Previously BB had shots of someone using a huge drone to drag them up to skydiving height. Why not another oversized drone to deposit the pumpkin?
eta: I missed the part about this being a 20 year old story. Oops!
“Oversized drone” as in a helicopter or blimp? I don’t think there were too many of what we now consider “drones” available, 20 years ago. 
slight_smile:
@knoxblox: Replying here since the conversation is now closed and I can’t reply inline. I attended a Cornell “Zinck’s Night” gathering a couple of weeks ago and actually spoke with a fellow alumnus (Class of '99, I was class of '00) who was a member of one of the teams who actually obtained a core sample of the pumpkin via a tethered blimp + sampling apparatus (if I remember correctly). I think it’s unlikely a similar method was used to “plant” the pumpkin, if the account I recently read on a Cornell alumni group is to be believed. I’ve attached it here for reference, but I like that fact that whoever knows what happened doesn’t seem to have “come forward” in any official fashion. The mystery is probably greater than the reality. And/or maybe they are just waiting for statute of limitations to kick in…
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Who put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy’s Ovaltine™?
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I agree. Its really not that technical at all from a a climber’s perspective. S/he probably looped a rope around the tower as his safety line, cinching it as he got higher and higher. Or, perhaps: once he had a loop around tower, he could erect a pole to raise one side of the rope, cinch that side tight. Do the same on the other side, and cinch. Now he has an anchor 10 feet short of the “summit.” From that anchor he can throw a “lasso” around the very top that he can use to scramble up.
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“Gourdian Naughty”
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Off topic, but I am SUPER distracted by that plane in the photo. I spent 4 awful years at Cornell, and can verify that no airport in Ithaca services planes that large, and no plane passing over between, say, Toronto and NYC would be flying that low or at that angle.
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…cough, Robur, cough…
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It was probably done with a telephoto lens miles away from the tower, and the plane further still. Either a lucky shot, or it was all planned and plotted before hand, like this:
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Unless that one person took the secret to the grave.
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If you throw enough pumpkins at Cornell’s 173-foot spire, one of them is bound to stick.
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Who put the benzedrine in Mrs Murphy’s Ovaltine?
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Ding ding ding, we have a route name. 
The linked story has an account of the aftermath of people spotting the pumpkin. A team used a weather balloon to bring a camera up to the spire to film and confirm its true nature.
As I noted in my previous post, I suspect similar means were used to bring the pumpkin up there in the first place.
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That spire is the most sincere.
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Greater Rochester International Airport is about 60 miles away.
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Are you thinking of palinka? I thought it was more of a brandy, or is this something new I haven’t heard of?
Someone did this to Sather Tower (aka the Campanile) at Cal in 2000:
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