Will NASA really make a big announcement on November 13th, 2013?

Question

This site says that NASA will release "The Biggest Discovery That will shake the earth, It will never be the same again"

Is it hoax? Is it true? Does anyone here know something about it?

Warning: This website has a questionable domain registrant and is collecting email addresses from unsuspecting visitors for unexplained purposes and no legal explaining their intentions or information about the website's owners. Enter at your own risk, and remember to be careful with your email address and other personal information! Space Exploration Stack Exchange cannot give any reassurances regarding activities of third parties on the Internet, nor is it expected to.

rememberthe13th.com

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Since the official Nasa sources have said nothing about this, I'm leaning towards hoax. — System Down, Oct 03 '13 at 17:19
It is a hoax. 100% no doubt about it. And I give you my permission to quote me on it. But here's the thing. While I may be an information security professional, [space.se] isn't a website for this. [security.se] would be, if it didn't come out as a legal advice, which is something much frowned upon on [SE] for a plethora of reasons. There is also literally googol of websites out there that phish for user emails with various claims and no reassurances or legal gotchas explained, littering the Internet. If people are so naive to fall into an obvious trap, we sadly can't do much about it. — TildalWave, Oct 03 '13 at 19:22
What I am asking is: Does somebody in this community know for sure (from a NASA source) if it is true or hoax? — pablosaraiva, Oct 04 '13 at 01:49

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 03 '13 at 17:31

NASA has never been known to give more than a few days notice prior to big announcements, and they have never set up a custom domain to give out the knowledge before. Here is the email that announced that Voyager 1 left the Solar System, which is one of the biggest announcements that NASA has made in some time. Note that this was done only a day in advance. The only way that anyone would know about something sooner is if they worked for NASA, or reviewed a big paper it was about to publish, in which case they would not be permitted to do anything about it.

JPL/NASA News
News advisory: 2013-276b                                                             Sept. 12, 2013

NASA News Conference Today to Discuss Voyager Spacecraft

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-276&cid=release_2013-276


PASADENA, Calif. - NASA will host a news conference today at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT), to discuss NASA's Voyager mission. It is related to a paper to be published in the journal Science, which is embargoed until 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT).

The briefing will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington and air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

During the news conference, the public may send questions via Twitter to #AskNASA.

For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .

The event will also be streamed live on Ustream at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

For information about the Voyager mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager .

DC Agle/Jia-Rui Cook 818-393-9011/818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov/jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Furthermore, let's look at the domain registry information for the site:

[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[Redirected to whois.enom.com]
[Querying whois.enom.com]
[whois.enom.com]
=-=-=-=

Registration Service Provided By: Namecheap.com
Contact: support@namecheap.com
Visit: http://namecheap.com
Registered through: eNom, Inc.


Domain name: rememberthe13th.com

Registrant Contact:
   WhoisGuard, Inc.
   WhoisGuard Protected ()

   Fax: 
   P.O. Box 0823-03411
   Panama, Panama NA
   PA

Administrative Contact:
   WhoisGuard, Inc.
   WhoisGuard Protected (b8bd1b7f7bdf45ed942317298e44f729.protect@whoisguard.com)
   +507.8365503
   Fax: +51.17057182
   P.O. Box 0823-03411
   Panama, Panama NA
   PA

Technical Contact:
   WhoisGuard, Inc.
   WhoisGuard Protected (b8bd1b7f7bdf45ed942317298e44f729.protect@whoisguard.com)
   +507.8365503
   Fax: +51.17057182
   P.O. Box 0823-03411
   Panama, Panama NA
   PA

I have no idea why someone from Panama would possibly know anything about the workings of NASA, especially during a government shutdown. The odds of this being legitimate are epilon.

I'll vote up today for the good answer. I'll accept the answer after the hoax confirmation november 13h. :) — pablosaraiva, Oct 03 '13 at 17:39
Presumably Panama is the site of the name guarding service. If the registration service was a more common name, I might suspect advertising for a movie or television show, e.g., a movie opening with NASA announcing the discovery of ETI. — , Oct 03 '13 at 17:56

Will NASA really make a big announcement on November 13th, 2013?

1 Answers1