True Perpetrator of Copycat Pumpkin Prank Verified by The Solar
A member of the Cornell neighborhood has come ahead with photographic proof independently verified by The Solar that reveals they had been the one that pierced the pumpkin on the spire of McGraw Tower on Friday, Oct. 20. Images confirmed the offender carrying the 40-pound pumpkin in a trash bag earlier than impaling it onto the tower’s spire.
“I heard that it was claimed to be put up by two males and I knew firsthand that wasn’t the case so I got here to The Solar,” mentioned the offender, who requested anonymity for privateness issues.
Just like the 1997 prank, nobody might be actually certain who did it — regardless of two college students initially leaping on the probability to say accountability for the prank — as The Solar couldn’t confirm the claims of the alleged pranksters attributable to there being no photographic proof of them climbing the tower on Oct. 20, the day the pumpkin was put up, with there solely being pictures of them on the tower the evening of Oct. 21.
The offender mentioned he felt “attacked” that the scholars who initially claimed accountability for the prank did so, as he mentioned climbing McGraw Tower with a 40-pound pumpkin was tougher than climbing it with out.
“I felt attacked that they might lie about it,” the offender mentioned. “Clearly, they did break in and get to the highest which is a feat in itself. However doing it with a 40-pound pumpkin is loads tougher, and I do know they didn’t do this.”
On Oct. 20, a number of Cornellians had been notified of the pumpkin’s existence after {a photograph} taken on the prime of the tower was posted to the social media app Sidechat. However the prankster denied that he posted the {photograph} on-line.
“No, I didn’t publish it on Sidechat. I’m not even in there, however I’ve some reference to undergrads who noticed it on my social media, screenshotted it and posted it,” mentioned the nameless prankster.
The offender mentioned he reached the highest of the tower in an identical method to the 2 college students who claimed to have put the pumpkin on the tower.
“I placed on some building gear and simply walked into the gate after which proceeded to climb the scaffolding, and identical to the blokes mentioned within the earlier interview, when you get midway up, you simply gotta scale it,” the offender mentioned. “I actually like heights. So it wasn’t too nerve-wracking. The very tippy prime was fairly scary as a result of you’ll be able to see all over the place and everybody can see you.”
“I used to be nervous that I’d be seen by a bunch of individuals as a result of it was in broad daylight. That’s the place the trash bag got here in helpful — it was the most important trash bag I might discover to suit the most important pumpkin they grew at Indian Creek Farm.”
The offender alleges the pumpkin got here from the native Indian Creek Farm in Ithaca. They mentioned that they instructed a pal who works on the farm to develop the most important pumpkin doable, including that this 12 months’s pumpkin was about 40 kilos.
“I began my planning two months prior,” the offender mentioned. “I heard the 1997 [pumpkin] was about 50 kilos so I attempted to match that, however Indian Creek didn’t develop an even bigger one than [the one placed on the top of the tower].”
The offender added that they needed to hold out their plan on a Friday in mid-October in time for “the spooky season.”
“That prank from the ’90s — it was lore on campus forevermore, and it made nationwide information, and I kinda needed to get a bit piece of that,” the prankster mentioned. “I really feel like that is sort of my legacy now. I needed to see what it should have been like up there again then.”
The offender — who’s a member of the Class of 2016 and nonetheless works in the neighborhood — mentioned that they had all the time questioned whether or not McGraw Tower might be climbed, and known as it “a reasonably cool feeling” to have the ability to accomplish that, with help from scaffolding as a result of ongoing building on the clocktower.
“I clearly knew concerning the lore, being from Ithaca and listening to about it as an undergrad. I used to be a part of the outside training division and was into climbing and was all the time questioning if it might be climbed,” the offender mentioned. “[It was like] being on prime of the world sticking a pumpkin on a spire like that.”
Henry Fernandez ’27 is a Solar contributor and may be reached at [email protected].
Cornell Continues to Devalue Standardized Testing as Collegeboard Adapts Digital SAT 
Cornell Reduces Proportion of College students Admitted Via Early Choice Observe 
Jonah Gershon ’24 Launches Spekld, Novel Brown Butter Stick Firm 
Tompkins County to Obtain $8 Million to Resurface Meadow and Fulton Avenue 
Inside Collegetown Bagels’ Function within the Tapestry of Cornell’s Tradition 
Lily Hakim ’07 Receives 2023 CALS Younger Alumni Achievement Award 
Males’s Hockey Performs a Full Sport, Defeats Colgate 4-2 in Hamilton