The Kinderhook plates are a set of six small, bell-shaped pieces of brass with unusual engravings, created as a hoax in 1843, surreptitiously buried and then dug up at a Native American mound near Kinderhook, Illinois, United States.
The plates were forged by three men from Kinderhook as a prank on the local Latter Day Saint community. According to Latter Day Saint belief, the Book of Mormon is a record of the ancient Judeo-Semitic inhabitants of the Americas, originally translated by the founder of the movement, Joseph Smith, from golden plates engraved in the language of reformed Egyptian. Latter Day Saint residents of Kinderhook sent the plates to Smith in Nauvoo for translation, where Smith said they were of ancient origin and translated a portion of them.
In 1980, scientific testing confirmed the hoax, and that the plates were a modern creation. Within the Latter Day Saint movement, Smith's translation was never accepted in the canon of scripture, but was generally considered authentic.