
The day MIT won the Harvard-Yale game - dskhatri
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/25276347/best-college-football-prank-harvard-yale-mit-balloon
======
vecter
> But not before a call came from the dean at MIT. The fraternity was already
> on probation, so getting caught could have been problematic.

> "I believe it was Bruce Sohn, who was the president [of the fraternity] at
> the time, who had the fateful call from the dean, who said, 'Did you guys do
> this?'" said Webster, who is in the process of attempting to turn the story
> into a feature-length movie. "And he had to think for a second. 'If I say
> yes, this could be the thing that has the straw on the camel's back and
> kicks us off campus forever. And if I say no, there might even be more
> trouble if they found out we did.' So he goes, 'Yes sir, we did.'

> "And then there's a pause on the phone, and then the dean goes, 'OK, you're
> off probation.'"

That's hilarious. Props to the dean for having a sense of humor.

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ChuckMcM
I love that story, and the one where during the summer MIT students would wear
a black and white striped shirt, blow a whistle and then throw bird seed out
on the field. Eventually training the local pigeon population to respond to
this, the early scrimmages were apparently mobbed by pigeons.

~~~
jonshariat
Please let there be a video of this too. Thats hilarious.

~~~
craftyguy
According to snopes, it's a legend that hasn't been confirmed.

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/field-of-
seeds/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/field-of-seeds/)

~~~
andrewflnr
I want to believe!

...The internet being what it is, we ought to be able to find some
eyewitnesses.

~~~
enriquto
The pigeons can be trained again!

------
christophilus
> MIT president Paul Gray said: "There is absolutely no truth to the rumor
> that I had anything to do with the planning or promoting of [the hack], but
> I wish there were."

That’s probably my favorite bit. Then, the sad reality of the present day
sinks in:

> If anyone were to attempt the harmless type of stunt they pulled off -- let
> alone the one in 1948 -- it would likely be met with a prison sentence.

~~~
jpmattia
MIT president Paul Gray asked Harvard President Derek Bok for the return of
the apparatus, which was also a bit hilarious:

______________________

Dear Derek,

Word has come to me that your campus police are holding some property which
rightfully should be located in the MIT Museum. Can this be true?

Surely you have little use for a makeshift device constructed from vacuum
cleaner parts, points from 1967 Mustang, and a handful of marbles. We,
however, being the sentimental sort, would take great care of indeed, we would
enshrine--this symbolic highlight of the 1982 football season. Please give it
back.

Sincerely yours,

Paul E. Gray

[https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1982/12/9/boks-mail-
ballo...](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1982/12/9/boks-mail-balloons-and-
breakers-pbthe/)

------
hprotagonist
If you tried this, or any other famous MIT hack, at today's MIT, you would be
in Big Person Trouble in a heartbeat. It's quite depressing.

~~~
jmgrosen
I’d have disagree. Have you seen Hackapult?
[http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/2015/hackapult/](http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/2015/hackapult/)

There are fewer hacks nowadays, and they’re usually less ambitious, but I
would argue it’s for reasons other than hostility from the Institute.

~~~
ita
It is because of institute hostility that there are fewer hacks.

That hack in particular took multiple months of preparation and was took down
by the institute in less than 1 hour; before anyone could really see it. Also
the amount of security and possible consequences has increased drastically in
the last 2 years; continuing the trend of the last 6 years.

~~~
jmgrosen
I don’t think that sort of hack would have been taken down any less quickly in
the past. The only time dome hacks have lasted a while have been when they’re
extremely tricky to take down.

I have some further opinions about what you allude to at the end of your
comment, but that should probably be taken offline.

~~~
sokoloff
R2D2 hack was left up for more than a day...

[http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/1999/r2d2/](http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/1999/r2d2/)

Several Lobby 7 hacks were also left up for a while (though admittedly less
obvious and dangerous perhaps than Great Dome hacks).

~~~
hprotagonist
r2d2 also happened 19 years ago.

I know people who were at MIT then. It was, by all accounts, a vastly
different place.

~~~
stonecraftwolf
Yeah, but so was the rest of the country.

They did the annual sodium drop pretty soon after 9/11 and were somehow
surprised when the response was different.

For smart people, they could be really, really dumb.

~~~
mjevans
The terrorists won that day, not because of the physical destruction, but
because of the literal description of their profession. Terror was instilled,
and the public psyche still hasn't been treated properly, it's like the nation
as a whole has PTSD.

------
WalterBright
My father was at MIT in 1948, and he'd regale me with stories about MIT
pranks, especially the explosive wire one.

MIT at the time was full of older men who were WW2 veterans on the GI Bill.
They were skilled at handling explosives.

~~~
jpmattia
> _They were skilled at handling explosives._

The reputation for explosive hacks at MIT go back to the 1800's. It used to be
that students had to participate in marching practice. Some wag got the idea
to put a layer on the floor of nitrogen triiodide, a mild contact explosive.

So when it came time to bang your feet against the floor during the march...

~~~
WalterBright
The reason Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is not on campus is the locals
had become concerned when one of their rocket engines exploded :-)

------
WalterBright
Caltech's most famous prank is the Rose Bowl prank. The instructions for which
cards the audience would hold up were altered so they would spell out CALTECH
rather than the team name. It's the only time Caltech ever was at the Rose
Bowl :-)

~~~
jpmattia
Taking over the Rose Bowl scoreboard in 1984 also ranks up there.

[https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.trbimg...](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.trbimg.com%2Fimg-52bf764c%2Fturbine%2Fla-
sp-rose-bowl-in-black-and-
white-20131228-pi-002&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wildwestsports.com%2FDiscussion%2FBoard%2FFootball%2FPost%2FView%2F1325287%2Fcaltech-
king-of-pranks&docid=xyAiFWiaL0Sj6M&tbnid=6nGkLq9-BdXl9M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjMg-
KZzOTeAhXXFzQIHUSmCTsQMwg8KAMwAw..i&w=2048&h=1112&bih=929&biw=1904&q=caltech%20mit%20rose%20bowl%20prank&ved=0ahUKEwjMg-
KZzOTeAhXXFzQIHUSmCTsQMwg8KAMwAw&iact=mrc&uact=8)

------
jrochkind1
> "There have been some big changes between then and now," Douglas said. "Not
> just that 9/11 has happened, but if something like this happened today, they
> would probably evacuate the stadium.

> "I would say anyone who was there absolutely remembers the event in the
> stadium. It didn't evoke the kind of panic that we are sometimes accustomed
> to seeing in news accounts or whatever, and so it makes me, in many ways, it
> makes me yearn for those days again."

Me too, me too.

------
veddox
Never been to MIT or any such place, but I know the story from the Jargon
File: [http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-
hack.html](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html) (It mentions
the Caltech hack, too.)

Interesting to read some more details in this article.

------
kchoudhu
"All MIT men carry batteries for emergencies."

Sounds about right.

"One night, they ran into another group of pranksters from Brown University"

Harvard, destined to be the butt of everyone's jokes.

------
rconti
I like the fact that I can Google "30 feet in smoots"

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/410360/smoots-
legacy/](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/410360/smoots-legacy/)

------
ggm
Imperial College London, 1940s, the engineering students winched a car onto
the roof. Apparently they hid sheer-legs down trousers (oxford bags were in
again) and constructed a viable winch from short lengths, hidden ropes &c.

I know the modern MIT prankery is pretty big, but I just wanted to say it does
happen at other universities.

~~~
seanhunter
+1. Students at my father's engineering class at another uni allegedly
dismantled a lecturer's car and reassembled it inside their lecture hall.

------
starbeast
>The way the device was designed, it would have been nearly impossible for
anyone but them to activate it because it required a double male extension
cord.

I can think of one group of people who would have been able to activate it. I
am guessing that they had surprisingly low electricity bills as well.

------
beat
I remember that! Made me want to go to a fancy tech school. Didn't get in to
MIT or Caltech, tho.

------
hkmurakami
Stories like this are what made a teenage me want to attend MIT (though alas
it was not to be). And countless more will feel similarly on the coming years.
I hope it lives on.

------
ada1981
Am I correct in reading that this was on the same day as “The Play”?

They reference it in the article, but I thought that was Stanford.

