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Despite the perils, many Americans seemed to take a perverse pleasure in spoofing the unwelcome visitor from space. Skylab stimulated a lot of harmless hucksterism, revived some old promotional gimmicks, even became an excuse to throw parties. Inevitably, Chicken Little emerged as a dominant theme, now crying, "The Skylab is falling! The Skylab is falling!" The analogy was not quite apt, but feathers and beaks were the dress of the day for Skylab watch parties from Minneapolis to Manhattan. Guests at the "first and last annual greater New Orleans Skylab observation party" were asked to bring binoculars, telescopes and crash helmets. Jay Schatz, owner of a luxury high-rise apartment building on Chicago's Near North Side, scheduled a sub-basement party for tenants that would begin two hours before Skylab was expected to break up. Radio stations eagerly joined the hoopla. Ohio's WNCI-FM in Columbus offered $98,000 to the first Ohioan bringing in a locally found piece of the Skylab wreckage within 98 hours of impact. In Atlanta, callers could win yellow T shirts bearing a bull's-eye and the words I'M AN OFFICIAL WQXI-AM 79 SKYLAB TARGET.
An old-fashioned newspaper promotion battle broke out over Skylab in San Francisco. The Examiner got the jump on its rival by offering $10,000 for any Skylab relic, and even before the reentry, readers were bringing in hunks of metal scrap. The Chronicle responded with a black-bordered frontpage notice that any of its subscribers could collect up to $200,000 for personal and property damage from the space station. Chicago Insurance Expert Robert Schultz belittled such offers by advising that anyone who holds a standard homeowner's policy is already covered against Skylab.
There were many variations on the theme. New Hampshire Attorney John Ahlgren advertised "free legal services for people hit by falling pieces of Skylab" outside his Portsmouth office. But he saw a serious side to the event too. "People feel at the mercy of forces they cannot control," he explained. "Concern is mild, but it's there." An ad hoc Spokane, Wash., group called the Skylab Self-Defense Society hung a 15-ft. bull's-eye on the side of a downtown office building and suggested, "Make Spokane the target for Skylab's landing. If you give the Government a target to shoot at, it's bound to miss. That is our greatest protection." Throughout the U.S., Skylab "survival kits," usually including plastic helmets and targets, were selling well. There were also numerous office lotteries based on when or where Skylab would fall. At the White House, Presidential Press Secretary Jody Powell was said to have $2 riding on his best impact guess: the Arabian Sea.
At an increasingly busy public information switchboard at the Johnson Space Center, one of the most frequent questions from callers was whether pieces of Skylab would remain Government property and must be surrendered by their finders. "No," replied NASA'S Terry White. "We slammed the hatch on Skylab in 1974. Anyone can keep the pieces and put them on their coffee tables."