[SystemOut]

When I was a freshman at Missouri-Rolla (now Missouri S&T) this guy, Iben Browning, predicted that there would be a major earthquake on the New Madrid fault line in December. I think a few schools even closed for the day in the area because some parents were so freaked out about it. It was just the craziest scene that people believed that this nut job could actually predict an earthquake.

[tptacek]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iben_Browning

There's an Uncle Tupelo song about this, conveniently named.

https://genius.com/Uncle-tupelo-new-madrid-lyrics

[jonstewart]

There was a math professor at Iowa State University who advocated blowing up the moon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Abian

[guidoism]

Heh, I was in middle school in Murray KY at the time.