# Two charged in bizarre X-ray terror plot **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 20, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-charged-in-bizarre-x-ray-terror-plot/661431 "2013-06-20T03:13:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-charged-in-bizarre-x-ray-terror-plot/661431/1 "2013-06-20T03:13:34Z")
This is brilliant! Wrong, yes. But very clever. Talk about thinking outside the box - these guys have something. > **[Two charged in bizarre X-ray terror plot | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/19/justice/new-york-terror-charges/index.html?hpt=hp_t5)** > > Two people were charged in the Albany, New York, area in a bizarre plan to use a device loosely described as a ray gun to “target people they didn’t like.” Can’t we ship a radioactive food truck to Syria? Surely the Syrian soldiers will come running for a lamb sandwich and some couscous. A falafel truck crusing through Afghanistan? My question is what is the radioactive substance they would need to irradiate victims at 50 or 200 yards. Seems like a brilliant Trojan Horse idea as well. Leave truck full of arms or whatever, and the enemy takes it home. Week later, their teeth are falling out, next week their jaw falls off, and they’re invalids within days. Wolverines! What? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-charged-in-bizarre-x-ray-terror-plot/661431/2 "2013-06-20T04:41:35Z")
There’s also a GQ thread on it: “[A 2013-style death ray?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=694279)” Apparently it was an X-ray generator of some kind, not a radioactive isotope. Accounts/opinions seem to differ on whether it would have been effective or not. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-charged-in-bizarre-x-ray-terror-plot/661431/3 "2013-06-20T05:04:20Z")
Someone with knowledge of the actual output of x-ray equipment will likely be along directly, but I’m going to have to guess that setting up something to be lethal in the short term beyond a few feet for something portable is going to be severely impractical. Simply because of the [inverse square law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law). Basically states that doubling the distance from the source reduces the dosage to a quarter. ie. 1000 rads at 1 foot is going to fade down to 250 at two feet, 111 at three feet, and 62 at 4. Five feet gives you a whole 40. Now if you were to set it up behind a counter somewhere where your target was going to be standing for an extended period it would be a viable and serious threat. IIRC, reading an article about the Nazi’s some 30 years back, part of their sterilization plan included concealing a piece of radioactive material in a tall counter that undesirables were required to stand at while filling out a long document. The document having been designed to require a half hour to complete. ---
**Author:** ![Sofis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Sofis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofis)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-charged-in-bizarre-x-ray-terror-plot/661431/4 "2013-06-20T13:18:28Z")
The inverse square law applies to things which radiate outwards in all directions. If your device produces a more focused beam, effectiveness need not fall off with distance much at all. In fact, I was shot by such a device just a few days ago. I barely made it out of the dentist’s office alive! ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-charged-in-bizarre-x-ray-terror-plot/661431/5 "2013-06-20T13:28:58Z")
The headline says > [@](#): > > FBI Foils Plot To Build Strange X-Ray Weapon What it really should say is “FBI provides all of the equipment and means for someone to carry out a plan they had previously only talked about, and then arrests them for it.” > [@](#): > > Ultimately, with help from the undercover agents, Crawford and Feight acquired the necessary parts and even tested the device that would remotely detonate the weapon, according to the FBI. Not that what the guy was doing was right, but it’s not like the FBI stopped him just in time to keep him from using the thing. And a legal question: I also recall the case of the fella who built a bomb with materials supplied by the FBI, and drove it within a block of the White House where he attempted to detonate it. Why do they let it get to that point? Surely they have enough evidence to charge them long before the device is actually assembled. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-charged-in-bizarre-x-ray-terror-plot/661431/6 "2013-06-20T13:43:31Z")
Seems like yet another case of charging a couple relatively harmless deluded fools while our attention could be more profitably focused elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-charged-in-bizarre-x-ray-terror-plot/661431/7 "2013-06-20T13:48:02Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > Now if you were to set it up behind a counter somewhere where your target was going to be standing for an extended period it would be a viable and serious threat. Set it up under the counter irradiating the targets’ genitals. Random mutations beats possible cancer scare.