Hoax has pretend terrorists attack nonexistent town

We passed the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks unscathed, except for a suicide bombing by a nonexistent group on an equally nonexistent town.

In fact, the only real thing about this "attack" was the press coverage. In Germany, the DPA wire service -- which is similar to the Associated Press -- was all over this one, after an attack on the town of Bluewater was thwarted and The Berlin Boys rap group arrestedin the plot.

Except the town, which reportedly straddles the Colorado River between San Bernardino County, California and La Paz County, Arizona, doesn't really exist. And neither does the Berlin Boys group.

According to Wired:

The work of German filmmakers peddling a satirical movie called Short Cut to Hollywood, the elaborate hoax involved at least two faked websites, a faked Wikipedia entry and California phone numbers for "public safety" officials that were actually being answered by hoaxsters in Germany using Skype ... the hoax has transfixed this country. It prompted a 1,000-word tome on the website of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany’s most respected newspaper, and even a press conference denouncing the incident by the DPA – the German wire service responsible for first disseminating the news about the "attack" ...

There really is a Bluewater, kinda sorta. Although the "official town website" carries a link to the Berlin Boys and is probably fake, there are some other indicators. Sperling's Best Places lists Bluewater with a population of 331 (counting dogs?) and not much else. Wrapped among the Colorado River Indian Reservation, the nearest California town is Earp and the closest anything is the Bluewater Casino in Parker, Arizona. Earp is so insignificant that I haven't found population figures for the town, but 1,545 people live in the 92242 Zip code, where the town sits. (The Web site ZipSkinny, where I got this information, reports that no schools are listed in that area. That's how small the place is.)

Out there, you just might see roadrunners using oven mitts to pick up lizards on those hot days.

Part of the target's "appeal" is that it's so remote.

... locals were blissfully unaware of the hoax that involved their sparsely populated resort area, whose greatest claim to fame is a nearby casino. Hardly anyone lives on the California side of Bluewater, says Dorothy Randall, who runs the Bermuda Palms RV Park in Earp. There’s no city hall or council. The area is called Bluewater by locals, so it wouldn’t make sense for a suicide bombing to have occurred in town anyway, because there really is no town to begin with, Randall said. "There’s not much here."

I lived in Bullhead City, Arizona for five years (and drove by Earp to get there) but I'd never heard of the place. The only Bluewater I knew was the name of my old voting precinct in Bullhead. I've driven by Nothing (along Highway 93, with a population of 4 and, last I heard, enjoying a renaissance) but never saw a Bluewater.

Like, if the place was hit in a suicide bombing, who'd know?