Oops! 'MythBusters' Accidentally Shoots a Cannonball Through a California Family's House

The term "epic fail" doesn't even begin to explain the magnitude of this mistake made by the cast and crew of the Discovery show "MythBusters," who apparently accidentally shot a frickin' cannonball through a Dublin, California family's house while a man, woman and child were inside it sleeping.

The account of the event from the San Francisco Chronicle is really something of a marvel.

Apparently the "Mythbusters" team was gathered at the Alameda County Sheriff's Department, where they had assembled a homemade cannon and aimed it at some massive containers of water. The only problem? Um, they missed.

"The cantaloupe-sized cannonball missed the water, tore through a cinder-block wall, skipped off a hillside and flew some 700 yards east, right into the Tassajara Creek neighborhood, where children were returning home from school at 4:15 p.m., authorities said.

There, the 6-inch projectile bounced in front of a home on quiet Cassata Place, ripped through the front door, raced up the stairs and blasted through a bedroom, where a man, woman and child slept through it all - only awakening because of plaster dust.

The ball wasn't done bouncing. It exited the house, leaving a perfectly round hole in the stucco, crossed six-lane Tassajara Road, took out several tiles from the roof of a home on Bellevue Circle and finally slammed into the Gill family's beige Toyota Sienna minivan in a driveway on Springvale Drive."

According to the L.A. Times, "MythBusters" hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman were actually not present for the filming of the comically awful failed experiment, in which the cannonball travelled literally two miles from its intended target.

Discovery told the paper that "an explosives safety expert for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department was on hand at the time of the incident and that 'all proper safety protocol was observed.'"

Maybe it's time to re-examine "safety protocol" at the ol' bombing range? Perhaps a "no homemade cannons" clause? No word yet from Savage and Hyneman on how they'll make up for the cannonball-caused catastrophe.

Check out some footage of the actual cannonball damage, and first-hand accounts of the "MythBusters" Cannonball Debacle of 2011.