The New York Times had recently published an article by accident, which made the peculiar claim that watermelons had been discovered on Mars.
The story, which was deleted less than an hour later, read:
"Authorities say rise of fruit aliens is to blame for glut of outer space watermelons. The FBI declined to comment on reports of watermelons raining down, but confirmed that kiwis have been intercepted."
A snapshot of the story which has been archived shows that it was just a stub, including several non-sequiturs.
Part of it reads:
"This story is terribly boring."
After the article disappeared in less than an hour, it was replaced by a message saying: "published in error".
A spokesperson from the New York Times said of the story:
"Earlier today, a mock article intended for a testing system was published on our site in error. The article has since been removed."
It is important to note that there has not been any evidence of watermelons ever existing on Mars.
Nevertheless, there have been several missions that investigate the possibility of ancient life on the red planet, while scientists estimate that some forms of microbial life still exist there, likely deep under the planet's surface.
[h/t: Futurism]
COMMENTS