'Alien landing' prank causes panic in Jordan

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Quote:The mayor of Jafr, 185 miles east of Jordan's capital Amman, is considering suing a newspaper after their April Fools Day joke caused widespread panic.

Jordanian paper Al-Ghad's front-page story described flying saucers carrying '10ft tall' aliens had landing in the small desert town late at night.

Jafr's mayor, Mohammed Mleihan, described the disruption caused by the story:

"Students didn't go to school, their parents were frightened and I almost evacuated the town's 13,000 residents," Mr Mleihan told the Associated Press.

He was swift to call in the security authorities, who he said then combed the area looking for the aliens. A Jordanian security official, speaking anonymously, said an emergency plan was almost enacted in Jafr.

While it has become somewhat traditional across much of the world for newspapers to publish hoax articles on 1 April, it is not a common practice in Jordan.

Managing editor of Al-Ghad, Moussa Barhoumeh, apologised for any inconvenience and tried to defuse the situation, saying "We meant to entertain, not scare people,".

Source http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8604122.stm