Fake Newspaper Article METEOR DEMOLISHES LOCAL HOME

This One's a "Get Out of Jail Free" Card. Cheap at Twice the Price.

For the longest time we didn't know what the appeal of this piece was. It's been a consistently strong seller. A meteor falls out of the sky and smashes your house. Yada Yada. Yawn. No big deal. A few customers sent this to their kids or friends on the other coast and got a laugh, but still.... It wasn't until we received a glowing email from one client that we "got it". One woman took this to work, and her boss felt so badly for her that he gave her a week off with pay to sort out her affairs. We applaud his gullability. No, we don't know if she ever told him the truth. Is this how con-artists get started?

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 Meteor Roars Through Sky, Impacts on Rainier Beach Residence

Meteor Demolishes Local Home

"Hopefully Not Precursor to Bigger Event," Say Scientists

Yourtown---- (NOTICE: Any names of towns, locations, people, institutions, etc., used in these sample fake newspaper stories, are purely fictional, chosen at random, and are not meant to portray or represent any real person, place or deed. Remember that no matter what name a writer chooses to use in any fictional story, there is a real person (or many persons) SOMEWHERE who have that exact name.)

At 11:05 A.M. Pacific time, Monday, a meteor of unknown size rocketed through the skies of the western United States. But where would it land?

"We didn't even see it coming," said Paul Zurflu, a spokesman for the Lowell Observatory outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. "Generally, when there's a 'significant event' in the offing, even if we don't see it, someone will call it to our attention to it so we can take a look. But there was no warning whatsoever in this case, and that's a little frightening."

Hundreds of drivers and pedestrians stopped and watched in awe---and some in terror-as the ghastly sight plummeted through the atmosphere.

"It was just like the movie," said one couple. "You think it won't really ever happen, but this is proof that it not only can, it will."

Alex Martinez, whose house was utterly flattened by the disaster, said he was unable to fully express how he felt.

"I'm glad we weren't home, for one thing," said Martinez. "But once you get over the relief of that, you start to think about your house, your pets, all your belongings, all the things insurance can never replace. Then the really scary part hits you: Will insurance even cover this? I don't remember checking the box on the policy for 'meteor protection'. It could be that we're really wiped out, and we just don't know it yet."

Scientists say that meteors often come in "groups", or "meteor showers".

"There's no way to predict what could happen in the next few days to a week," said Paul Zurflu. "We've got people looking---I think it's safe to say there are thousands of people looking after this event. But right now there's no way to know anything for sure. This could be a one-time, isolated event, or it could be the remains of a larger rock, and dozens of more fragments, larger or smaller, could come in at any time. This epitomizes the need for a great deal more funding in this area. This was a complete surprise, and it shouldn't have been."

See New Data from Mars Probe Page D-5

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