The 747 that went to Burning Man: What really happened

The Big Imagination project began that way too — and grew into a group that raised and spent just short of $1 million to bring a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet (or rather, 3/4 of one) to Burning Man this year. But the final execution of its plan was unprecedented in the event's 32-year history — both in its scale, and the level of controversy it generated. Since this year's weeklong event ended in September, Big Imagination has had to navigate some serious turbulence, largely expressed in Facebook and Reddit groups. Some of it was driven by a misleading local newspaper report, and a game of media telephone led to even more misleading videos claiming that the plane had been "abandoned" on the playa (Burning Man's location, an ancient lake bed in the Black Rock desert). Bad enough that the 747 managed crowd control with what some attendees perceived as a dismissive, elitist attitude. Now it appeared to be in violation of the event's sacrosanct principle of Leave No Trace. A tiny minority casually suggested shooting, burning or dismembering the plane. One graffiti artist tagged it with the word "MOOP", which stands for Matter Out Of Place and is the worst insult in the Burner lexicon. For veteran Burners, here was an irresistible story that spoke to larger, worrying trends: entitled Silicon Valley types bring one of the largest, most Muggle-like objects they could find to a magical location, then toss it aside like trash. The story was only slightly hampered by being entirely untrue...MORE