The story of a little town 70 miles outside of Dallas being quarantined due to an Ebola outbreak has gone viral. The problem is, it's a complete hoax.

Fake news site National Report posted the story on October 14. According to the piece, a family of five tested positive for the virus after a father, Jack Phillips, returned home from a business trip in Dallas. The article, which reads like a legitimate news piece, claims that the town was then completely shut down and isolated from the outside world.

A portion of the article is clearly meant to play off the wide-spread fear that Ebola will mutate into an airborne disease.

"As far as we know," the article reads, "Jack Phillis had not come in contact with neither the late Thomas Duncan or Mrs. Phan. It is perhaps possible that he was within a close proximity of the infected parties, but it is otherwise unknown as to how Phillips was infected with Ebola."

The piece goes on to describe the CDC's alleged quarantine.

"The CDC wasted no time sealing up the rest of the town’s denizens, and has stopped all traffic entering and exiting Purdon, TX. As of 10 Pm, Oct. 13th area has been surrounded with police and CDC officials. Communications with the locals seems to have been cut off, and press is currently awaiting an official statement from local authorities."

This came as news to the residents of Purdon, who flooded emergency services and hospitals in the area with calls after the fake story began trending on social media sites.

National Report is a phony news site intended to be humorous, but unlike sites like the Onion, it attempts to deceive readers rather than satirize current events. On October 15, the site published a follow-up story, even going so far as to create a video report that's received thousands of views in less than 24 hours. (The video was uploaded under the name "Ashley Downes-Cox, NRTV Journalist", which speaks volumes about its legitimacy.)

Other stories on the site include an article claiming that solar energy panels are draining energy from the sun and endangering life on earth, and an article claiming that North Korean dictator Kim Jung-un was recently kidnapped by ISIS militants.

If you see this story in your Facebook newsfeed or on Twitter, let your friends know it's fake and not to freak out, and remind them not to trust everything they read on the internet.

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