If you were tuned in to ADN Radio 90.7 FM or Teletica Channel 7 in Costa Rica yesterday morning, you probably witnessed Mayor Luis Gerardo Castaneda of Liberia mention that the Disney conglomerate planned to develop a massive theme park in the 7,000 hectares of land located near the Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport (LIR). You may have seen the news on the websites of La Nacion, CRHoy.com or even Facebook; a couple of hours later, however, you may have seen that it was all part of an elaborate prank.

It may be tempting to take a shot at La Nacion and ADN Radio 90.7 FM (both owned by Grupo Nacion) for reporting on an item that screamed for fact-checking and investigative work, but this was the Mayor of Liberia speaking – the leader of a significant city in the theme park-rich province of Guanacaste. In fact, the Costa Rica Star has recently written about the various theme park projects in the region. A regional print newspaper ran the story on its front cover and the Mayor went on TV (Teletica often collaborates with Grupo Nacion) with his thoughts on the matter.

Disneyland Costa Rica Goes Viral

As expected, it did not take long for the story to go viral and turn hilarious. A purported “Disneyland Costa Rica” Timeline appeared on Facebook; it quickly gathered more than 4,600 followers. The Twitter hashtag #DisneyCR lit up with surprise and glee; you could almost hear cash register sounds ringing in the minds of business people around Costa Rica. A couple of hours into this merriment, however, business reporters from finance news weekly El Financiero (also owned by Grupo Nacion) had already done some old-fashioned journalistic work and contacted Disney press contacts in Florida.

It turns out that Disney has no plans to develop a theme park in Costa Rica. Journalists from Grupo Nacion then turned to Mayor Castaneda, who tacitly explained that he knows there was a major land purchase in his canton and that there was talk about a theme park developed therein. That would be the Sun Ranch project, which the Costa Rica Star has previously reported on along with other theme parks in Guanacaste.

Who’s Behind the Prank?

Speculation about the origin of this stellar prank ran late into Wednesday afternoon. One theory is that this was only the beginning of a series of pranks that will run from now until December 28^th, which in Costa Rica is a day similar to April Fools Day in other cultures, and which has been losing favor in the 21^st century.

Another theory is that political tricksters may have planted the hoax in the Mayor’s Office as means to discredit the powerful National Liberation party (Spanish initials: PLN). Presidential hopeful Johnny Araya, former Mayor of San Jose, is the frontrunner, shoo-in candidate to succeed President Laura Chinchilla (also of PLN), but in recent weeks he has seen his lead giving way to the young candidate from Frente Amplio (Broad Front): Jose Maria Villalta, also known as the Facebook presidential candidate of Costa Rica.

This “Disney theme park in Costa Rica” hoax is in a way similar to the “Amazon Prime Air” meme that has dominated Web headlines in recent days. We all know who started that crazy-sounding idea of drone aircraft dropping off packages at U.S. residential addresses and maybe even Aerocasillas offices in Costa Rica (not really): It was Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos himself! For the record: Amazon has a significant presence in Costa Rica.

We also have this digital copy of La Gaceta (PDF), Costa Rica’s only official newspaper. In August of 2012, Disney filed for a bunch of trademarks on iconic characters such as the Heffalumps from the Winnie the Pooh stories to Bagheera from the Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. One of the conditions applied for by Disney is that it would own the rights to use Bagheera et al in Costa Rica for several purposes -including theme parks. Maybe this is stretching it quite a bit, so let’s consider the following:

A few months ago, an expat resident of Atenas initiated a McDonald’s hoax with a single blog post. The Costa Rica Star looked into his fabricated claims and found a seasoned newspaperman (and a fine writer) who is very attuned to the online media machine. On that blog post, he also quoted a Facebook comment from someone named Bob who appears to be an expat living in Costa Rica:

Ha, Ha, this has got to be the funniest thing I’ve heard since Disney was going to open Jurassic Park in Orotina

Could Mr. Van Patten be behind this latest “Disney theme park in Costa Rica” prank? His blog does not seem to indicate as much, but he certainly has the experience, wherewithal and moxie to pull it off. He does have, however, a few great and recent blog posts about expat life that are worth reading from now until Disney decides to make a move in Costa Rica.