Hoax Museum Blog: Pranks

Coin Glued To The Ground Prank Goes Disastrously Wrong — Gluing a coin to the ground and then watching as people attempt, unsuccessfully, to pick it up, has to be one of the oldest street pranks around. It dates back hundreds of years. It's a very simple prank, and I would never have imagined it could be viewed as dangerous or threatening. But somehow a prankster who glued some quarters to the ground at the Kosciusko County Fair in Indiana almost managed to shut down the entire fair. The Times-Union reports: I'm wondering what kind of glue could have been on those quarters. I suppose that some kinds of super-glue could cause blisters. Though it's odd that the blisters only formed when the glue mixed with water.

Beware of Hydrogen in Water — Here's a slight variation on the old dihydrogen monoxide prank. The director of the Waterfront Park in Louisville, Ky placed signs around the fountains warning people of dangerously high levels of hydrogen in the water: I figure it's only a matter of time before someone sues him for emotional distress caused by the signs.

Big Ben Goes Digital (Again) — Recently Big Ben's chimes have been silenced as repairs are made to it. Apparently this has inspired policemen at Westminster to revive the BBC's 1980 April Fool's Day joke. The BBC Reports: (Thanks to Andrew Nixon for the link)

Concrete Soccer Ball Prank — I probably shouldn't be amused by this. After all, it could cause someone to really damage their toes:

Harassment Via Fart Machine — I've had obnoxious, noisy neighbors who have made me fantasize about using all kinds of noise-making devices in retaliation. (Instead I sent a letter to their landlord, and a month later they were gone.) But this guy, Brian Pemberton, took the harassment of his neighbor to an entirely new level: It doesn't sound like his neighbor ever did anything to inspire this behavior from him. He simply took an irrational dislike to her. He was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison, which he has successfully appealed. He's also promised to move. I would hate to be his new neighbor.

The Body On A Highway Prank — One of the rules of pranking is that you should do no harm. This means no harm to others, nor to yourself. The two Russian soldiers who thought lying down across the highway would be a funny prank, should have given more thought to this rule. As reported by MosNews.com: I think these guys are good candidates for Darwin Awards.

Senior Pranks 2006 — Most high schools are now out for the summer, so I thought it would be an appropriate time to pause and remember some of the senior pranks that made headlines this year. As usual, they're a mix of the clever, stupid, rude, and cruel.

Car on roof - Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK High School: School officials found a Honda Accord "painted neon pink and covered with green question marks" on the roof of the high school. "Nassau police and school officials said yesterday that dozens of students used crudely made ramps to drag the Honda Accord... onto the roof."

Power out - Neuqua Valley High School: Two students were arrested for attempting what they called the "senior prank of all senior pranks." Their plan was to disable a generator and take "other steps to ensure the power would go out and classes would be canceled for younger students still in school." They were caught in the act by a custodian and arrested at their homes.

School for sale - Cape Fear Academy: "During the night before their last day of school Friday, about 20 members of the senior class strung a $215, 3-foot-by-9-foot vinyl sign with large, red letters spelling out "Entire School For Sale" and the school's telephone number between two posts in front of the school yard on South College Road. Another 20 or so smaller "For Sale" signs were peppered around the grounds."

Squealing pig - Severna Park High School: Students "released a squealing 31-pound piglet named Hamilton into the halls on the sinister date of 6/6/06 ... Purloined from a county park for an end-of-year stunt, the 3-month-old pig -- nickname: Hammy -- appeared Tuesday morning in the math wing of the Annapolis area school between the first and second class periods. Administrators cornered the frightened animal near an exit, where he submitted to capture as students recorded the moment on their cellphone cameras. 'There was this crowd of people who were, like, 'Omigod, there's a pig,' ' said Sarah Wade, a junior."

Marijuana muffins - Lake Highlands High School: A friend of a student delivered marijuana-spiked muffins to the teachers lounge. "He brought bran muffins to suburban Lake Highlands High School on May 16, saying they were part of an Eagle Scout project. When school employees ate the muffins, they began complaining of nausea, lightheadedness and headaches, and were briefly hospitalized. "They were just thinking it would be fun to get these teachers all silly and giggly," said Rita Greenfield, an 86-year-old receptionist at the school who spent two days in the hospital after eating the muffins.

Cruelty to animals - Ponderosa High School: "The local news broadcasters used words like 'horrified,' 'abusive behavior' and 'unbelievable act of cruelty' to describe the so-called senior prank at an area high school that involved someone dropping 45 baby chicks from a second-floor balcony, resulting in the deaths of seven of the chicks.... Four years ago in the county, a student at Highlands Ranch High School threw a rabbit across the gymnasium at a pep rally, breaking its legs and paralyzing it. The rabbit was later destroyed." (Good grief! PETA needs to open a chapter in that county.)

Doors glued shut - Independence High School (San Jose): "Right in the middle of finals week, an entire high school campus was virtually shut down Tuesday morning, after somebody glued classroom doors shut... The pranksters used super glue, as well as toothpicks in the locks. The numbers "06" were also painted on school buildings... As exams were delayed and students and teachers milled about this morning, maintenance crews used blow-torches to melt the glue that was squirted onto classroom locks."

Personalized underwear - East Aurora High (suburban Chicago): Several seniors were banned from attending graduation "as punishment for participating in an end-of-the-year prank last week that involved spray painting school property, stealing a statue of the Tomcat mascot and hanging underwear adorned with printout photos of administrators' faces in front of the building.... The damages have cost the district $1,700,"

Baby oil on floor - Omaha Burke High School: Students spread baby oil on the school's floors, resulting in injury for one teacher. "The principal of Omaha Burke High School underwent knee surgery Tuesday for an injury she suffered when she slipped on baby oil spread by vandals on the school's floors... Officers had caught five 18-year-olds inside the school, where 20 locker doors had a glue-type substance put in their locks and where the floors and stairs were coated with baby oil.

Flat tires - Jefferson High School (New Jersey): "a high school prankster deflated the front tires of 24 school buses parked at a Weldon Road compound Tuesday, but district officials weren't laughing as they were forced to cancel classes for more than 3,600 students... In addition to the tire damage, the vandals left behind another clue: The numbers "06" spray-painted on one of the buses."

Alcohol allowed - Daniel Hand High School: "Parents of high school seniors received a letter from Daniel Hand High School, with official letter head, concerning the upcoming prom. Included,a policy about drinking that it was allowed!... Principal Barbara Britton acted immediately to get the word out that this letter was not authentic posting a message on the school's website saying: "Let me assure you that underage drinking and the serving of alcoholic beverages is not permissible at the senior prom or any sponsored school event."

International Association of Pranksters and Hoaxers — Ron Dentinger of the International Association of Pranksters and Hoaxers sent me an email to give me a heads up about the Association's website. Yes, it is a real association, which includes such esteemed members as Alan Abel and Cranky Media Guy. They met in February in Las Vegas. Their site includes a hoax photo challenge, which currently shows a photo of a man with a gorilla and asks whether it's real or a hoax. I'm guessing that it's real.

Donut Maker Sponsors High School — Students at Hugh McRoberts School in Richmond, British Columbia were stunned when they learned that donut-maker Tim Hortons was going to become an official sponsor of their school. As a result the nickname for the school's team would change from the "Strikers" to the "Dunkers". Also:

The school’s Snack Shack had been sold, students were told in a survey that asked which doughnuts they preferred for the new shack’s menu.
What’s more, the school was to undergo a complete re-branding, with new colours and a logo featuring a coffee cup with Tim Hortons in big letters.

Students responded by protesting and calling up the press to let them know what was happening. (Though other students were excited about the change... especially the possibility of free donuts.) Turned out it was all an experiment in mass manipulation crafted by the school's language-arts class (I have no idea what "language arts" are... it must be a Canadian thing. Maybe it's like rhetoric, or debate), and timed to coincide with April 1st. Now, presumably, students are protesting because they won't be getting their free donuts.

MIT vs. Caltech, Cannon Prank — Last year in April a group of Caltech students pulled off a series of pranks at MIT, including handing out t-shirts to prefrosh that read "MIT" on the front and "because not everybody can go to Caltech" on the back. The gauntlet was thus thrown down, and this year MIT responded by stealing the 130-year-old, 1.7 ton, Spanish-American War Fleming cannon from the Caltech campus and transporting it all the way to MIT, where it can now be seen "pointed toward Pasadena and adorned with an oversized MIT school ring. A plaque refers to Caltech as 'its previous owners.'" (And wow! That guy posing on top of the cannon sure is pasty white.) View more photos of the cannon here. Caltech has already posted a response to the prank, stating that "Caltech is prepared to continue the pranking tradition."

In order to pull off the heist, MIT students created phony work order forms from the "Howe & Ser Moving Company," which allowed them to get past the Caltech security guards. They then used a real moving company to transport the cannon across country. The Times reports:

Caltech’s security chief, meanwhile, said that his staff had initially stopped a flat-bed lorry carrying the gun. The men in the vehicle said that they had been hired to move it across campus. “The people that stopped them were presented with some very valid-looking documentation,” said Gregg Henderson. “The person who was the spokesperson or foreman of the job was very convincing.” The security staff watched the young men unload the cannon and leave. When the guards returned, however, it was gone.

Stealing cannons is a venerable tradition amongst college pranksters. As Neil Steinberg notes in If At All Possible, Involve A Cow (the definitive guide to college pranks), the "Cannon War" between Rutgers and Princeton was probably the most celebrated college prank of the late nineteenth century. It involved nine Rutgers students sneaking onto the Princeton campus on April 26, 1875, stealing a massive Revolutionary War cannon, and transporting it back to Rutgers. The police eventually made Rutgers return the cannon.

And as it turns out, the Fleming cannon itself has been stolen before. Twenty years ago Harvey Mudd College pranksters took it from Caltech, but eventually returned it in "an 18ft gift box, decorated with streamers and balloons."

Update: On Monday, April 10 the Fleming Cannon was "rescued" from MIT by a group of Caltech students: "On Monday morning, a group of 23 Caltech students and seven Caltech alumni arrived at the MIT campus to take back the cannon. The rescuers left a miniature replica under glass in the place where the Caltech cannon had rested at MIT."

Welcome to Detroit — Columnist Tom Greenwood of the Detroit News reports that a sign has been spotted "attached to an authentic Michigan Department of Transportation post on southbound Interstate 75 at the Oakland/Wayne county line." It reads: Welcome to Detroit. We hope you survive.

There's no word on how long this has been up, or for how long. Of course, fake road signs have been a popular prank for quite some time. There's the fake road sign project in Lyons, France, in which "105 street signs, realised by 47 worldwide artists, and just similar enough to real traffic signs to give one pause, have been attached to streetside poles around the french city of Lyon."

There's also the photoshopped picture of a Connecticut road sign that reads "Birthplace of George W. Bush. We apologize." Plus, the "Leaving Brooklyn. Oy Vey!" sign that was actually posted by the City of Brooklyn itself.

Ballymena Boots Hang From Power Line — Power company workers in Ballymena (Northern Ireland) were amazed to discover five pairs of shoes hanging from a power line along the road between Larne and Ballymena. Ballymena Today reports:

Electricity engineers could only look skyward in bemusement at the bizarre sight of the shoes and boots hanging from the line, baffled as to who, why and how this was done. The inspiration for the prank may have come from the fantasy film Big Fish. In the film, the most memorable scene occurs when the young Edward Bloom, played by Ewan McGregor, visits the town of Spector, where it is claimed that all is perfect.

Surprisingly, this sighting has not yet been posted on Shoefiti, the weblog devoted to shoes hanging from power lines. I'd also note that it seems like wishful thinking to believe that the shoes are an allusion to the movie Big Fish, given the more popular (and sinister) theory that shoes on power lines are secret codes meaning that drugs and sex are available nearby.

Bank Withdrawal Prank — The Brainerd Dispatch (requires registration) reports on an April Fool's Day prank that went slightly wrong, ending up with the prankster, a 57-year-old woman, getting charged with disorderly conduct:

About 10:15 a.m. Saturday, the woman stopped at Wells Fargo Bank at 424 W. Washington St. in Brainerd to make a legitimate withdrawal from an account. When she was finished, she handed the teller a note that read, "I'm here to take money," said Brainerd Police Chief John Bolduc... a bank employee called 911 indicating the bank was being robbed. Officers from Brainerd and Crow Wing County responded to the bank but the woman had left, Bolduc said. She was stopped by a Crow Wing County sheriff's deputy a short time later at Highways 18 and 25 in east Brainerd, where she was arrested for disorderly conduct and taken to the Crow Wing County jail.

I guess banks, like airports, are one place where you don't want to joke around about security issues.

Top Ten Office Pranks — CareerBuilder.com has issued a press release listing what they have determined to be the top ten office pranks, based on a survey of 2500 office workers. Here they are:

1. Change the caller ID on a co-worker's phone to read Mr. Kitten every time he calls someone.
2. Place random objects from people's desks in the vending machine.
3. Place a live goldfish in an IV bag in a clinic.
4. Sneak onto someone else's computer and send out an "I love you" email to the entire office.
5. Wall-paper someone's entire cube with headshots of his co-workers.
6. Pull the shelves out of the break room refrigerator, hide inside and jump out at co-workers as they open the door.
7. Sit on the copier and place the copies back in the paper bin. Anytime co-workers make copies, they have the image of the prankster's backside in the background.
8. Turn all the clocks in the office one hour back to make the work day seem longer.
9. Lock all the doors, shut off the lights and put a "Closed" sign in the window when the boss went out for lunch.
10. Place fake rubber chocolates in the break room and watch as co- workers try to chew them.

Which reminds me of another office April Fools prank someone told me about. (They swore they participated in it.) On April 1st everyone in the office quit, filing into the HR person's office one after another. Almost caused the boss to have a heart attack. Of course, the danger with that prank is that you might not get rehired.

Victoria’s Secret Basketball Prank — Here's a prank that definitely rates as one of the more inventive (and cruel) student pranks of recent years. The set-up occurred a week before a NCAA game pitting UC Berkeley against the University of Southern California. USC's starting guard, Gabe Pruitt (pictured), met a UCLA coed named Victoria online. They traded messages via AOL Instant Messenger. She sent him her picture. He sent her his. They arranged to meet after the game on March 4.

The sinker occurred during the March 4th game. When Pruitt appeared on the court, UC fans started to chant "VIC-TOR-IA, VIC-TOR-IA." Their chants continued throughout the game, escalating to include the recitation of Pruitt's phone number. Transcripts of Pruitt's IM chats with "Victoria" were also circulated throughout the crowd (including classic lines such as "You look like you have a very fit body... Now I want to c u so bad"). Pruitt was visibly shocked, missed a bunch of free throws, and ended up 3-for-13 from the field.

It turned out that "Victoria" didn't exist. She was the fictional creation of a couple of UC fans. Pruitt had been punk'd. Understandably, some USC fans aren't too happy about the prank. (So are they plotting revenge?) (via Deadspin and Schneier on Security)

By coincidence, a similar prank was in the news last week (though it was far creepier and more disturbing in its implications). Five boys created an online profile of a fictitious 15-year-old girl they called "Jessica." To their surprise, a 48-year-old guy contacted "Jessica" and started to chat her up. The five boys played along, and eventually lured the guy into meeting Jessica in real life. But when the guy showed up for the meeting, it was the police, not Jessica, who were waiting for him.

Both these incidents go to show that you never really know who you're talking to on the internet. Or as Reality Rule 6.3 from Hippo Eats Dwarf states: "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." (It makes more sense if you see the cartoon it refers to.)

Related Posts:
Jan. 6, 2004: Vixen Love
Sep. 6, 2005: Skype Prank

MIT Dome Wins Gold Medal — Pranksters at MIT struck again last week. On Tuesday morning school officials discovered a massive Olympic gold medal hanging from the MIT dome. News reports state:

MIT officials said the medal was likely a prank, but they did not know how it was done or who did it. The school also said it never gave permission for the building to become a gold medal winner. The school has not said how long the medal will stay.

The MIT dome, of course, has been the focus of many, many pranks over the years. The first dome decoration dates back to 1961 when a giant Happy Birthday banner was hung from it. In 1962 it was made to look like a grinning jack-o-lantern. In 1979 it became a giant breast with a large nipple protruding from the top of it. Also in 1979, a fiberglass cow was placed on top of it. In 1986 a prefabricated house appeared atop it. In 1998 it grew a pair of giant Mickey Mouse ears. And in 2003, the Wright brothers plane mysteriously landed on top of it.

Bob Pagano Wins $365M Powerball Lottery — Alan Abel has struck again, this time with the help of a regular here at the Museum of Hoaxes, Bob Pagani (aka Cranky Media Guy). Bob pretended to be the winner of the $365M Powerball lottery. (The real winners were a bunch of meat packers.) Apparently Abel helped behind the scenes. The action took place on Monday, but I didn't hear about it until today when I got an email from a reporter at the Des Moines Register asking me if I had heard about the Powerball Prank, and what I thought about it. A quick news search pulled up this article:

On Monday, a man who said he was an unemployed trucker from Omaha named Bob Pagano showed up flashing cash in Lincoln at a local Village Inn restaurant, claimed he was the winner and bought everybody in the place dinner. But Pagano said he had picked the winning numbers, while lottery officials said the winning numbers were a "quick-pick" generated by computer. Also, the photocopy of what Pagano claimed was the winning ticket said it was bought on Sunday, Feb. 17. Sunday was Feb. 19. The drawing was on Saturday, the 18th.
Alas, it was learned Tuesday that the man's name actually was Bob Pagani - not Pagano. Pagani is a cohort of Alan Abel, who has long been known around the world for putting on elaborate hoaxes. "Bob Pagani has been a confederate of mine for 25 years," Abel told The Associated Press.
Abel said he and Pagani noticed the gaffe on the date printed on the photocopy of the purported winning ticket just before launching their ruse.
"It was a goof," he said. Pagani said he'd been planning a Powerball hoax for about a year.
"He held court for about three hours at the Village Inn restaurant," Abel said. "He was swarmed."

More details from Bob himself should be forthcoming soon!

On a historical note, this isn't the first time Abel has engineered a lottery prank. He pulled the same prank back in 1990. On January 8, 1990 Charlene Taylor held a party at the Omni Park Central Hotel in mid-Manhattan to announce that she was the winner of the recent $35 million New York lottery. She told the media that the winning numbers had been revealed to her in a dream by Malcolm Forbes and Donald Trump as they flew around on a magic carpet. All of this was duly reported by the New York press. A day later the media realized that Taylor wasn't a lottery winner. She was actually an actress hired by Abel. The New York Daily News was the only paper not to fall for the hoax, because its reporter had recognized Abel standing in Taylor's hotel room.

Message In A Bottle Crosses Atlantic — The story of Harvey Bennett and his ocean-crossing bottle has been widely reported during the past week. The basic facts are as follows: Harvey Bennett, the owner of a tackle shop in Amagansett, New York, has for years been throwing messages-in-bottles into the Atlantic. He usually never sees the bottles again. But on January 24 he received a package in the mail containing one of his discarded bottles which, apparently, had floated all the way to Bournemouth, England. The finder of the bottle (who knew Bennett's address from the business card in the bottle) had written this note to Bennett:

I recently found your bottle while taking a scenic walk on a beach by Poole Harbour. While you may consider this some profound experiment on the path and speed of oceanic currents, I have another name for it - litter. You Americans don't seem to be happy unless you are mucking up somewhere. If you wish to foul your own nest, all well and good. But please refrain in the future from fouling mine.

The strangeness of this reply has puzzled everyone, and even prompted the Daily Telegraph to apologize for their countryman's lack of humor. But Newsday smells something fishy with this seafaring bottle story. They don't suspect Harvey Bennett is making up a hoax, but they think someone may be playing a prank on him. They point out that the name of the humorless British correspondent, "Mr. Bigglesworth," is also the name of Dr. Evil's cat in the Austin Powers movies. In addition:

A search of public records turned up no Henry Biggelsworth in Poole or neighboring Bournemouth... On a customs label affixed to the package, the sender used a slightly different spelling - Bigglesworth - when signing his name... The sender left out the "e" in Bournemouth on the return address. There is also no street in Bournemouth called "The Bowery." And the postal code should have begun with "BH" not "BJ."

Assuming that Bennett is trustworthy, I'm guessing that one of three things could have happened: a) The bottle really did make its way to England, and the reply was meant to be tongue-in-cheek; b) The bottle was found by someone in America and shipped to England, from where it was sent back to Bennett... making this a bottle version of the traveling-gnome prank; or c) the whole thing was engineered by some of Bennett's friends as a prank on him. They put one of his business cards in a bottle and arranged for it to be sent to him from England.

Best Blonde Joke Ever — Here it is. The best blonde joke ever.

(If you ever find out what it is, let me know)

Rogue Paint Line — What is the meaning of a two-mile line of paint that stretches through central London? No one knows who put it there or why. The BBC reports:

It begins on the pavement at a bus stop in Euston and only stops for roads, starting again on the pavement on the other side... Camden Council, Transport for London and electricity suppliers say they did not put it there. Theories include it being a drunken prank or street art.

Maybe it's a message from aliens. But seriously, how could someone paint a two-mile line of paint through a major city without anyone noticing who did it?