Not quite stupid, but I can’t think of a better thread to post this in.
Man living in Seattle suburbs calls an Air Force museum in Ohio offering to donate an artifact that belonged to a deceased neighbor. Museum calls the cops because said artifact is, in fact, a vintage air-to-air nuclear missile.
The stupid part seems to be the museum calling local police without any indication that the artifact was dangerous.
Bellevue Police Department spokesman Seth Tyler, told BBC News on Friday that the device was “just basically a gas tank for rocket fuel”.
He called the event “not serious at all”.
“In fact, our bomb squad member asked me why we were releasing a news release on a rusted piece of metal,” he said.
The man, who does not wish to be identified and is “extremely irritated” by the media coverage, “was not expecting a call from us”, Mr Tyler said, saying it seems the museum did not warn him they would be reporting his donation offer.
Welll… thinking about it from the museum’s perspective, the conversation probably went something like, “I have a piece of a nuclear missile I want to donate,” which certainly warrants investigation. It’s not like they could see that it was an empty husk, and I’m not sure I would want to take a caller’s word for it. But they should have at least told the guy they were calling police.
So a guy thinks, hey I’m gonna do a good deed and donate this to a museum so people can see a piece of history.
Dumbass in Ohio (which is like the Florida of the Great Lakes) calls the cops, based on a panic from a brief phone call. There’s zero reason to think it’s dangerous.
I hope the museum gets a lot of shit for it to the point that the guy suffers. He made a person trying to be charitable suffer due to his ignorance.
It looks awfully big in diameter for an air-to-air missile.
Nuclear warheads are big. About 18" in diameter.
The Wikipedia article about the specific missile involved:
Basically a small nuke rocket you hung from the bottom of your interceptors and let fly in the direction of the oncoming commie bombers, to flash/blast/shockwave/EMP as many as you could get close enough to, into destruction/crashing/scattering the other planes in the formation.
…
More generally: ISTM that any time someone reports “I have here what looks like an old discarded missile”, people will as a matter of caution tend to treat it as a report of an Unexploded Ordnance (UXO).
Of course, it could have been a matter of telling the would-be-donor “we appreciate that, sir, but as a standard rule we need an explosives expert to look at what you have to be sure it’s not live or does not contain toxic fuel remnants, please don’t futz with it until someone can be sent? They’ll be getting in touch with you.”
“Hello, this is the bomb museum.”
“Hi. Uh, is there any way whatever I say can’t be interpreted as a bomb threat?”
“Probably not.”
…They think that those books aren’t already in school libraries?
He should have contacted the Museum of Flight, which is in his back yard. They have mostly airplanes , but also have some space related stuff. Excellent museum if you’re ever in the Seattle/Tacoma area.
The people that think grade schools are teaching Critical Race Theory?
That’s where I live and I’ve lived most of my life here so yeah, it’s one of those stereotypical tourist places like the Space Needle or Pike Place Market.
Maybe he called them first and they said not interested.
“Sorry, we’re too smart to put up with panicky bureaucrats in Seattle, and we don’t want the hassle. Why not try somewhere like… oh, I know! Ohio! My brother-in-law’s from Ohio, and I hate the place.”
I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here, but I’m pretty sure it’s a violation of the law, his insurance policy, and several terms of service;
Dammit the video cut off before the good stuff started.
WHY oh why can’t I be a world-class-but-cynically acerbic journalist? Then I could title an article “The Goggles…They Do Nothing!”
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After watching videos of people typing in the middle of the air (and holding up people on stairs and sidewalks), I’m thinking I’ll put on my kid’s high tech snowboarding goggles and pantomime some kickass Photoshopping while on the bus…
Not all thieves are lazy; this is a theft which would take a little work:
What surprises me is that they only found out after a landscaping crew found the tower missing. You would expect a few listeners to call up and complain if a radio station went silent.
In all seriousness, does anybody listen to AM radio anymore? This station also has an FM signal; I would suspect that virtually all of their listeners listen to FM.
The only AM I’ve listened to in the past decade is local sports talk radio and MLB broadcasts on the same station. Obviously, YMMV.
If our network and comm gear disappeared, we’d know about it lickety split. It wouldn’t take listeners calling in to complain.
I listen to sports radio and news on AM. I usually keep 4 AM stations and 4 FM stations on my saved stations on my car radio. I probably listen to more AM than FM.
So yeah, people absolutely listen to AM, I think I count as people last I checked.