# So Apparently they can see through walls now? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 21, 2005, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840 "2005-01-21T01:09:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Binky\_Rudich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Binky\_Rudich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binky_Rudich)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/1 "2005-01-21T01:09:34Z")
This can’t be for real…’“Hurtubise said he could see into the garage behind his lab wall, and read the licence plate on his wife’s car and even see the salt on it. “I almost broke my knuckles three or four times, because it was almost like you could step through the wall,” Hurtubise said.”’ [News Story (little known website though)](http://www.baytoday.ca/content/news/details.asp?c=6657) Some sort of magic beam…that needs debunkin. ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/2 "2005-01-21T01:11:45Z")
'Round these parts, we call them things “windows”. **reads story, laughs, waits for someone smarter to come along to do any real debunking** ---
**Author:** ![audiobottle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/3 "2005-01-21T01:18:45Z")
Um… this strikes me as a joke. First, he has “covert help” from people at MIT. Who are these people? Why would they be helping him? Also, why would a man, capable of building something that defies the laws of physics call the main part a “centrifuge” when it apparently doesn’t centrifuge anything? And of course, there’s the point that this thing is ridiculous. It can see through any material, but for some reason it only sees through one layer of skin? What? ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/4 "2005-01-21T01:26:48Z")
Sounds like a 1920’s style Death Ray … 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Binky\_Rudich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Binky\_Rudich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binky_Rudich)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/5 "2005-01-21T01:35:42Z")
It just gets weirder and weirder…this is apparently the guy who created a bear suit that got press a while back. There really is an MIT guy with the same name as the one mentioned in the story…his [homepage](http://www.mit.edu/people/dryfoo/home.html) is a campy collection of Principia Discordia links and pro-pot propaganda. [These](http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/2296/) guys have yet to debunk it. hail eris. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/6 "2005-01-21T01:40:12Z")
The fundamental problem with this type of device is, how does it know what you want to see _through_, and what you want to _see_? Picture the scene. You are in the corridor at school. The girls’ locker room is behind the wall to your left. Goody! You use your Wall-O-Scan[sup]TM[/sup] machine to peer through the wall… but what’s that? You look straight through the wall, through Cindy Rockwell’s towel… and straight through her, and the far wall of the locker room, and into the adjacent _boys’_ locker room, where the PenetratoBeam has just enough residual power to render transparent the fat kid’s towel, but sadly not enough to spare you the sight of his hairy butt. :smack: Of course, if the machine can see through _everything_, then you simply point it at your feet and enjoy the view of the furthest reaches of the universe. Fun, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Binky\_Rudich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Binky\_Rudich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binky_Rudich)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/7 "2005-01-21T02:46:03Z")
Colophon: What if the magic device had a volume type control that lets the user control the power and thus depth? ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/8 "2005-01-21T05:12:04Z")
> [@](#): > > The second unit, or the deflector grid, contains a large circle of optical glass, a microwave unit and plasma intermixed with carbon dioxide. Deflector grid? Plasma + carbon dioxide??? Magnets and mirrors and lasers… I can think of more convincing sciency “sciency” sounding stuff right now. My device has… uh… xenon, carbon monoxide and… cathodes. Incidentally, disregarding the fact that > [@](#): > > Hurtubise purchase a remote-control plane for $1,800 and took it and the Angel Light to a flying field on the way to Powassan. isn’t even grammatically correct, you can find a [way cheaper plane](http://www.rctoys.com/vextreme.php) on Google in 0.21 seconds. And of course, due to strange effects nobody understands, he decided that for the better good it had to go, so he "dismantled the whole thing.” I guess there’s no choice but to believe him now. Forget debunking - there aren’t any facts. May as well debunk my story that I went for a ride on an invisible pink unicorn last week. ---
**Author:** ![Earthworm\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f07891/32.png) [@Earthworm\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthworm_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/9 "2005-01-21T13:18:50Z")
> [@](#): > > The second unit, or the deflector grid, contains a large circle of optical glass, a microwave unit and plasma intermixed with carbon dioxide. Man, you can do _anything_ as long as you re-route something through the deflector dish[sup]1[/sup]! 1. Dish, grid, array - whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/10 "2005-01-21T13:27:46Z")
What I find most sketchy is the idea that he was able to see his blood vessels with it: > [@](#): > > The Hurtubise put his hand in the light beam. > > “I could see my blood vessels, muscles, everything, like I’d taken an Exacto knife, cut into my skin and peeled it back,” Hurtubise said. The Hurtubise has got some finetuning extraordinaire on his device if The Hurtubise can set it to see through his skin but not through the blood vessels immediately under his skin. Sounds like a swindler to me. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/11 "2005-01-21T13:34:43Z")
Sounds something like a confocal laser microscope. Except not really a microscope and not exactly confocal and nothing to do with lasers. Oh well. Wake me up when they can see through panties. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/12 "2005-01-21T14:13:11Z")
Hasn’t anyone caught on yet that even his “MIT contacts” don’t believe him…and he admits it on his website. He duly reported this to his MIT contacts. "They said ‘Troy, this is unbelievable.’ ---
**Author:** ![NutMagnet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@NutMagnet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NutMagnet)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/13 "2005-01-21T14:25:58Z")
> [@Nanoda](#): > > … Forget debunking - there aren’t any facts. May as well debunk my story that I went for a ride on an invisible pink unicorn last week. That was you!?! ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/14 "2005-01-21T15:54:54Z")
But has he tried reversing the polarity on the generator for the main port valve? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/15 "2005-01-21T16:06:48Z")
[We’ve done this.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=297698) And it wasn’t that long ago, either. ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/16 "2005-01-21T16:13:24Z")
My favorite part of the article is this: \*BayToday.ca has obtained documentation confirming that the former head of Saudi counter-intelligence, who asked that his name not be used, has been in regular contact with Hurtubise regarding the Angel Light, fire paste, and the Light Infantry Military Blast Cushions (LIMBC). \* Unimpeachable, in my opinion. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/17 "2005-01-21T16:13:44Z")
“They told me that I was playing with electromagnetism” When man plays God, disaster is the only outcome. Plasma, microwaves, carbon dioxide, magnets, yay, even _108 mirrors_! Is there no limit to man’s folly? The only thing this machine will see is the downfall which will reward such hubris. ---
**Author:** ![Jayrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Jayrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayrot)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/18 "2005-01-21T16:29:13Z")
> [@Rufus Xavier](#): > > My favorite part of the article is this: > > \*BayToday.ca has obtained documentation confirming that the former head of Saudi counter-intelligence, who asked that his name not be used, has been in regular contact with Hurtubise regarding the Angel Light, fire paste, and the Light Infantry Military Blast Cushions (LIMBC). > \* > > Unimpeachable, in my opinion. > 🙂 Yeah I like that part. Just imagine: _this leaked information comes from the former head of the FBI, who asked that his name not be used_ Damn, I wish he’d given his name. We’ll never be able to find out who it is! ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/19 "2005-01-21T19:41:21Z")
He says the airplane and model car all stopped working when the light hit them. I’m only assuming that his wife’s car is still in the garage since he looked at it with the device. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840/20 "2005-01-21T20:07:52Z")
> [@](#): > > “I almost broke my knuckles three or four times, because it was almost like you could step through the wall,” Hurtubise said. So he’s standing in the path of the beam? So why didn’t it make him invisible? Or why didn’t he notice the skin-flaying effect at this point? Or die like the goldfish? > [@](#): > > BayToday.ca has obtained documentation confirming that the former head of Saudi counter-intelligence, who asked that his name not be used, has been in regular contact with Hurtubise regarding the Angel Light, fire paste, and the Light Infantry Military Blast Cushions (LIMBC). Oh I get it. He’s trying to scam the Saudis into giving him some development money. Well, best of luck to him. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of being scammed. The credulous tone of the article seems to be in keeping with the newspaper’s motto: “We do news differently.” I’ll say. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-they-can-see-through-walls-now/285840.md?page=2)