[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by fredr123

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Rose_Bowl_Hoax
Often imitated, never duplicated. This is probably the grand-daddy of them all.

Maybe, but the famous MIT balloon hack at the Harvard-Yale game in 1982 has to be up there.

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/19218/

During the second quarter of the Harvard-Yale football game on November 20, 1982, a big black balloon with "MIT" written all over it suddenly emerged from the Harvard Stadium field. "The two teams were lined up when suddenly our attention shifted toward the sideline," remembers MIT Museum science and technology curator Deborah Douglas, who was there. "That's when we saw it. Everyone was trying to make out what was written on the balloon. Some of the Harvard police seemed to draw their guns. And then suddenly it exploded."

The field was quickly repaired, and Harvard went on to rout Yale, 45-7. But in the stands, the focus remained on the balloon. "There was quite a stir," says Douglas. "Everyone was talking about it." CBS's Brent Musberger mistakenly announced on television that a bomb had floated down from the stands and exploded, leaving a three-foot crater. "It was one of the most unbelievable things I've ever seen," WBZ-TV anchorman Bob Lobel told Harvard magazine's Craig Lambert in 1990. "It had to be the greatest college prank of all time."