Status: Prank
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.
Comments
Any word on what event the dome won?
My guess: The 100M Sitting Motionless.
"Likely." Really? Likely? What other options are there? Could the dome really have won a medal?
"Likely a prank"... I love it.
I notice that the Mickey Mouse ears was in fact a hoax of a hoax. They never did put ears on the Dome, they just pretended they did and got it published. It looks photoshopped to me and there is no reference to it on the official link.