[bpodgursky]

Luckily, they were masters' students, so the damage will be limited to a semester or so at most (in the US, generally a master's thesis isn't the most important part of a degree). If it was a PhD thesis... I don't want to think about that.

[OkayPhysicist]

Our professor loves to tell the story of how one of his friends in grad school based his thesis on a series of experiments to be run by a mars probe. One morning my professor runs into him and he's just completely panicked. My professor asked what was wrong, and the guy replied "My thesis is a debris field on Mars".

So, it happens

[irrational]

I don’t know. It took me a few semesters to write mine and it was the main graduation requirement. This kind of situation would’ve set me back at least a year and cost me a ton of tuition money. It would’ve been economically and emotionally devastating for me.