The Mythbusters, quite famous for their explosions, really blew it this time.
The popular Discovery Channel TV show “Mythbusters” stars a special-effects team that puts well-known myths to the test. The team includes Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, Tory Belleci, Kari Byron, and Grant Imahara. Shows generally contain several myths, rumors, or Internet stories and the team attempts to replicate the myth to see if it is actually possible. At the end of the testing myths are ruled to be confirmed, plausible, or busted.
Yesterday, Mythbusters was taping a show on whether different objects fired from a cannon would have the same velocity and trajectory as a real iron cannonball. During testing, the cannonball was supposed to hit a string of garbage cans filled with water, but instead overflew the garbage cans, crashed through a protective cinderblock wall, and bounced off a hill behind the ball, according to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department. “Instead of burying it into the hill it just went skyward,” said the department’s spokesman, J.D. Nelson.
From there, the cannonball continued on into the neighborhood, careening wildly through one home while the residents slept. It crashed through the home’s door, through inside walls, and then through a second story outside wall, so quickly that the homeowners did not wake up until drywall dust was falling upon them.
From there it flew across a busy road, crashed into the roof of another home, then bounced through the window of a parked van where it finally came to rest inside the vehicle.
Amazingly, no one was injured. CBS news has posted a video on YouTube showing the aftermath of the cannonball’s rampage. The cannonball traveled the length of 6 1/2 football fields during the incident.
Mythbusters issued a statement saying they were working with homeowners who were affected. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, the hosts of the show, are reported to have stopped by the neighborhood to personally apologize to the residents.
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