I remember this! I was just out of boot camp and home on my ten day leave when this hit. People were seriously freaking out and I thought it was rather amusing.

This is one of the jokes that not just funny by itself, they make people think about some issues from completely different perspective. In the statement, authors of the hoax, students Badger, Lloyd and Zimmerman explained why they did it: The project was conceived to draw attention to the issues of guns and violence, homelessness and media manipulation in our society.