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Mythbusters Crew Accidentally Fire Cannonball Through Suburban Neighborhood… Quickly Start Deleting Tweets Of The Evidence

Too Much Free Time

from the careful-what-you-tweet dept

Wed, Dec 7th 2011 12:53pm -

Well, well. Slashdot points us to this bizarre and slightly scary story about how everyone’s favorite TV show, MythBusters, had an experiment that went really, really wrong yesterday. Apparently, it fired a home-made cannon at the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department bomb disposal range. The idea was to shoot the cannonball into huge water containers.

But they missed.

Instead, the cannonball went hurtling through the suburban northern California town of Dublin, at 4:15, just as kids were getting home from school. According to the SF Chronicle report on this:

The cantaloupe-sized cannonball missed the water, tore through a cinder-block wall, skipped off a hillside and flew some 700 yards east, right into the Tassajara Creek neighborhood, where children were returning home from school at 4:15 p.m., authorities said.

There, the 6-inch projectile bounced in front of a home on quiet Cassata Place, ripped through the front door, raced up the stairs and blasted through a bedroom, where a man, woman and child slept through it all – only awakening because of plaster dust.

The ball wasn’t done bouncing.

It exited the house, leaving a perfectly round hole in the stucco, crossed six-lane Tassajara Road, took out several tiles from the roof of a home on Bellevue Circle and finally slammed into the Gill family’s beige Toyota Sienna minivan in a driveway on Springvale Drive.

Wow. Amazingly (and thankfully) no one got hurt in all of this. CBS has some astounding video of the carnage, including showing how the cannoball bounced around that house on Cassata Place putting holes in a bunch of places:

But, perhaps equally interesting is that the Mythbusters themselves, appear to have done a little post accident tidying up. After hearing about the whole mess, Jon Laslow went and checked out the various Mythbusters’ Twitter feeds and noticed that a bunch of photos of Kari, Grant and Tory posing next to cannons had been deleted. Oops. But, of course, you can’t delete anything online… So, the photos & tweets have been preserved:

“Heavy Artillery”


“Canon Envy”


Tory and his Canon

Like many folks around here, I’m a big fan of the show, but this seems like quite a mishap.

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140 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Someone must have known next to nothing about firing cannonballs for the ball to travel so far past the target, while breaking through or bouncing off of so many solid objects that obviously slowed down the ball’s momentum some.

Perhaps mythbusters should have done some basic research on what a cannon ball is capable of when fired through a cannon, and how much gun powder one should use when firing a cannon ball.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

According to sfgate, they were aiming at some water barrels and a brick wall.

The article mentioned something about “muzzle lift” which presumably was the reason the cannon ball shot over the momentum-reducing targets.

The mistake, it appears, was in setting the direction of the cannon. From this map, they would of save themselves some amount of trouble by pointing it in a different direction.

pixelpusher220 (profile) says:

Re: Re:

This is the same show that blatantly caved to pressure from the credit card companies when proposing a show about how insecure the new ‘RFID’ cards really were.

I think it was Adam who at a public forum somewhere was talking to the audience describing the hilarity of how the show got shut down.

Their bosses perp-walked him out the very next day to completely retract what he said because, you know, you can’t show people just how insecure the new system is…

So, for ethics and standards I wouldn’t expect too much.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

That’s partly why we don’t need a government that establishes self interested communication monopolies.

Abolish broadcasting and cableco monopolies.

IP extremists argue that their new proposed legislation won’t result in censorship. But look around you. Look at most of the communication channels outside the Internet. Censorship is a reality and our laws are the very reason. The FCC et al promised that broadcasting license requirements/monopolies won’t result in censorship and that turned out to be false. The end result is censorship. and SOPA et al are no different. What we need to do is abolish the existing laws that result in censorship (ie: broadcasting and cableco monopolies) instead of enacting more laws that will intentionally result in more censorship.

Spaceman Spiff (profile) says:

Major booming fun!

Canons are just plain fun! Back in my misspent youth we used to take sections of auto exhaust tubing, weld a base plate on one end, drill a hole near the base plate, and use oxy-acetylene for the propellent. Then we could launch a tennis ball (just right size for tube w/ a shop rag for wadding) about 1/2 a mile! It also made a very satisfying “boom!!”… 🙂 We figured a tennis ball would do a minimal amount of damage when it landed. Of course, we aimed at an empty corn field as a target. Only rabbits and such to worry about.

Spaceman Spiff (profile) says:

Way back when

Way back before explosive cannon ordinance was invented, field artillery was actually aimed at the ground in front of the enemy troops. The idea was to skip the cannon ball off of the ground and through the enemy troops, killing or maiming as many of them as possible. So, if you want to fire a solid shot cannon ball to do the least damage, aim up into the air so it embeds itself in the ground when it lands.

Dan says:

Re: Re: Living on the edge

Well, it’s the county bomb disposal range, that was put in before those neighborhoods were built.

I think “bomb disposal” is a pretty different from “smooth bore cannon firing range,” so I expect people weren’t too worried about cannonballs plunging into homes. Ultimately, I’d think that the Alameda county bomb squad bears a bit of responsibility for this for allowing a cannon to be fired. The crew of Mythbusters would have been using them as a consultants on what they could and could do out there.

Anonymous Coward says:

Damage in the name of Entertainment

There is a moral to this story. When things go wrong in the Physical world, everyone takes notice. We consider the idea of building a homemade cannon. We want to see it tried.

Then it doesn’t quite do what we expected.

It rips through our public spaces, bouncing off hills and roads.

It enters our homes, racing up our stairs.

It blasts through our bedrooms.

It takes out a van.

Now you can expect calls to stop this. It isn’t worth the risk to our property, to our homes, to our very bedrooms, to allow this all in the name of Entertainment.

You likely see where I am going now….

… but in the name of Entertainment we are willing to fire off SOPA and PROTECT IP. It has a great chance of ripping through the Internet in just the same fashion. Exposing us to risk in our public dealings, and in our private dealings. But here we believe the risk is acceptable.

Because the blast of SOPA through our bedrooms destroying our privacy and security is all digital.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Damage in the name of Entertainment

The East India Trading Company were only trying to protect their intellectual property (AKA trade routes). Once again Mike “Pirate-lover” Masnick and his cadre of scurvy dogs is trying to defame a perfectly legitimate enterprise. If Masnick had his way the opium trade would collapse and then no one would have opium anymore. Is that what you want?

vancedecker (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Damage in the name of Entertainment

If the recording industry provided drugs then you’d probably be forced to purchase a whole bag of pills: yellow pikachu, blue dolphins, red dragons, and 1 capsule.

Everyone knows that capsules are best, and having to buy a whole bag of sub-standard x (or ‘e’ for those on the east coast) just seems dishonest.

DannyB (profile) says:

Re: Damage in the name of Entertainment

> It isn’t worth the risk to our property, to our homes,
> to our very bedrooms, to allow this all in the name of
> Entertainment.
> … but in the name of Entertainment we are willing
> to fire off SOPA and PROTECT IP.

Ah, but you miss one critical difference.

The property destruction in your first example, no matter how large, is inflicted upon people who go to “low court”.

In the case of SOPA and PROTECT-IP, the alleged, claimed, unproven, and sometimes even disproved damage is done to people who go to “high court”. Therefore, they should get their wish, regardless of how much damage is inflicted on everyone else.

Anonymous Coward says:

Mythbusters ballistics

I had to stop watching Mythbusters, even though I usually enjoyed it. They had too many half-assed tests where they drew incredibly broad conclusions, like the “Sinking Boat Suction” test (a lot of sailors drowned this way in WWII, it’s not a myth).

I always thought their weakest area were their ballistics tests, which always seemed to have one or two major flaws with the test, such as firing dead on at a target when testing a myth involving a glancing shot. Then, they would run the test two or three times and declare their results with 100% confidence.

It was just so frustrating to watch them declare something a myth when I can go to my bookshelves and easily find recorded verifiable examples of people being killed or maimed by the very phenomena being declared a myth.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Mythbusters ballistics

The myth was not if peeing on an electric fence would shock you but rather peeing on the “third rail” of an electric train track. They concluded it was busted because by the time the pee reached the third rail it was broken up and the electricity couldn’t flow through it. The electric fence is a lot closer to the source so it would shock you.

Paul (profile) says:

Re: Mythbusters ballistics

They have a very hard time disproving myths because (as you point out) reconstructing a myth is hard. There might always be some other factor that made it work.

On the other hand, when they prove myths, they are pretty much proven. I especially enjoyed the one where they tried to figure out just how much force was required to “knock your socks off”. Especially since in the end, they were able to do it, sort of.

And in fact, Science is the same way. We have a darn hard time truly proving anything. But all it takes is one test that doesn’t fit to prove an idea wrong.

This is entertainment of the best sort, and if you are going to do reality shows, this is at least reality within the bounds of what a handful of hacks can make of it.

Don’t get frustrated. Enjoy it for what it is, a few hacks trying to do tests that are often beyond what a few hacks can really do.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Mythbusters ballistics

I’m not against the majority of their tests, only some of them. They don’t always adhere to the scientific process as closely as they should, but they do a good job given the constraints of a TV show. Their math, physics, and other science basics are usually impeccable.

It’s just when they make obvious errors in setting up the tests that bothers me. And that too is okay, if they mention the limits of the test when drawing their conclusion. I just can’t stand it when they smugly declare something a myth when a small amount of research would show that it’s not a myth, but rather a very well understood and researched one-in-a-million phenomenon. My problem isn’t that they’re not recreating the circumstances of a test properly. It’s that they try to recreate something that was a one-in-a-million shot, test it a couple times, then declare that it’s a myth because they couldn’t replicate it. This is especially irritating when we have very solid evidence that something has actually occurred in the past, which goes back to my ship sinking example.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Mythbusters ballistics

“They have a very hard time disproving myths…On the other hand, when they prove myths, they are pretty much proven.”

“And in fact, Science is the same way. We have a darn hard time truly proving anything. But all it takes is one test that doesn’t fit to prove an idea wrong.”

Um…those two things sound like exact opposites.

JMT says:

Re: Mythbusters ballistics

“It was just so frustrating to watch them declare something a myth when I can go to my bookshelves and easily find recorded verifiable examples of people being killed or maimed by the very phenomena being declared a myth.”

You think they don’t have a team of researchers going to their “bookshelves”? What makes your bookshelves so much better than theirs? Sorry, you don’t impress.

darryl says:

Re: Mythbusters ballistics

I guess you forgot that it is not a science doco, it is a FUN show where they “try” to confirm or bust urban myths..

Most here dont seem to ‘get it’, all they are doing is the things most young kids would just love to do but cannot or should not do.

It is not intended to be educational, or to adhere to detailed scientific method, they are not producing a “paper” or scientific report, they are just taking what people tell them and trying it out themselves.

They freely admit that they get it wrong all the time, and accept that is a part of the appeal of the show.

It is not ment to be a dry, rigid scientific study, it’s “give it a go” and see what happens !!!!

It also appears from the show they are very carefull in ensuring correct safety assesments are carried out.

Anonymous Coward says:

Mythbusters are lame. Trying to prove or disprove factual assertions with anecdotal apparatuses is just about the formula for a reality TV show.

If you want to learn something about nature, try science. Try dedicated, patient, dogged persistence. Feynman (more or less): I know how exceedingly difficult it is to know something.

Angry Webmaster (profile) says:

A few details

From what I’ve read, the houses were built long after the range was established.

Second, I suspect the pulled pics and tweets were ordered by the lawyers.

Third, liability. The police make sure that Mythbusters are properly and fully insured for accidents like this, however I I believe that range safety is the responsibility of the police. They would have had to sign off before that cannon was even loaded. I see a few new yachts in some lawyers futures as they figure out who is to blame for what.

Thankfully no one was hurt. I hope, once all the liability stuff is squared away that Mythbusters broadcasts this. It could be “Mythbusters greatest Mythasters!” 🙂

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: A few details

I wonder how much, if anything, they caught on tape after the projectile left the range. At the rate the shot must have been traveling, there probably isn’t much to see, just a dusty explosion where the shot went through the cinder block wall.

Maybe one of their slow-mo cameras was pointed in the right direction, though.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: 4:15 pm

Quoting from a great comment on the same question at slashdot:

“Really? That’s the part of the story that makes you say hmmm? The fact that reportedly a 6-inch cannonball fired from a homemade cannon busts through a cinder-block wall, then bounces off a hillside, then flies 700 yards and bounces again, then goes through a front door, bounces up a stairway and into a bedroom where it proceeds to bust through a stucco wall, and after all that, still had enough energy to fly over to a neighboring house hitting its roof and destroying a few roof tiles, crosses a six lane highway (still in the air, presumably) over into another neighborhood and crashes into a parked minivan shattering its windshield and destroying its dashboard is all copacetic with you, but taking a nap in the afternoon makes the story hard to believe?”

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

I can’t speak for the author, but my take-away was that the lesson here is:

“But, of course, you can’t delete anything online… So, the photos & tweets have been preserved.”

I guess there are a number of questions here. What are the liability dangers of posting pictures before performing a test with a negligible failure rate on a controlled course? Does it look worse to leave the pictures up, or take them down after the accident? Etc., etc.

John Winger says:

Not plausible

Hello. Doesn’t anyone else find this story implausible? How is there a neighborhood less than half a mile from a bomb range? And how would the canon ball bounce around inside a house before blowing through another wall? Wouldn’t it break through whatever else was inside the house? Like the stairs and walls, etc? And there was a man and a woman sleeping at 4:15 in the afternoon? Then it still had enough power to bust a van? Maybe. I don’t know. Sounds fishy to me.

Travis says:

Re: Not plausible

After seeing pics and vids of the aftermath, it appears the cannonball bounced off the concrete in front of the house, broke through the top of the door, bounced off a wall at a very shallow angle, flew over the stairs, and through the back wall. Also, there are many reasons for a couple to be in bed at that time. Night shift, new baby just to name a couple.

vancedecker (profile) says:

Re: Looks like someone has been drinking the Rush Kool-Aid

It used to be that if your kid hit a baseball through a neighbors window, the kids parents were responsible for the damages.

Now the insurance industry has managed to brainwash a significant percentage of ‘men on the street’ to believe that such accidents are nobody’s fault, forcing homeowners to sue in order to get their damages paid for.

ChronoFish (profile) says:

I love Myth Busters.... But....

I love the show… but I noticed once the “Interns” started doing stuff that their approach to “safety” was much different than Adam’s and Jamie’s.

In one episode you could see Adam and Jamie seething with anger after “the kids” built a device in some sort of hanger that nearly killed them. After that episode it’s been rare to see Adam and Jamie on the set when the “kids” were doing something explosives related.

This is just my impression – maybe wrongly.

**********

I also have a beef with Adam and Jamie. Those who watch and dare I say worship them, are the Makers and Geeks of the DIY / Open Source / Open Hardware / Open Data movement. They seem to be insulated from this fact, and I think it’s sad.

-CF

vancedecker (profile) says:

Never been a fan of these two fakes...

The entire show, nearly every episode, has these ‘tests’ they set up attempting to prove or disprove some commonly held myth or urban legend.

More often than not, their shoddy ‘science’ doesn’t prove or disprove anything, other than the desperation middle-American television viewers have in convincing themselves that they are watching something educational.

This doesn’t seem to stop them from announcing in big bold letters, of type you might see in demolition derby or pawn shop, that this or that myth has been ‘busted’

My father always told me, never trust a man with a mustache, and I’m not sure if Goatee’s count, but I’m pretty sure they do in the case of these two hucksters.

Anonymous Coward says:

The myth they need to test

Considering about all they do these days is invent new ways to kill people, or build ways to kill people, or test to see if old ways to kill people actually worked as described, it’s no longer my favorite show.

The myth they need to test, literally, not just figuratively for the hundredth time: is it really possible for a water-skier to leap over a large aquatic predator with a prominent dorsal fin?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

— negligent death —

Um, no one was killed, and no one has shown that any negligence has occurred.

No one can insure against negligence, just as you cannot insure yourself for murder.

If the took all reasonable precausions, and it appears safety is a high prioity on the show, then it would not be a case of ‘willfull’ negligence.

They would be insured against public liability, that means if for some reason, even through the appropriate safety proceedures were followed, then the victim can claim against that public liability insurance.

wesmorgan1 (user link) says:

Well, to be fair...

They may have removed those pictures, but several members of the Mythbusters crew were tweeting about the incident all night, confirming that it happened, expressing relief that no one was hurt, apologizing, and assuring readers that they would be taking steps to prevent such accidents in the future.

I suspect that the pictures were removed simply to avoid the bad PR of “look – they’re celebrating and showing off when someone could have been killed” reactions. Again, they were taking responsibility all night long (and into today, as they retweeted earlier messages) via written tweets.

Anonymous Coward says:

Mythbusters Crew Accidentally Fire Cannonball Through Suburban Neighborhood

Mythbusters Crew Accidentally Fire Cannonball Through Suburban Neighborhood

It was no accident, I am absolutely sure that they had every intension to fire the cannonball, the accident was what occurred after the cannon was deliberately fired.

@wesmorgan1

Correct, clearly they are not trying to cover it up, removing those pictures was simply something that should have been done, for the reason of good taste, and to not as you say try to profit off what was an unfortunate accident.

But mythbusters did not accidently fire the cannon, that was deliberate.

Good on em, for being honest and trying to make amends for this.

nasch (profile) says:

Re: Mythbusters Crew Accidentally Fire Cannonball Through Suburban Neighborhood

Mythbusters Crew Accidentally Fire Cannonball Through Suburban Neighborhood

It was no accident, I am absolutely sure that they had every intension to fire the cannonball, the accident was what occurred after the cannon was deliberately fired.

“State Department suspects Iran is developing nuclear weapons”

They don’t suspect, they know Iran is! I mean, it clearly exists, we have satellite photos of it.

darryl says:

Re: Re: Mythbusters Crew Accidentally Fire Cannonball Through Suburban Neighborhood

Yes, just like they had all those pictures of WMD’s in Iraq.

It’s funny they had pictures, and all sorts of people saying what they were.

But when they got there, and actually LOOKED, what did they find ??

Freaking NOTHING… you believe everything your Government tells you ??…

How sad for you..

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Mythbusters Crew Accidentally Fire Cannonball Through Suburban Neighborhood

what does the word “suspect” have to do with anything ??

Did I say “suspect”, all I was saying that the act of firing the canon was a deliberate action.

What happend AFTER the canon was fired was an accident.

Who said anything about “suspecting” something ??

Talk about missing the point completely.. !!!!

nasch (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Mythbusters Crew Accidentally Fire Cannonball Through Suburban Neighborhood

Did I say “suspect”, all I was saying that the act of firing the canon was a deliberate action.

Hm, I guess I have to explain in more detail. In my made-up headline, the word “suspect” applies to “Iran is developing nuclear weapons”. If you mistakenly try to apply the word to a portion of the headline, such as “State Department suspects Iran is”, it no longer makes sense.

In the Mythbusters story, the word “accidentally” applies to “fire cannonball through suburban neighborhood”. If you mistakenly try to apply the word to only a portion of the headline, such as “accidentally fire cannonball”, it doesn’t make sense.

Obviously they meant to fire the cannonball, but there is no reason to point that out because the headline didn’t say they accidentally fired a cannonball. It said they accidentally fired a cannonball through a suburban neighborhood.

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