On April 1, 1980,

WNAC-TV WNAC-TV (channel 64), branded on-air as Fox Providence, is a television station in Providence, Rhode Island, United States, affiliated with Fox and The CW. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) ...

aired a fake news bulletin that stated that

Great Blue Hill Great Blue Hill is a hill of 635 feet (194 m) located within the Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, Randolph and Canton, Massachusetts, about south of downtown Boston. It is the highest point in Norfolk County and the Greater Boston area. The ...

was erupting. Intended as an April Fools' prank, it resulted in panic in

Milton, Massachusetts Milton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States and an affluent suburb of Boston. The population was 28,630 at the 2020 census. Milton is the birthplace of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and architect Buckminster Fuller. ...

and the surrounding area.

News report

WNAC-TV ended its 6 pm news broadcast with a bulletin reporting that Great Blue Hill in Milton had erupted and was spraying lava and ash onto nearby homes. The report showed footage of lava flowing down a hillside (taken from the March 27 eruption of

Mount St. Helens Mount St. Helens (known as Lawetlat'la to the indigenous Cowlitz people, and Loowit or Louwala-Clough to the Klickitat) is an active stratovolcano located in Skamania County, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United St ...

) and edited remarks from President

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...

(who expressed concern) and Governor Edward J. King (who called the situation "serious"). According to reporter Jan Harrison, the disaster had been caused by a geological chain reaction set off by the eruption of Mount St. Helens a week earlier. At the end of the bulletin, Harrison held up a card that read "April Fools!".

Reaction

Following the report, some Milton residents began to flee their homes. The Milton Police Department received over a hundred calls from people who believed that the report was true. The Massachusetts Department of Civil Defense was also inundated with calls from residents who wanted to know if they should evacuate their homes. WNAC-TV received dozens of calls from angry viewers. The station issued an apology during its 11 pm newscast. The next day, the executive producer of the 6 o'clock news, Homer Cilley, was fired by the station for "his failure to exercise good news judgment" and for violating the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

's rules about showing stock footage without identifying it as such.

References

{{Reflist April Fools' Day jokes 1980 hoaxes 1980 in Massachusetts Hoaxes in the United States Journalistic hoaxes Milton, Massachusetts History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts Mass psychogenic illness in the United States Scares