When Rafael Collazo got an e-mail from a “contact” at the White House informing him that President Bush had signed an executive order making Spanish the nation’s official alternate language, he was thrilled.

“That was silently done and not made much fanfare of on New Year’s Eve,” the president of the National Latino Officers Association said yesterday in New York. “My contacts at the White House gave me a memo on the executive order from the official Web site of the White House.”

Mr. Collazo sent out a press release Sunday touting the development, which it said would require the federal government to produce all public documents in both English and Spanish by 2005 – just hours later – and direct “federal employees to undergo mandatory Spanish language training.”

“We applaud President George W. Bush for making this historic decision and acting on an executive order #2417, this will make every Latino proud to be American!” the press release said.

The only problem was that Mr. Collazo and the recipients of his press release were directed to whitehouse.net – a spoof Web site – and not the actual official White House Web site, whitehouse.gov. An executive order starting with the numbers “24”would have been signed in 1916; the president’s latest executive order was in the five digits. Plus, America has no “official” language.

“You’re kidding me,” Mr. Collazo said when informed of the hoax. “Look at that! I didn’t even know. I got suckered. I felt that Spanish as a second language would be a good thing. Now my heart’s let down because of this.”

At first glance, whitehouse.net may seem like an official Web site, and many of its links do in fact connect readers to whitehouse.gov. But a closer look reveals a sly sense of humor, in the spirit of The Onion satirical newspaper.

For instance, the top of the page reads: “North & South America’s 43rd President, George W. Bush, and First Lady Laura Bush welcome you to the White House.”

And a link to a “free” online Spanish lesson lands readers at Taco Bell’s Web site. A simple click of the refresh button brings yet more jokes, such as a paragraph touting a new White House initiative to fund tax cuts: renting billboard space on the lawn.

Mr. Collazo acknowledged that printing all of America’s public documents in Spanish would have been extremely expensive, and it was rather strange that Mr. Bush signed his executive order so quietly.

“I thought, ‘It’s New Year’s Eve. He’s going to sign this and announce it thereafter and make a big to-do out of it later,'” said Mr. Collazo, who is a New York City police officer. “I thought it was a little sneaky, in a good way.”

“From now on I’m going to be extra diligent so I don’t get bamboozled again,” he said.