RANGITOTO HOAX

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 177, 17 October 1927, Page 9

RANGITOTO HOAX

STORY REACHES SCOTLAND

IMPROVED AS IT TRAVELLED The story of the Rangitoto hoax, which was perpetrated in Auckland some time ago, has travelled as far as Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland. Like all such messages, it gathered force as it went. In the Hamilton newspaper, the “Hamilton Advertiser,” people were able to read of doctors, newspapermen and police officials racing to the island in fast launches, of theatres being turned into temoporary hospitals and of crowds waiting in torrential rain on the wharvesHere is the story: “The biggest hoax in the history of New Zealand has been perpetrated at Auckland, where telephone messages and flag signals were received from the prison on Rangitoto, the forestclad volcano island in the Hatiraki Gulf, four miles north-west of Auckland, that a serious explosion .had occurred, and that many of the prisoners were dead and others injured. “Doctors, newspapermen and police officials raced in fast motor-launches to the island and searched the outskirts of the island for dead and wounded men without success. “Ambulances and mortuary vans waited, together with thousands of people, on the wharf, to receive the men from the island, while the theatres were turned into temporary hospitals and fitted ur> with beds. The crowd on the wharves and jetties waited patiently in torrential rain until it dawned on them that the whole city had been hoaxed. Their tempers were not pleasant, and the “joker” is assured of a warm time when he is discovered.”