When I was on vacation in New York, I took a trip to Liberty island, and up to the statue of Liberty. The security checkpoints were numerous, but one stood out; it was a gateway, just like an airport metal detector, except bigger. When you stood in it, it made a FFT FFT FFT FFT FFT FFT sound, as if it was blowing air at you (although I don’t remember feeling any air blown at me). Whats all that about? What was it scanning for? I’ve never seen it’s like before or since.
IIRC, it’s like a sniffer. Think robot bomb sniffing dog kind of thing. ETA: It’s looking for residue linked to explosives, but in theory could probably detect narcotics too if you have coke dust on your clothes.
they told me when I was there that it was blowing air at you and that it was then analyzing the air around you for who knows what. There was also a story on the radio last week with some expert or other from the industry who claimed the machines were all but worthless because of their inaccuracy. I can’t remember who he was though, so he may well have been full of crap as well.
I’m pretty sure they did a sneak-check, too:
When my wife and I were there in September, we exchanged our internet-printed bar-code tickets for plastic cards (size of a credit card) when we got in line. Ostensibly these were admission tickets of some sort, but we were already in a secure area that could not be accessed by someone who hadn’t already shown an admission ticket, so why would they do this??? WELL, right before we got to the bomb-sniffing machine, we handed our cards to a staffer, who put them in a small machine, and then waited for a good ten seconds for the machine to grant its approval. I’m pretty sure the whole intent was merely to have us handle the cards, and then the machine was checking for something on those cards, possibly explosives residue, that may have been on our hands.
It was a fart checker. If the machine finds that you have recently farted, the security personel may then yell “doorknob” and punch you. To avoid this, you must yell “safety” first. Also, don’t forget to put your thumb on your forehead and wiggle your fingers. The last person to do this must eat the fart.
Why yes, I was in charge of a sleepover full of 10 year old boys recently. Why do you ask?
Euphonious Polemic, were they MY ten year old boys??? Sheesh, that sounds familiar (besides being funny as hell!)
Bomb sniffer. We’ve have those at nuclear power plants for many years.
Have they produced many false positives? I heard (no cite) they produce too many false positives and are on the way out. Backscatter radar is the way of the future.
Put it this way; if you’re an operator at nuclear power plant who farms on the side, you set them off regularly during fertilizer season. Otherwise, they’re pretty good. If you set one off, you get patted down.
I set one off in Seattle. I was up visiting my parents and got some fertilizer on my boot. Bells and whistles and extra screening, but once they realized it was a false positive, I was on my way. evident’y it happens alot at airports with big rural areas.
It’s telling you that you are Fit For Travel, silly! 
Cat scanner. The angry housecat is hissing.
Good news though – the housecat hissing means you’re not a bad guy (cats are on the side of evil).
Not really the same type of machine but I’m reminded of what happened to a couple of other students from one of my courses who had been off doing a project in the US involving radioactive sources, which they obviously weren’t being careful enough with.
They set off the nuclear bomb detector at the airport, pretty much as soon as the flights reopened after September the 11th 2001.
Apparently they had a long series of chats with angry looking guys in suits and shades.
Not as bad as the one that goes "pocketa, pocketa, pocketa…
Or the body scanner that goes “fap fap fap”
But can these things find existence of explosives that might be concealed internally? It doesn’t seem like backscatter would accomplish this.
I suppose MRIs all around is what’s called for. But would even an MRI be able to determine that I recently ate enough garlic to give myself supermegafarts powerful enough to bring down a Boeing 767?
Believe me, if I eat enough garlic that would be possible.