A Write Good!: The News report — “All the story, plus lies!”
(WriteGood!WireServices) – The European Space Agency’s celebration of the Philae lander’s historic arrival on a distant comet was dashed today when a sixth-grade student revealed that the whole mission was a hoax he created to get out of gym.
Bradley Thomas Rucker, 12, a student at Charles Middleton Junior High School in Tinley Park, Illinois, perpetrated the prank by using Chicken McNuggets and a space diorama he’d built for extra credit in science class. How the hoax might have excused Rucker from gym remains unclear, although he vaguely referenced his concerns about an upcoming curls, pull-ups, and timed shuttle run test.
“I was just kidding around,” Rucker said at a joint ESA/Middleton Bobcats Pep Rally news conference. “I told Jamie and Marcus but swore them to shut up about it, that it was just a joke. But then Marcus has to be so cool and right away texts Kelly, like she’ll be really impressed. Which she isn’t. And she texted everybody.
“And then the ESA was all, ‘Look! We landed on a comet! Hurrah for us!’”
Reimaged data from the Philae lander reveals Chicken McNuggets-related inconsistencies.
A subdued ESA Liaison to Small Heads Rocky “Ace” Butane conceded that scientists should have been more suspicious when the agency began receiving fresh telemetry from the lander after 10-years travel to the distant two-mile wide Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
“Honestly? We figured it had slammed into the sun years ago. They always do,” Butane said.
The hoax came apart when an initial review of data from the lander revealed the comet surface to be unexpectedly high in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium.
“Such findings would be more consistent with a planetary body of a far greater size and nutritional value,” said Butane.
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