Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Kodak Had the Bomb? WTF?

Boy do I have a real WTF article for you! It is so far out there that I really had to wonder if it was BMU material. Well it does in a round about way have a science component and it is strange enough to qualify in some sort of way. But wow, this is really out there.

What am I going on about? Well from the Gizmodo article comes a story so weird that you have to check the date just to make sure some one isn't screwing with my head:

  • Down in a basement in Rochester, NY, they (Kodak)  had a nuclear reactor loaded with 3.5 pounds of enriched uranium—the same kind they use in  warheads....
Why did Kodak have a hidden nuclear reactor loaded with weapons-grade uranium?  How did they get permission to even own it? And Kodak was allowed to set it up in a densely populated area, no less!   Whats more no one seemed to know about it.  City officials, police, fire,  no one it seems in the state of  New York, only a handful of engineers and government officials knew anything pertaining to the reactor -  and they still wouldn't had it not been for a disgruntled employee.

It seems it's main purpose was to check for material impurities and other even more obscure purposes.  But it is the whole idea that since the material and reactor was obtained in 1974 it has been a closely guarded piece of information.

In 2006 the reactor was ordered dismantled due in part to rising security concerns but still well after 9/11.  Strange goings on...

5 comments:

kallamis said...

Umm, okay, what? Is it just me, or does this seem very disturbing. As in, what else were they really doing or testing. And why kept so secret if it was really being used for what they said. Not to mention where they were doing it at.

Beam Me Up said...

You are on the same track as I am when I read that...of course you know the 800lb gorilla is still setting in the middle of the room. The question does bare asking however. If Kodak could convince someone that they needed this equipment and the radioactive material, who ELSE ran the same dog and pony act? If I can be so crass, there is always a turd at the other end of the stink and an a$$ hole to put it there.

Thanks for the comments Kal

bmh said...

Still more proof that Rochester is even stranger than my old home town (Syracuse). Who knows, if they hadn't been forced to dismantle it, they might have used it to coerce the world to still use film instead of going to digital!

Beam Me Up said...

omg BMH just think of that scenario! I feels like I have shifted to some alternate reality, because in my world view such bizarre occurrences are relegated to cheap late night sci-fi flics where megalomaniacs are bent on world domination, not sitting in some film processor's upstate basement!

kallamis said...

Excuse me, I am not a megalomaniac. Not exactly anyway.