Five teenagers facing criminal charges. Plans downloaded from the Internet. The HazMat team and Bomb Squad called in. An entire community alarmed, all because some crazy kids were imitating behavior learned in a video game.

The doom-and-gloom scenario may sound familiar, but the game being blamed certainly won't - Super Mario Brothers for the hoary, old NES.

The Akron Beacon-Journal reports that five girls, using downloaded instructions, constructed those familiar gold paper wrapped boxes sporting a "?" that are featured in every Mario game. They built 17 of the boxes, and stacked them up beside a church, a courthouse, a bakery, a street corner, the library, their high school and a private residence.

The girls, aged 16 & 17, said they were attempting to play a real-life version of Super Mario Bros. The packages alarmed residents, who called in the bomb squad to investigate. The Ravenna Police Department said they will be looking into possible criminal charges as a result.

A more detailed report in the Record-Courier included comments from the local police chief, who said, "The girls found an Internet site called Mario Question Blocks which told you step by step how the game is played, along with instructions on wrapping the packages, just to see what kind of response you get," McCoy said. "This game is evidently being played all over the country."

The chief may be right, based on the number of results for a Google search on "Mario Question Blocks." The site which is apparently behind the gold box campaign is here.

Earlier this week, GamePolitics reported on a bizarre case in which six teenage girls were questioned by police after leaving gold-wrapped boxes with question marks painted on the sides outside various public buildings in Ravenna, Ohio. The boxes mimicked those found in the old Super Mario Bros. game for the NES.

As reported by the Akron Beacon-Journal, Portage County Prosecutor Victor V. Vigluicci said the girls "The girls were imitating an art project they found on the Internet. None of the girls had any prior contacts with the police or juvenile court and are all good students. I do not believe that they had any bad or malicious intentions, (but) were not thinking about the consequences of their actions in this day and age."

The girls will write letter of apology to each of the public safety agencies which responded (but not, apparently, to Mario, Luigi or Princess Peach).