We don't know it was an identical response firstly, and secondly if you ask it who the president was in 1845, it will give the "identical" response to that ques

We don't know it was an identical response firstly, and secondly if you ask it who the president was in 1845, it will give the "identical" response to that question every time as well, so IMO it is indeed "quite likely" it would generate the same responses twice, especially given how specific the input seems to be. I don't know if it was a hallucination or not, but what I've been given here doesn't rule the idea out for me, and in fact the lack of sophistication around the reporting and "research" leads me to believe the idea wasn't even considered seriously.