Already plagued by numerous problems and setbacks, the controversial Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has now suffered irreparable damage - actually, complete destruction - from its latest mishap: bird crap. The CERN super collider, buried 500 feet below the Swiss countryside, fell victim to a one-in-a-billion chance encounter with a wad of bird shit.

A crow apparently dumped its load into a thermal exhaust pipe on which it was perched. By freak coincidence, the bird poop was sucked into a sensitive coolant system inside a 600 megawatt proton accelerator. This in turn created a thermal runaway condition, which fortunately was stopped by quick actions taken by the lone physicist on site. Had that chain reaction been allowed to continue, the LHC would have triggered a complete thermal meltdown. A possible China Syndrome condition may have resulted, with the collider melting its way downward toward the core of the earth.

The heroic scientist, whose name has not been released by Swiss authorities, was instantly vaporized mere milliseconds after shutting down the main power grid. No one else was inside the underground facility during the tragedy, nor were there any known casualties at ground level. A plume of toxic smoke was seen billowing out of a crater where the giant particle accelerator had once been. Hazmat crews are now on site to monitor radiation leakage from the smoldering caldera.

Officials from the European Organization for Nuclear Research were stunned at the news of the collider’s demise.

“We’re out 6 billion Euros over a fucking crow!,” complained Jacque DuJour, chairman of CERN. “It’s going to take fucking forever to build another one of these things. Can you believe that shit? God damned birds…shoot ‘em all! This really chaps my ass!”

No word yet on the fate of the crow, though its chances of survival looked grim.