http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/top100.html
Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time
My personal favorite is #26. :)
Jon
I just noticed this one:
#48: Mount Milton Erupts
In 1980 the Channel 7 news in Boston ended with a special bulletin
announcing that a 635-foot hill
in Milton, Massachusetts, known as the Great Blue Hill, had erupted,
and that lava and ash were
raining down on nearby homes. Footage was shown of lava pouring down
a hillside. The announcer
explained that the eruption had been triggered by a geological chain
reaction set off by the recent
eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington. An audio tape was played
of President Carter and the
Governor of Massachusetts declaring the eruption to be a serious
situation. At the end of the
segment, the reporter held up a sign that read April Fool. But by
that time local authorities had
already been flooded with frantic phone calls from Milton residents.
One man, believing that his
house would soon be engulfed by lava, had carried his sick wife
outside in order to escape. The
Milton police continued to receive worried phone calls well into the
night. Channel 7 was so
embarrassed by the panicked reaction that they apologized for the
confusion later that night, and the
executive producer responsible for the prank was fired.
This one really cracked me up. I have a prime view of the GBH out the window near my
desk at work and
have oocasionally climbed it over lunch hour. With Mt. St. Helens on people's minds,
and the domish shape
of the hill, I can see how some people got fooled.
-bryon
PS - if you've ever heard of WGBH, the PBS station here in Boston that creates a lot
of programming; they
got their call letters from where their antenna was first located - the Great Blue
Hill.
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