Do you remember this website hoax about a huge mountain tunnel?

June 26, 2006 3:25 PM

Does anyone remember an absurdly over hyped internet event/hoax that had something to with an enormous mountain tunnel?

I'm fairly certain the guy was simply trying to drum up interest in his new book - if I remember correctly there was even a disclaimer on the website saying it was fiction.

The website had the name of a date if I remember correctly (i.e. www.march23.com) and the main focus was a series of photographs and a kind of diary of events (leading up to the date in the URL, which was in the future).

The photographs were of some kind of secret tunnel leading into a mountain (in australia?) and the author suspected a government cover-up (I think). Was it that he thought they were going to use it to launch a captured UFO?

Oh I don't know, but if you do please respond!

posted by Glum to computers & internet (12 comments total)

Yeah I vaguely remember this. I think there were several sites. Sadly I was a reader of Hardforums.com at the time and it was all over there for a while.
posted by fire&wings at 3:40 PM on June 26, 2006

The photographs were of some kind of secret tunnel leading into a mountain (in australia?) and the author suspected a government cover-up (I think). Was it that he thought they were going to use it to launch a captured UFO?

Yep. There was some story about the photos being dropped from a plane that crashed, and they were slightly burnt. Googling fails me.

(It might have been a manmade spaceship rather than a UFO, if that helps)
posted by cillit bang at 3:59 PM on June 26, 2006

I forgot to say this in the original post, but if you do remember this and you have any further links or info I'd be very grateful.
posted by Glum at 3:59 PM on June 26, 2006

I found a digital camera in the woods
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:00 PM on June 26, 2006

I can't remember the name of the site (you're right about it being a date, maybe in May), but it was definitely posted in the blue.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 4:04 PM on June 26, 2006

PinkStainlessTail - You are right. That is where I first saw the link. Now if only I could remember what that post said (I saw it when there were just a few days to go, and all it said was something like "5 days to go until all is finally revealed.")
posted by Glum at 4:55 PM on June 26, 2006

I remember this. The idea was that a damaged camera had been, I think, found or bought somewhere. On developing the damaged film, the author discovered some terrrible secret, something along the lines of someone building a huge which could leave a mountain tunnel on rails.

The implication was that a global catastrophe was coming, and this might be some sort of Noah's Ark.

The film also revealed that the photographs had been taken from a plane which had then been shot down by a missile. The website name was a date, as I recall.
posted by tomble at 5:40 PM on June 26, 2006

Argh... Not `building a huge which could...' but `building a huge ship'.

I thought it would be easier to google for it than it's proving to be.
posted by tomble at 5:41 PM on June 26, 2006

Ha! Got it!

www.8march2003.com

Snopes info

The site is down now, but you could use the The wayback machine to look at it.

I found it by searching `found camera' on Snopes.
posted by tomble at 5:45 PM on June 26, 2006

Oh, here's the link to the actual pages on the wayback machine. It wouldn't work a moment ago when I posted.
posted by tomble at 5:46 PM on June 26, 2006

MeFi thread
posted by cillit bang at 6:14 PM on June 26, 2006

So.. Was the book any good?
posted by JonnyRotten at 7:02 PM on June 26, 2006