Website light switching a hoax

A man who boasted to reporters around the world that his website allowed strangers to turn his outdoor Christmas lights off and on admitted it was an elaborate hoax designed, he said, to spread holiday cheer.

Alek Komarnitsky, a computer specialist, said he started the site two years ago to see if he could use computer tricks to make it look as if the thousands of lights adorning his house in Lafayette, Louisiana, were blinking on command.

This year, he went even further: at one point, with a TV station helicopter hovering overhead, his wife was inside, turning the lights off and on herself.

The website was featured in numerous holiday stories.