HUNGERFORD, ENGLAND — After watching a program about Google Earth, the search giant’s worldwide photographic mapping project, 17-year-old Rory McInnes climbed onto the newly installed roof of his parents’ home and painted a 60-foot penis on the shingles. He wanted to see how long it would take for anyone to notice.A year later, a helicopter pilot discovered the prank and alerted The Sun newspaper. The Sun dutifully notified McInnes’ parents, who thought the cheeky paper was pulling their legs.

“It’s an April Fool’s joke, right?” Andy McInnes asked. “There’s no way there’s a 60-foot phallus on top of my house.”

Further investigation elicited an admission of guilt, if not repentance, from then 18-year-old Rory McInnes, who was in Brazil on holiday at the time — presumably too far away for his father to retaliate.

Andy McInnes said he found the prank amusing, but that wouldn’t save Rory from undoing the deed when he returned to Berkshire.

“When Rory gets home he will be given a scrubbing brush and white spirit and he can go and scrub it off,” Andy McInnes, 54, a company director, told The Sun.