Phony Mankato Home Page may be the oldest running joke on the Net

A fictional Internet Web site that describes Mankato, Minn., as a tropical paradise was featured last week in a New York Times story about why information on the Net can't always be trusted.

"Whales in the Minnesota River?" the Times headline asked. "Only on the Web, where skepticism is a required navigational aid." The story went on to say that, "On the World Wide Web, straight facts can be hard to find."

But Don Descy, the Mankato State University professor who created the tongue-in-cheek "Mankato Home Page" as a lesson to his students, isn't happy that he wasn't consulted by the Times.

"I am upset that the New York Times did not even bother to call me about the site," Descy wrote in an e-mail. "It was designed for a class to show that you can't believe everything you see on the Net."

You certainly can't believe everything you read at the phony Mankato Home Page (http://www.lme.mankato.msus.edu/mankato/mankato.html) . It says the temperature in many Mankato neighborhoods never drops below 70 degrees, because steam seeps up through the Earth's crust and heats the air. And it describes points of interest that include Mankato's hot springs, underwater city, pyramid, nuclear submarine manufacturing plant and whale-watching areas. The page also features fake pictures of many of the alleged scenic wonders, plus a purported January 1997 photo of the Minnesota River in Mankato that shows sailboats gliding across open water with Dutch windmills in the background.

But if the Times was trying to find new misinformation on the Internet, it's way behind. The bogus Mankato Web page may be the oldest running joke on the Internet.

It first made the news about three years ago in the Mankato Free Press, and it has been noted elsewhere on the Internet since then.

The bogus home page does urge viewers to read its lengthy disclaimer, which finally gets around to saying that, "Mankato, as portrayed on these pages, DOES NOT EXIST! PLEASE do not come here to see these sights. (This had to be added because several individuals have come here to see some of the sights listed on these pages!)"

Gullible travelers