Santa Barbara Nucleur hoax
In Santa Barbara, which has mostly General Telephone service, a different company
then existed in the Bay Area. General telephone uses older equipment, and some calls
into certain exchanges get routed through inter-region exchanges. A lot of these
used the older 2600 pulse method of signaling (Something the Cap'n Crunch whistle
would make use of).
Then, someone got the bright idea to try dialing out on two lines at once, and to
see what happens. Normally, one line would be busy, and the other one would get through.
Sometimes, when this happened, it would jam the lines, and on both sides of the trunk,
would indicate the trunk was free. Telephone talk would mean a "Glare"
condition, where one side glares at the other. Calls coming in would just terminate
into emptiness, and the trunk would "Appear" to be free to the Trunk Selector.
Eventually calls came it, which terminated to our phone(s). One of my pranky friends
said the following to the caller... "What number are you calling?, this is a
special operator!", the other person said Santa Barbara and gave us the number.
My friend said "What area is that in?", Then said "We've had a nuclear
accident in that area, please hang up so we can keep the lines open for emergency's
only". Pretty soon, others would call up, some reporters, and other "Official"
types. Calls really started to pour in until we broke the connection.
That next day, was a short news article in LA Times headlined "Nuclear hoax
in Santa Barbara" and the main text explained how authorities were freaked out.
And how puzzled they were about the whole thing. The phone company commented "We
don't really know how this happened, but it cleared right up!" 5 years later,
Santa Barbara replaced that old faulty equipment with newer electronic systems.