forgery is essentially concerned with a produced or altered object. Where the prime concern of a forgery is less focused on the object itself - what it is worth or what it "proves" - than on a tacit statement of criticism that is revealed by the reactions the object provokes in others, then the larger process is a hoax. In a hoax, a rumor or a genuine object planted in a concocted situation, may substitute for a forged physical object.

The similar crime of fraud