Baloney is a free daily lie-detection game. Each of ten rounds shows three short statements on one topic — exactly one is a plausible fabrication. You tap the fake before the timer, then every statement is revealed as true or false with a one-line truth, and you earn a shareable Baloney Detector verdict from 'Believes Everything' to 'Baloney Immune'. No account, no sign-up.

How do you play Baloney?

Open the site, read the three statements in each round, and tap the one you think is fabricated before the ~30-second timer runs out. After each round the fake is revealed along with the truth of all three statements, plus what percent of today's players got fooled. You win by smell, not recall — no trivia knowledge required.

Yes. Baloney is completely free and ad-supported, with no account, no sign-up, and nothing to install. A new set of ten rounds is released every day and is the same for everyone that day; your streak is saved in your browser.

Case File #0078

Sep 7, 2026 — 10 rounds, declassified. The fabrication in each is marked; the truth of all three follows. Play today's case →

Round 1 FOOD
- ✓ TRUE
  Early forms of sushi used fermented rice to preserve fish, and that rice was often thrown away rather than eaten.
  TRUE. In early 'narezushi,' rice fermentation preserved the fish and the rice was frequently discarded before eating.
- ✗ FABRICATION
  The fast, hand-pressed vinegared-rice 'nigiri' style was invented in Kyoto's imperial court in the 1600s.
  FALSE. Nigiri arose in Edo (old Tokyo) in the early 1800s as fast street food, not in Kyoto's court in the 1600s.
- ✓ TRUE
  Adding vinegar to sushi rice both seasons it and echoes the sourness that fermentation once provided.
  TRUE. Vinegared rice mimics the tang of older fermented sushi while letting the dish be made quickly.
Round 2 NATURE
- ✓ TRUE
  A lightning bolt can heat the air around it to about 30,000 degrees Celsius, several times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
  TRUE. The air along the channel is heated to tens of thousands of degrees in a fraction of a second.
- ✓ TRUE
  Lightning can strike the same place more than once, and tall structures are hit repeatedly.
  TRUE. The Empire State Building and other tall landmarks are struck many times a year.
- ✗ FABRICATION
  Thunder is the sound of the lightning bolt striking the ground and splitting the earth.
  FALSE. Thunder is the shockwave of air rapidly expanding after being superheated by the bolt, not the sound of an impact.
Round 3 HISTORY
- ✓ TRUE
  The Black Death tore through Europe in the mid-1300s, killing a very large share of the continent's population.
  TRUE — the plague killed tens of millions, perhaps a third or more of Europeans.
- ✗ FABRICATION
  During the Black Death, physicians correctly blamed fleas on rats and quarantined the animals to halt the spread.
  FALSE — medieval doctors had no idea fleas or rats carried the disease; the flea-rat link was only understood in the 1890s.
- ✓ TRUE
  The word 'quarantine' comes from the Italian for forty days, the period ships were once held in isolation.
  TRUE — Venetian-era ports isolated arriving ships for forty days as a plague precaution.
Round 4 NATURE
- ✓ TRUE
  Auroras are triggered when charged particles streaming from the Sun collide with gases high in Earth's atmosphere.
  TRUE — Earth's magnetic field funnels these particles toward the poles, where they energize the upper-atmosphere gases.
- ✗ FABRICATION
  The green in an aurora comes from sunlight reflecting off ice crystals high in the atmosphere.
  FALSE — the green light is emitted by oxygen atoms that were energized by incoming particles, not reflected sunlight.
- ✓ TRUE
  Auroras occur on other planets too, including Jupiter and Saturn.
  TRUE — any planet with a magnetic field and an atmosphere can host auroras, and gas giants show powerful ones.
Round 5 GEOGRAPHY
- ✓ TRUE
  The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth and is visible from space.
  TRUE. Stretching thousands of kilometres, it is built by living organisms and can be seen from orbit.
- ✓ TRUE
  Coral reefs are built by tiny animals called polyps that secrete hard calcium carbonate skeletons.
  TRUE. Billions of polyps lay down limestone skeletons that form the reef structure.
- ✗ FABRICATION
  The Great Barrier Reef is a single enormous living organism, one connected creature thousands of kilometres long.
  FALSE. It is a vast collection of billions of individual coral polyps across many separate colonies, not one organism.
Round 6 GEOGRAPHY
- ✗ FABRICATION
  Mount Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain on Earth when measured from its base to its summit.
  FALSE. Measured base-to-summit, Hawaii's Mauna Kea is tallest; Everest is highest above sea level.
- ✓ TRUE
  Mount Everest is the highest point on Earth above sea level, reaching roughly 8,849 metres.
  TRUE. Everest's summit is the highest land elevation measured from sea level.
- ✓ TRUE
  Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa and a free-standing volcano rising from surrounding plains.
  TRUE. Kilimanjaro is Africa's tallest peak and famously stands alone rather than in a range.
Round 7 HISTORY
- ✗ FABRICATION
  The Great Wall of China is a single unbroken wall, and it is the one human structure clearly visible from the Moon.
  FALSE — it is many disconnected walls from different dynasties, and it cannot be seen from the Moon with the naked eye.
- ✓ TRUE
  Sections of China's northern border walls were built and rebuilt across many dynasties over roughly two thousand years.
  TRUE — construction stretched from early states through the Ming, not a single building campaign.
- ✓ TRUE
  The best-preserved and most famous stretches of the Great Wall were largely built during the Ming dynasty.
  TRUE — the brick-and-stone Ming walls are what most tourists visit today.
Round 8 ANIMALS
- ✓ TRUE
  Not all penguins live in the cold; the Galapagos penguin lives right at the equator.
  TRUE — cool ocean currents let this species survive on tropical equatorial islands.
- ✓ TRUE
  Male emperor penguins incubate the egg balanced on their feet through the Antarctic winter while females go to feed.
  TRUE — fathers fast for weeks in the cold, sheltering the egg under a fold of skin until it hatches.
- ✗ FABRICATION
  Penguins have hollow, air-filled bones like other birds, which helps them bob back up to the surface.
  FALSE — penguins have unusually dense, solid bones; that reduces buoyancy and helps them dive rather than bob upward.
Round 9 LANGUAGE
- ✓ TRUE
  'Quarantine' comes from the Italian 'quaranta giorni', meaning 'forty days', the isolation period imposed on arriving ships in Venice.
  TRUE. Venetian authorities held suspect ships forty days before landing, and the count itself named the practice.
- ✗ FABRICATION
  The word 'posh' is an acronym for 'Port Out, Starboard Home', marking the shaded, cooler cabins wealthy passengers booked on voyages to India.
  FALSE. There is no evidence for the 'Port Out Starboard Home' story; 'posh' has no confirmed acronymic origin and the tale was invented later.
- ✓ TRUE
  The word 'robot' entered English from Czech, coined for a 1920 play, from a term relating to forced labour or drudgery.
  TRUE. It comes from Karel Capek's play R.U.R.; the Czech root 'robota' means compulsory labour.
Round 10 NATURE
- ✓ TRUE
  A Venus flytrap counts how many times its trigger hairs are touched, snapping shut only once it has been stimulated enough.
  TRUE. It waits for repeated touches so it does not waste energy closing on a false alarm.
- ✓ TRUE
  Venus flytraps are native to a small coastal region of North and South Carolina in the United States.
  TRUE. In the wild they grow only in a limited bog habitat in the Carolinas.
- ✗ FABRICATION
  Venus flytraps catch insects mainly for the meat, which they need to survive the way animals do.
  FALSE. They make their own food by photosynthesis; trapped insects supply nutrients like nitrogen missing from their poor soil.

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