Official News - page 5

REAL LIFE NEWS: ALIENS INVADE BOSTON

by Hazed

A few days ago, parts of Boston were brought to a standstill by extraterrestrial visitors making vulgar gestures. These aliens were displayed on electronic devices which were planted throughout the city as a marketing wheeze - but they brought panic to the streets as they were mistaken for terrorist bombs.

The devices were planted as a guerilla marketing stunt to advertise a Turner Broadcasting late-night cartoon called Aqua Teen Hunger Force - no, I haven't the least idea what connection these cute little aliens have to the cartoon! Unfortunately the terrorist panic prompted the closure of at least two bridges and passage from the Charles River into Boston Harbor. The US military was also alerted and monitored the situation from its HQ in Colorado Springs.

The strange thing about this story is that the same devices had been in place in other cites throughout the US, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and San Francisco, without causing any panic whatsoever. Even funnier: they'd actually been on display in Boston for several weeks before anybody noticed them and mistook them for the work of al-Qaeda.

So did officials in Boston blush and apologize once they realized their mistake? Oh no. Every public figure in the city has been forming a queue to threaten the most punitive measures possible. Obviously, they want money from Turner Broadcasting - who, incidentally, have already offered to cough up for the expenses involved in the unnecessary closures - but they also want to see the two men directly responsible for the hoax brought to justice. They have now been arrested and charged with creating a hoax leading to public disorder and disorderly conduct.

As if all this were not absurd enough already, the actual law that they have been charged under calls the little electronic aliens "infernal devices". Wonderful!

You can read the wording of the law on the Politech site and a commentary on why the charges probably won't stand up in court on C|Net.

Meanwhile, if you haven't already seen a picture of these cute and extremely unthreatening non-terrorist aliens, then here's one: http://www.theregister.com/2007/02/02/mooninite_terrorists/.

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