Apr 06, 2006 - Claremont, Calif. -

It was the stuff of Harvey Mudd College legend: A group of 11 students pulled off the ultimate prank in late March 1986 when they performed the Caltech Cannon Heist. With the help of alumnus Robert DePietro '69, the students posed as construction workers and -- complete with mock paperwork and the necessary heavy equipment -- loaded up the Fleming House cannon at Caltech and brought it to HMC.

So, when Caltech called our campus last week to report the cannon was missing again, suspicions arose. HMC was scoured for signs of cannon parts, but the results were negative. Well, the cannon did indeed turn up yesterday -- at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. It seems MIT students needed a big prank in response to Caltech's interference with their pre-frosh weekend and, as the expression goes, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Here is the result:

http://www.mitcannon.com/

The MIT page links to a website about the cannon's "first vacation from Caltech." The site was created by David Somers '87, currently the director of the Perceptual Neuroimaging Laboratory in the Psychology Department at Boston University, and one of the group of 11 who brought the cannon to campus in 1986.

Here is his chronicle of the event:

http://people.bu.edu/fmri/somers/cannon.html

Somers was at MIT to see the cannon again and reflected on the copycat prank in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-statue7apr07,0,2096065.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Somers was also featured in an interview on NPR's "All Things Considered." It is archived here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5330817