So, who did fry all those car locks in Las Vegas?

[Wonk]

By Roger Franklin
Inside America
March 7, 2004

Even in a town where the lovestruck can select from a roster of Elvis lookalikes to marry them at 4am, what happened three weeks ago in Las Vegas was pretty strange, even by the locals' standards. Late on the morning of February 21 - nobody is too precise about the exact time, initial location, or actual identity of the first caller - someone rang a locksmith and complained the remote-control locking system on the caller's late-model car was refusing to respond. The old-fashioned key, linked to the same circuitry, wouldn't work either, so could the locksmith send over a technician to fix whatever had gone wrong?

A couple of minutes later, another locksmith's phone rang. Different caller. Same problem.

By the end of the day, the best estimate is that police, fire brigade, locksmiths, car dealerships and tow-truck services had received at least 200 calls from motorists, and many who are still puzzling over the February 21 incident put the figure as high as five times that.

(snip)

This time, the likely culprit, according to some, was a top-secret test of equipment intended to fry an enemy's circuitry. Is this the biggest exercise in paranoia since a drug-addled Hunter S. Thompson mistook the desk clerk at Circus Circus for a man-eating lizard? Only if you label veteran Pentagon watcher and weapons analyst John Pike, director of the Washington-based Global Security think tank, as a fruitcake, which he is not.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/06/1078464695634.html

[boobooday]

1. Damnit, Batman

I forgot the Batmobile's no-fry non-stick lock shield!

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[DarkPhenyx]

2. Paranoia strikes deep

Into your life it will creep
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me, I've got to beware.

Everybody stop, children
what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down.

[thebigidea]

3. so its paranoia to wonder what the hell is going on?

what's your explanation?

[DarkPhenyx]

5. Don't have one.

But the government doesn't have to do anything to have us jumping at shadows these days.

"...what a field day for the Heat.
A thousand people in the street
singing songs
and carrying signs
mostly say "Horray for our side."

Everybody stop, children
What's that sound?
Everybody look
what's going down."

[ParanoidPat]

15. Bored kid with a stun gun......

.....is all it takes! :evilgrin:

I've seen it done first hand. It works. :(

[thebigidea]

16. ah ha!

Didn't know that, sounds reasonable enough. You'd think the reporter would mention it.

[Junkdrawer]

18. 200 to 1000 cars? One VERY bored kid...

And very lucky he didn't get caught.

[ParanoidPat]

20. When I lived in New York one guy with a stick that had a nail in the end..

.....of it took out hundreds of tires in my home town in several hours! He destroyed the tires by poking holes in the sidewalls. It wasn't until the following weekend that he was caught as he was doing it again. There was another case also in NY some years ago where a group of kids went around shooting out car windows, hundreds of them, night after night. When they were finally caught, it was learned that a local owner of an automotive glass shop was paying them $50.00 a night to help boost his business. I would not doubt for a second that the same may be found to be true here. As far as getting caught is concerned, it only takes a second to hold a taser or cattle prod up to the keypad and zap it into oblivion.

There may be another much more benign explanation. I just wonder what the possibility is that a hard coded or software timer may have inadvertently expired in the cars microcomputers causing the lockouts. Stranger things have happened and if this was the case do you think that the manufacturers would admit it? :)

[ParanoidPat]

27. There's a lot you'd think that reporters would mention.....

.....but alas! :evilgrin:

Think about the tremendous numbers of computers and PLC's (Programmable Logic Controllers) in use all up and down the 'strip' to run the props for the shows. What about all the cell phones, car radios, surveillance cameras and other electronic equipment that was not affected. The best educated guess I can venture is still a punk with a stun gun. If anyone can get hold of one of the failed devices I have friends with access to SEM and STEM technology and the proper cutting equipment to open the IC's and preform a proper failure analysis to determine what really caused them to malfunction. :)

Any takers? :shrug:

[Renew Deal]

4. Area 51 is like 100 miles away.

[DarkPhenyx]

6. Actually, there is no such place as Area-51.

Yes, I know the sign is authentic, but there is no military/federal scientific facility known as Area-51. The Government is telling you the truth everytime they say that. There is a facility in the area we know as Area-51...but that isn't it's name. See, they can lie to you w/o actually lieing to you. Or tell you the truth w/o actually telling you the truth Amasing isn't it?

[MercutioATC]

21. The "Area 51" is from the old plat map. It's called Groom Lake.

"Area 51" is slang.

[Character Assassin]

7. Oh, please. Nothing whatsoever in that article justifies that conclusion

This time, the likely culprit, according to some, was a top-secret test of equipment intended to fry an enemy's circuitry.

Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence.

[thebigidea]

10. and your hyper-detective spidey sense tells you what?

I suppose you're faaaar more knowledgeable in this area.

[Character Assassin]

12. No, my common sense tells me there is zero evidence

From one might jump to any 'likely' conclusion.

It has nothing to do with anything other than rejecting wild, foamy speculation where there is no basis for it.

[thebigidea]

13. and your knowledge in this field was, what, again?

So what would you suggest instead of speculation or investigation? Silence? Attribute it to some deranged deity? Call it a big lie?

[MercutioATC]

22. See, this is what bothers me...

Just because he doesn't have specialized knowledge doesn't mean he can't express an informed opinion.

I'm betting of a kid with a stun gun, too unless an expert can tell me how you can create a "pulse" that can hit a city as dependant on electric devices as Las Vegas and ONLY disable car door locks.

It doesn't take any "knowledge in this field" to reach a logical position that makes the military a long shot as the perp.

[Character Assassin]

24. My knowledge in investigations and rules of evidence is substantial

So what would you suggest instead of speculation or investigation?

I'm sorry, but could you point out exactly where I even remotely suggested that this shouldn't be investigated? Please be very precise.

Silence? Attribute it to some deranged deity? Call it a big lie?

I'd start by not including people who don't understand the two things I reference in the title of this post.

[baldguy]

8. Easy

The Super Top Secret Federal Goverment Agency That Has No Name and Which Will Not Be Acknowleged was testing the warp drive on the alien UFO that they captured in '49.

Of course, the STSFGATHNNWWNBA will never admit it.

[tobius]

9. This is HAARP...a questionable military project in Alaska.

HAARP — the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program.

HAARP will zap the upper atmosphere with a focused and steerable electromagnetic beam. It is an advanced model of an "ionospheric heater." (The ionosphere is the electrically charged sphere surrounding Earth's upper atmosphere. It ranges between about 40 to 600 miles above Earth's surface.) <snip>
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/HAARP.htm

HAARP is the test run for a superpowerful radio-wave beaming technology that lifts areas of the ionosphere by focusing a beam and heating those areas. Electromagnetic waves then bounce back onto Earth and penetrate everything — living and dead. ......
In another document prepared by the government, the U.S. Air Force claims: "The potential applications of artificial electromagnetic fields are wide-ranging and can be used in many military or quasi military situations. . . . Some of these potential uses include dealing with terrorist groups, crowd control, controlling breaches of security at military installations, and antipersonnel techniques in tactical warfare. In all of these cases the EM (electromagnetic) systems would be used to produce mild to severe physiological disruption or perceptual distortion or disorientation. In addition, the ability of individuals to function could be degraded to such a point that they would be combat-ineffective. Another advantage of electromagnetic systems is that they can provide coverage over large areas with a single system. They are silent, and countermeasures to them may be difficult to develop. . . . One last area where electromagnetic radiation may prove of some value is in enhancing abilities of individuals for anomalous phenomena."

[mhr]

17. So Bush's New Excuse Is That The HAARP Ray Got Him - Pleeease!

eom

[tobius]

30. Ignore at your peril

As early as 1970, Zbigniew Brzezinski predicted a "more controlled and directed society" would gradually appear, linked to technology. This society would be dominated by an elite group which impresses voters by allegedly superior scientific know-how. Angels Don't Play This HAARP further quotes Brzezinski:

"Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behaviour and keeping society under close surveillance and control. Technical and scientific momentum would then feed on the situation it exploits," Brzezinski predicted. http://www.crystalinks.com/haarp.html

According to the patent, Eastlund's invention would heat plumes of charged particles in the ionosphere, making it possible to, for starters, selectively "disrupt microwave transmissions of satellites" and "cause interference with or even total disruption of communications over a large portion of the earth." But like his hopped up ions, Eastlund was just warming up. Per the patent text, the physicist's "method and apparatus for altering a region in the earth's atmosphere" would also:

"cause confusion of or interference with or even complete disruption of guidance systems employed by even the most sophisticated of airplanes and missiles";
http://www.conspire.com/haarp.html
"not only... interfere with third-party communications, but take advantage of one or more such beams to carry out a communications network at the same time. Put another way, what is used to disrupt another's communications can be employed by one knowledgeable of this invention as a communications network at the same time";

"pick up communication signals of others for intelligence purposes";

facilitate "missile or aircraft destruction, deflection, or confusion" by lifting large regions of the atmosphere "to an unexpectedly high altitude so that missiles encounter unexpected and unplanned drag forces with resultant destruction or deflection of same."

[tameszu]

19. The only defense:

Further research indicates that projections of these EM waves can be deflected through the use of thin, interwoven, flexible sheets of aluminium, tightly fitten above and around the cranium at the correct angle.

:tinfoilhat:

[rman]

31. half-truths

that article makes it sound as though "artificial electromagnetic fields" are something new and evil, whereas your basic FM radio or TV signal is in fact an artificial electromagnetic field. I find it suspicious that this source appears to be sensationalizing something as mundain as E/M waves.

The difference with HAARP is that HAARP's signal is very strong, indeed strong enough to heat parts of the atmosphere. Some of the signal will bounce back to earth and can be used like (over-the-horizon) radar. There are plenty reasons why HAARP may be considered to be a bad thing, but it isn't very likely that the signal that reaches the ground will be strong enough to mess up electronics - jamm and interfere yes, but not damage.

[Junkdrawer]

11. Wonder if they were testing near Eveleth, Minnesota sometime, oh,...

around Oct. 25, 2002? :shrug:

[Piperay]

14. Reminds me of the 'fake quakes' here in CA

a few years back (I think during the Raygun era) there would be these shakes that were widely felt, like earthquakes. People would call in and the experts kept saying it was not an earthquake, it happened again and again. These 'fake quakes' (which the media dubbed them) happened once a month, early mornings and usually on the same day of the week, for several months. Finally it came out after many denials that it was the Stealth Bomber being tested.

[Lone_Wolf]

23. EMP Weaponry

I would guess that this wasn't caused by electric magnetic pulse type weaponry. If it were, it would have fried more than remote-control locking systems on some cars. All electronic devices in the vicinity not shielded would have been fried.

[MercutioATC]

25. No kidding. Can you picture the effect of an EMP in Vegas??

..."Ocean's Eleven" didn't even come close to the havoc it would cause (not to mention the hundreds of millions in repair costs).

[maggrwaggr]

26. I'm sure Vegas itself creates plenty of weird EMP

All the goddamn flashing lights and lasers and shit.

Las Vegas isn't exactly government regulated. It's corrupt as hell.

[MercutioATC]

28. And that has exactly what to do with whether this was gov't. test?

I was stating that if this was a military EMP, the effects would have been much farther-reaching than car locks (especially somplece like Las Vegas).

[maggrwaggr]

29. right. okay. I guess we're in agreement.

?

[rman]

32. the examples you mention de not cause EMP

EMP is not just an electromagnetic signal, nor is it just a pulse, nor is it just strong. EMP is a very short pulse of Very Strong EM waves. Strong as in millions of times stronger than other signals; no flashing light or laser produces a EM signal that strong.

off topic: "Las Vegas isn't exactly government regulated. It's corrupt as hell."
You mean it wouldn't be as corrupt as it is if it would be government regulated? (LOL)