angelophile | And, yes, this news story is actually true.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Many a visitor to New York's Museum of Modern Art has probably thought, "I could do that."

A British graffiti artist who goes by the name "Banksy" went one step further, by smuggling in his own picture of a soup can and hanging it on a wall, where it stayed for more than three days earlier this month before anybody noticed.

The prank was part of a coordinated plan to infiltrate four of New York's top museums on a single day.

The largest piece, which he smuggled into the Brooklyn Museum, was a 2 foot by 1.5 foot oil painting of a colonial-era admiral, to which the artist had added a can of spray paint in his hand and anti-war graffiti in the background.

The other two targets were the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History, where he hung a glass-encased beetle with fighter jet wings and missiles attached to its body.

An art Web site called www.woostercollective.com has posted pictures of the artist -- wearing an Inspector Clouseau-style overcoat, a hat and a fake beard and nose -- hanging up his work at the four museums and describing how he did it.

Speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location in Britain, Banksy said he conducted all four operations on March 13, helped by accomplices who filmed him and provided distractions where necessary.

"They staged a gay tiff, shouting very loudly and obnoxiously," said the artist.

"My sister inspired me to do it. She was throwing away loads of my pictures one day and I asked her why. She said 'It's not like they're going to be hanging in the Louvre.'"

He took that as a challenge. "I thought why wait until I'm dead," he said.

It was unclear what gave the game away but Banksy's version of Andy Warhol's iconic images of Campbell's Soup Cans showed a can of Tesco value tomato soup.

He said the painting in the Metropolitan Museum, a small portrait of a woman wearing a gas mask, had been discovered after one day, while the others stayed up for several days. The paintings were fixed to the wall with extra-strong glue.