Nothing spreads faster than a rumour! It was not long after a rumour of a mysterious phone call had created panic among thousands of people in several districts of Andhra Pradesh, keeping them awake throughout the night, that a hoax SMS forced the residents of Hyderabad to switch off their phone last night.
In August this year, people in several districts of Andhra Pradesh including Hyderabad had claimed to have received phone calls which claimed that a baby had prophesied within hours of her birth that anybody who slept at night would not see the light of day.
In the same way a widely circulated text message was received by mobile phone owners last night which warned “Cosmos rays are entering earth tonight from 12:30 to 3:30 from mars.pls switch off your mobile at night, don’t keep your phone with you. The rays are dangerous – NASA BBC NEWS”, forcing the mobile users to switch off their mobile phones throughout the night.
Receivers of the SMS forwarded it to their friends and relatives to save their near and dear ones from the harmful rays, without checking its veracity. Those who didn’t believe rumour claimed that since Mars is a dead planet it doesn’t generate cosmic rays let alone ‘cosmo’ rays.
Similar SMS was also circulated in 2011 following which Santra Jones had refuted the SMS declaring it as a rumour. Regarding cosmic rays, this is what NASA Says: Particles that bombard the Earth from anywhere beyond its atmosphere are known as cosmic rays. Cosmic rays don’t take pretty pictures, but studying the quantity and type of these particles helps us to understand the acceleration processes involved and to measure the composition of the Sun, as well as sources at the far distant reaches of the galaxy.
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