Did a ‘Drunk Crop Duster’ Pilot Dump 4 Tons of Manure over Kansas?

In December 2019, myriad Facebook posts shared an article claiming that a “drunk crop duster” pilot spread four tons of manure across Kansas:

El Dorado, Kansas | An agricultural airplane pilot made a serious mistake this morning while operating his aircraft under the influence of alcohol, accidentally dumping his cargo of manure over cars, houses, and residents.

According to the police report, 51-year old Barry Wood had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.48% when he was arrested, six times the legal limit allowed to drive a motor vehicle and 12 times the legal limit allowed to operate a plane … Residents of the city were taken off guard as tons of liquid manure started raining over the city, causing several car accidents and totally ruining an outdoor wedding ceremony.

However, the article’s headline wasn’t very journalistic:

SHIT FALLS FROM THE SKY IN KANSAS: DRUNK “CROP DUSTER” PLANE PILOT SPREADS 4 TONS OF MANURE OVER CITY

In one Facebook group where the link was shared, some commenters reacted to the “news” as if it were legitimate:

“Make him clean it up. That ought to cure him of drinking”

“He’s been a danger flying drunk for years! And the officials knew it! Let it go til it came to this! Thank God he didn’t kill anybody”

It seems that those commenters did not scroll down to the bottom of the article from World News Daily Report, a satire site that has the following text in the footer of each page:

World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.

The claim that a drunk crop duster pilot showered parts of Kansas with manure was fabricated for humor and social media shares — as were previous claims from the same site that a man was arrested for dressing up as an alien and abducting people, that another man got extensive plastic surgery to circumvent a restraining order, that yet another man got extensive cosmetic procedures to look more like Jesus, that a woman was jailed for leaving her kids in a car outside a buffet, and that a feminist was lauded for her twenty-seventh abortion.