Apr 7, 2006 7:04 pm US/Pacific
(CBS) PASADENA, Calif. They’re laughing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology this morning. But at Caltech, revenge is being plotted.
The 100-year-old cannon that usually sits outside Caltech’s Fleming undergraduate house, which fires blanks several times a year to mark special occasions, is now in the middle of the MIT campus in Cambridge, Mass.
The cannon disappeared from Caltech Tuesday and showed up about 3,000 miles away at MIT Thursday after pranksters from MIT successfully posed as movers and then shipped it across the country.
Last year, Caltech students went to Cambridge and passed out T-shirts to prospective MIT students that unbeknown to the recipients, read on the back: “Because not everyone can go to Caltech.”
The cannon’s disappearance “validates what we did last year; it was worthy of a great response,” Tom Mannion, Caltech’s assistant vice president of student affairs, told the Pasadena Star-News.
On Thursday, the cannon was pointed toward Pasadena and adorned with an oversized MIT school ring, next to a plaque referring to Caltech as “its previous owners,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
This isn’t the first time the cannon has been taken. Twenty years ago, Harvey Mudd College students managed to move it to Claremont.
There was no immediate word about when the cannon would be returned.
Capen Low, a freshman at MIT, part of a group calling themselves the ‘Cannon College Co-Ed’s’ pose near a Spanish American War Cannon stolen from Caltech’s campus by MIT Hackers and brought to MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts April 6, 2006. The Hackers, calling themselves the ‘Howe & Ser Moving Company’ also added an MIT class ring to the cannon.
美国各大着名学府一直以来名争暗斗，除了争取学术上的成就，互相抢夺资源和学生外，也不放过任何「出位」的机会。最近，名扬国际的麻省理工学院一批学生，就炮制了有史以来最大的一宗恶作剧。他们从死对头加州理工学院的校园内，偷走了一台重两吨、已有130年历史的大炮，然运到4800公里外的东岸，搬进麻省理工的校园内摆放。
截至周五为止，那台具有历史价值的“费林明大炮”仍然放在麻省理工校园内，旁边架起了一幅牌匾，上面写：“前度主人：麻省理工”。有份参与这次行动学生，还在牌匾上讲述他们的行动过程。原来他们是利用伪造文件，暪过加州理工的保安人员，成功把大炮运走。
消息指出，麻省理工教职员和学生也准备于稍后时间，把大炮交还给加州理工。
Bikini-clad members of a group calling themselves the ‘Cannon College Co-Ed’s’ pose near a Spanish American War Cannon stolen from Caltech’s campus by MIT Hackers and brought to MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts April 6, 2006. The Hackers, calling themselves the ‘Howe & Ser Moving Company’ also added an MIT class ring to the cannon.
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