Pranksters place 'time machine' atop MIT building

Bill Greene/Globe Staff

A blue British police call box or a time machine? Whatever it was, it amused passersby today at MIT.

By June Q. Wu, Globe Correspondent

They're at it again. MIT pranksters have placed what appears to be a TARDIS -- a Time And Relative Dimension(s) in Space time machine from the British sci-fi show Doctor Who -- atop the MIT building at 77 Mass. Ave.

Freshmen moving in this morning paused to admire the ingenuity of their mystery peers, who, in an MIT tradition, call themselves "hackers."

A sign on the front of the TARDIS, which is a blue old-fashioned British police call box, said, "Hacker Telephone -- Free for use of hackers."