Friday, April 01, 2005

Patrick
On This Day, 1976
British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at exactly 9:47 am the planet Pluto would pass behind the planet Jupiter, and that this alignment of the planets would result in a stronger gravitational pull from Jupiter, counteracting the Earth's own gravity and making people momentarily weigh less. He told listeners that by jumping in the air at 9:47 they would experience a strange floating sensation. Shortly after 9:47 the BBC began to receive hundreds of calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman said she had been seated at a table with eleven friends, and that all of them, including the table, had begun to float around the room. Another complained she had risen so rapidly that she had hit her head on the ceiling.