The NASA Satellite Photo
Soon after 9/11 an email began to circulate urging people to light a candle and stand outside their home with it at a specified date and time (the date varied between versions of the email). A NASA satellite would then take a photograph of the entire nation illuminated by candlelight in order to demonstrate the solidarity of the American people in the face of terrorist aggression. The photo would supposedly appear on NASA's website the following day.
NASA, of course, never planned to take such a photograph. The light of even 200 million candles spread out over the entire nation would be invisible from space. So any photo of the nation illuminated by candlelight would be awfully dark. Nevertheless, at the specified time numerous people dutifully stepped outside their homes and held a candle up to the sky.
It's not known who started this email hoax. Perhaps it was one of those things that just started spontaneously. Someone thought it would be a good idea if NASA would take such a photo, and that somehow morphed into the claim that NASA was going to do this.
Anyway, there was no real harm done in sending people out onto the streets with their candle, making this a harmless, though still misleading, hoax.
Text copyright © 2002 Alex Boese