super stunt

April Fools Day is fast approaching and, if you haven’t already, it is time to start planning your jokes. For inspiration, I offer one of the most expensive and intricate pranks of all time: the Super Stunt.

As John Hargrave from Zug explains in the press release:

Just days after the Boston bomb scare, another team of Boston-based pranksters smuggled and distributed 2,350 suspicious light-up devices into the Super Bowl. Due to its attractiveness as a terrorist target, Dolphin Stadium was on a Level One security alert, a level usually reserved for Presidential inaugurations. By posing as media reporters, the pranksters were able to navigate 95 boxes through federal marshals, Homeland Security agents, bomb squads, police dogs, and a five-ton X-ray crane.

During the second quarter of the Super Bowl, the team of pranksters—who call themselves the “Super Six”—quietly distributed thousands of “Prince Party Packs” to an entire section of Dolphin Stadium. Each packet contained a light-up necklace with official-looking instructions. By turning on the necklace lights during the halftime show, Super Bowl fans believed they would be spelling out the word “PRINCE.”

But they didn’t. They spelled a secret message that was broadcast to 93.1 million people.

Read the riveting full story (in six parts) and then watch the video. The obsessed can read this account from another participant and some coverage on Engadget and a Wired blog. What was the real secret message? A good clue is that John has just published a new book: Prank the Monkey.

Bonus pranks: the best of MIT hacks. The police car complete with donuts on the roof of the Great Dome is incredible, although the Changed Inscription rivals it for attention to detail.