Hugh Troy and The Flypaper Reports

During World War II, the illustrator Hugh Troy was given a desk job stateside. He found it excruciatingly boring. So to amuse himself he began preparing Daily Flypaper Reports in the style of standard army regulations. These were counts, printed on official-looking paper, of all the flies trapped on flypaper in the mess hall during the last twenty-four hours. He analyzed the results according to wind direction, nearness to windows, nearness to the kitchen, length of the flypaper, etc. He then would mimeograph the report and slip it in among the other official forms submitted to headquarters each day.

After keeping this up for a month, he received a call from an officer in another company: "Lieutenant, Can you tell me the proper procedure for filing fly reports? We’ve been catching hell from the Pentagon for not sending them in."

The story goes that the Pentagon indeed demanded that other units send theirs as well. Just when Hugh was sure that everyone was wasting time with these flypaper reports, he sent another letter to the Pentagon mentioning that counts might be inaccurate due to the counting of old flies from previous counts. To counter this, he suggested that each fly be daubed with a little ketchup using a toothpick. By doing so, previously counted flies would now have a marking for the next count. This task was then added to the roster.

Sources and Additional Information:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_flypaper_report/
http://sniggle.net/troy.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Troy