The MIT Balloon Hack of '82 

I was at this game. Great prank. Sadly, I agree with quaa. Society has lost its sense of humor and there seems little room for pranks these days.

of course if this happened today, they'd be arrested by homeland security and tried as terrorists

That's my Grandfather in the raccoon coat kicking the balloon. I was not far from him on the sideline, I was around 12.

This is amazing! It certainly ranks among the greatest college pranks of all time!

Brilliant! "Freon is just what you get in your refrigerator, it's inert, it's harmless." The hole in the ozone layer was discovered by the British Antarctic Survey in 1985.

absolute genius

My dad came back from the delta kapsa epsilon country wide get together in New Orleans and was told this story from an alumni member of the Harvard students who did the original prank. He told the freshman of this story ( he was a senior by then) and with not enough time, he made the younger class men remember this. He told of this story and though i didnt believe him at first, Here i am and my respect for my dad (Class of '79) has greatly raised.

The president of DKE is Bruce Sohn, now president of First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) which has the best solar technology and chairman of the US Manufacturing Council. Glad to see that pranksters can still have futures :)

Amazing

Bob Lobel FTW (probably had about eight beers at the DKE house, too)

Tom Ellis reporting this puff piece like it was the brinks heist.

#PersonOfInterest referenced this in one of their episodes.

@davidisasmellywiff I think what he meant was it would be harmless to people.

Some ones gwumpy

@PooPoo2U It was buried six inches under the ground, then it pushed through the ground.

In the press conf is that a Budweiser in front of the guy on the right?

DEKA

Are you still reading comments after 11 years?

Very cool. What's his name and background at Harvard? The MIT history department would love to know.

did they get in trouble?

lol harmless freon... anyways cool,

Eli Manning old af!

If the referee decided to walk up and touch the balloon at 2:22, he probably would have been injured when it exploded. So, not 100% safe as advertised.

Jesse tiger? The fact that people like you regard this as a crime makes our life even more lamer

Students from Liberty University or Trump University could never do this because they would'nt know how...

I don't really get what the funny is. So you got a balloon and it grew and then blew up? that's it?