailer was titled Miracles of Evolution.
The short film was presented as a natural-history discovery proving that some Adélie penguins had evolved the ability to fly. In the fictional story, the birds escaped Antarctic winters by migrating thousands of kilometres to South American rainforests, where they supposedly landed in the treetops.
Miracles of Evolution was an April Fools' hoax released on 1 April 2008. The BBC supported the joke with publicity in newspapers including The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mirror, helping the fabricated discovery look like a major scientific announcement.
The trailer used real Antarctic penguin footage alongside computer-generated flying penguins. Its mock-documentary style, Terry Jones's narration and the invented expert “Prof Alid Loyas” made the piece unusually convincing. The title is sometimes mistaken for a description such as “Flying Penguins,” but Miracles of Evolution was the advertised trailer title.
Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026