it is said that in early september, 1997
in the tunnel of the pont de l'alma, paris
princess diana was involved in a fatal car crash.

shortly thereafter
i posted to several internet newsgroups
including alt.conspiracy and soc.british-culture
a message purporting to have originated
from reuters newsagency.

the message suggested
that diana may have faked her death
to escape media attention.

the facade was shallow
and easily detected.

for starters, reuters don't post to internet newsgroups.

and secondly, a viewing of the messages headers
revealed that, of course, it did not actually originate with reuters.

someone posting to the soc.british-culture group
did not take kindly to the pretence,
decided to inform the hard-done-by news agency,
and presumably did so by emailing reuters.

rather than taking any disciplinary action
(as the complainant might have wished)
reuters cited the original message
as a source of the hoax theory
in a story than ran on its international news wire.

the story was carried by the cnn website,
and printed in the melbourne age
(and presumably numerous other publications as well..)

another ironic and appropriate outcome..

goto:

the original posting

the melbourne age article

quotes from user's guide to the millennium, by j.g. ballard

All the millions of cars on this planet are stationary,
and their apparent motion constitutes
mankind’s  greatest collective dream.

Here we see, all too clearly,
the speed and violence of our age,
its strange love affair with the machine and,
conceivably, with its own death and destruction.

Forensics :
On the autopsy table
science and pornography
meet and fuse.

If we really feared the crash,
most of us would be unable to look at a car,
let alone drive one.