Like that's never happened before. Unfortunately, this one gained credence because some professional journalists wrote it up, without engaging brain. This is an excellent time to look up the term "Occam's Razor."
See Seth Finkelstein's sane take on this:
The net is filled with people who go around and spam blogs to get their message heard, with various degrees of skill at it. So by the saying "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses before zebras", when you see weird spam, think marginal people before elaborate PR campaigns. It's a much better fit.
