Division Street bore witness to a historic spectacle this past Wednesday as the majority of the male student population bared it all for the world to see. Over a thousand students ran across campus entirely nude, first gathering outside Nutting House before making their way around and through several academic buildings and dorms before scattering around 5 p.m. as it started to get dark.

Witnesses claim to have seen the men flexing, biting their lips and running their hands through their hair as they strutted about campus. Chants of “Date Knight, Date Knight, ready for a late night” could also be heard periodically from amongst the herd of men. The crowd was observed occasionally encircling a fully-clothed male student before subsuming him into the nameless mass of bodies, baffling the many psychology majors on-site taking notes. The crowd appeared entirely non-aggressive, as their odd mating behavior seemed to be directed at nobody in particular and was believed to be “a more general call into the void for some kind of love and affection.” 

Most staff and faculty were unperturbed by the sudden appearance of naked students, the general reaction being that this was yet another expression of the student body’s infamous “Carleton quirkiness.” Since the majority of Carleton’s student population had never previously seen nudity, several onlookers sustained minor injuries. One student is reported to have fallen off their bike, while three were hospitalized with heart attacks, but no serious injuries were reported. 

Ben Ellis, a participant who requested to remain anonymous (a request we will be ignoring since it was Ben Ellis), said that they were “extremely desperate and out of ideas” in being noticed or set up for the long-controversial Date Knight. “You just gotta put yourself out there, even if it means being very vulnerable and open,” said Ben Ellis, who refused to reclothe himself for the interview. 

To investigate the cause of this event, the Carletonian consulted a biology major, who explained: “We aren’t yet sure whether this event was pre-organized or if, similar to the behavior of hoards of wild boars, this gathering was completely spontaneous.” It remains to be seen what impact this display will have on the number of Date Knight pairings that occur this weekend. On the one hand, this incident was deeply weird and slightly off-putting, but on the other hand presents a level of confidence rarely seen at Carleton. Regarding the entire incident, one female witness simply stated, “I thought this kind of thing was why they had Mandance.”