The website RememberThe13th.com launched last week under the guise of a NASA website. The site claimed that NASA had made “a historic discovery that will shake the entire planet.” This announcement was scheduled to take place on November 13th, 2013, as suggested by the domain name. But on Thursday, October 3, the site was updated to report that the announcement of this historic NASA discovery had been moved to Sunday, October 6.
On Saturday, October 5, all references to NASA were removed from the site. NASA’s logo, links to NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity’s social media accounts, and the sentence claiming that NASA was behind the discovery were all removed. Although there were many strong indicators that the website and its announcement were nothing more than a hoax, some were still hopeful that an Earth-shattering announcement from NASA was imminent.
As promised, on Sunday, October 6, a button was added to RememberThe13th.com that says “Click here for the big discovery.” To the dismay of those hoping for NASA’s confirmation of discovering aliens, clicking the button simply takes you to a YouTube music video of a song called “Purple Ninja” by Beeki Vendi.
Although most are not surprised by an outcome like this, the true motive behind the hoax is uncertain. It could be as simple as a marketing ploy to garner YouTube views. But some have reported the detection of viruses on the RememberThe13th.com website, while others have suggested the possibility that the website was set up as a phishing scam to harvest email addresses.
