Bugün öğrendim ki: 1976'da dolandırıcılar, Fransız hükümetini "petrol koklayabilecek uçaklar" geliştirmeye yüz milyonlarca yatırım yapması için kandırdılar. Dolandırıcı belli ki böyle bir uçağı nasıl geliştireceğini bilmiyordu. Bu, 1979'da "Büyük Petrol Sniffer Aldatmacası" adlı bir siyasi krize yol açtı.

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**The Great Oil Sniffer Hoax** was a 1979 scandal involving [French](/wiki/France "France") oil company [Elf Aquitaine](/wiki/Elf_Aquitaine "Elf Aquitaine"). The company spent millions of dollars to develop a new [gravity wave](/wiki/Gravitational_radiation "Gravitational radiation")-based oil detection system, which was later revealed to be a [scam](/wiki/Scam "Scam"). Elf lost over $150 million to the hoax. In France, the scandal is known as the "Avions Renifleurs" ("Sniffer Aircraft"). Although Bonassoli's "sniffer" was a hoax, gravity is used by professional geologists to locate oil using very sensitive [gravity meters](/wiki/Gravimeter "Gravimeter").[1] This works because gravity is a function of the mass of an object, and oil-rich deposits' density is different than the surrounding subterranean geology.