Road signs and Military maps

Factual Questions
1

Is there any truth to the rumour that road signs have stickers on the back of them that are a code that will direct the military in the event of martial law? I hope that some else has heard about this beside myself.

2

In the Lone Gunmen comic, some hick kids did it so they could trick the Gunmen into thinking Britain was invading and that it was their secret code to direct the troops. I have that comic somewhere.

Back to the subject: it may have come from the comic, or it may have been the other way around.

3

I suppose you could begin the research towards an answer by looking at the back of some road signs.

4

Check out the following website for more information about my post: http://www.tackamarks.freeservers.com/
http://www.tackamarks.freeservers.com

5

No.

I’m in the military, and we handle road signs. This guy is pretty out there, dude. I’m not saying we don’t have a way of directing traffic, but I’m saying we usually use the most proven method: a fuckin’ roadmap.

Tripler
And GPS has it’s wonders too . . .

6

SUUUUURE, listen to the MILITARY guy to see if there is a secret MILITARY conspiracy! Yeah, that’s the ticket. Now where is my tin foil hat?

7

I posted a question about a related topic within the last few months but it seems to have been munched during the Great Server Catastrophe.

Anyways, I asked “What are these numbers on stop signs?” 'Round these parts, some stop signs have small metal plates with a series of three three-digit numbers bolted to the post beneath the sign itself. We worked out that the numbers referred to the sign’s location (i.e., all the signs along Route 7 have 007 as their first number). This is probably for the convienence of highway work crews, although possibly it could be helpful to stranded motorists when they need to explain where to tow their car from. I think the highway workers explanation is a more plausible description of the number’s intent.

Some Dopers said that signs in their area had stickers on the back or even numbers written on the bare metal wrong-way side of the sign, instead of a separate mini-sign on the same post. Perhaps these stickers shown on the website are similarly meant for highway crews?

Besides, aren’t these stickers awfully small to be of any use when coordinating an evacuation in response to a disaster or whatever? I can just see the big ol’ FEMA truck lumbering along while the driver peers out the window trying to read a little sticker all the way over on the other side of the road. “Let’s see, I was supposed to drop off this trailer full of gas masks at 095 440 666…or was that 667?”

8

hmmm… telephone and utility poles also have numbers on them. Is this the great conspiracy to make us eat our vegetables?

9

This thing looks like a variant on this urban legend:

The government’s plans to impose martial law on 1 January 2000 are revealed by signs spilling from a flipped-over truck.

10

Here is one of the links on the sign website. I read the article closely and there is something to this sign coding. We have them here and they do appear to be marking some of our buildings, public school, hospital, airport, train depot. I have talked with a National Guard recruiter at our high school and he said he was aware of the markers and that the U.S. Forest Service, DNR, and Army Corps of Engineers, code their signs also. He stated it was for evacution operations in extreme emergencies nationwide.
I see no reason for him to lie. He is quite well known in our area.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A47123-2002Mar18&notFound=true

11

I suppose there would be a reason to mark signs for use in an emergency evacuation in a code whose meaning is hidden from the public. But I’ll be darned if I can figure out what that reason would be.

Most of the emergency evacuation plans I have ever heard of use well marked and well advertised routes. But I suppose conspiricy believers would have it that those well marked routes are a sham. That there is a secret plan (by men in black) to get those in the “inner circle” (maybe the Masons flying black helicopters) to safety.

I was looking at my engine block the other day. It has a number on it and some cabalistic signs. Probably the government intends to use that identifier to destroy my engine by a laser beam so that I won’t even get started on an evacuation.

Was it H.L. Menken who said, in effect, that you can’t overestimate the credulity of the American public?