Quite a hyperbole for a prank few have heard of and which was fairly limited in scale.
If I had to name one prank that had great impact and that is still famous around the world, it'd be Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds radio broadcast, which at the time had the entire nation riled up, believing that aliens were taking over the world.
"[Hadley Cantril, a Princeton University psychologist] estimated that at least 6 million people listened to the program that October night. Of those, at least 1.2 million were frightened, disturbed, or excited by what they heard."
I can't name another prank that had such impact, can you? (OK, perhaps the one about Iraq having WMDs, but that was hardly funny.)
"There's a fine line there but I think we stayed on the right side of it. It could have been obscenities or something in very poor taste, but we didn't do that. So I'm proud of that — that we acted responsibly and nobody got hurt."
It was clever, unexpected, and funny. Caltech lost by 10 points, so I'd say it was well done and all in good fun. I'm glad it could have been that way.
The TV series "Numbers" referenced this prank twice in separate episodes - once, used as one of Charlie's graphic analogies - the display reading "CHARGE" had been hacked to read "RETREAT" - and once at the climax to a show where Peter MacNicol's astronomer character led a cabal of students on a quest to hack the Hollywood sign to read "CALTECH."
People have pulled much bigger hoaxes and pranks, sure; but since they took place outside of the hallowed halls of academia, they can't call them collegiate pranks.
My last point: This is the same Lyndon Hardy who wrote "Master of the Five Magics," "Secret of the Sixth Magic" and "Riddle of the Sven Realms," the "three science fiction novels" referred to in the article, correct? If so, I knew the author had come from Caltech - but I'd no idea he'd headed this ambitious project until today. You learn something new every day.
As a Caltech alumni I'd like for a Caltech prank to hold the title of World's Greatest, but I'm afraid that should go to the Berner's Street Hoax. Here's the description from Wikipedia:
The Berners Street Hoax was perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City
of Westminster, London, in 1809. Hook had made a bet with his friend,
Samuel Beazley, that he could transform any house in London into the
most talked-about address in a week, which he achieved by sending out
thousands of letters in the name of Mrs Tottenham, who lived at 54
Berners Street, requesting deliveries, visitors, and assistance.
On 27 November, at five o’clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to
sweep the chimneys of Mrs Tottenham's house. The maid who answered
the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that
his services were not required. A few moments later another sweep
presented himself, then another, and another, 12 in all. After the
last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying
large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of
cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers,
vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house
they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers, and over
a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout
men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the
Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Lord Mayor of the City of London also arrived. The narrow
streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers.
Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing
a large part of London to a standstill.
Hook stationed himself in the house directly opposite 54 Berners
Street, from where he and his friend spent the day watching the
chaos unfold.
That would be an impressive prank today. To pull it off in 1809 when it had to be organized by letter, each likely hand written, in a week, is astounding. Note the care in timing, getting similar arrivals to happen around the same time to magnify the absurdity of the situation. Pure genius.
American college football game. 2,200 people in a section of the crowd each hold a large card, dark on one side, light on the other. each of these people has an instruction sheet that tells them which way to hold the card for each of 14 'stunts' (as they appear to be called). See pic for an example of what this looks like (think b/w pixel art)
The prank was that 3 guys from one team used social engineering to figure out how this was done, and who had the instructions, then replaced the original instructions with 2,232 slightly altered copies.
Game gets played. First 11 stunts are as expected, but the 12th has the cards make up the logo of the opposing team (not the people with the cards), the 13th has the writing reversed, and the 14th says, big and bold, CALTECH
Quite a hyperbole for a prank few have heard of and which was fairly limited in scale.
If I had to name one prank that had great impact and that is still famous around the world, it'd be Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds radio broadcast, which at the time had the entire nation riled up, believing that aliens were taking over the world.
http://www.paleycenter.org/the-greatest-halloween-prank-ever