What I’m about to tell you sounds like the kind of thing made by an AI story generator designed to spit out the final segments of the local 11 o’clock news, but here goes: A few weeks ago, firefighters in Glens Falls, New York, got called to the scene of a burning home. Except it wasn’t burning, it was a very elaborate Halloween display made with some LED lights, fabric, a fog machine, and a fan. An NPR Morning Edition report called it a “fire.”
Chances are, though, you didn’t hear about this first on NPR. It, erm, blew up on TikTok. Or, rather, videos of fake-house-fire Halloween decorations are