Vanishing Point

This was sent to me and seems legitimate. Some sick individuals are making these up and placing them for unsuspecting people to handle, with terrible results. I wanted to make sure our Vintage crowd was aware.

We need to warn people about this as I could see any of us picking up this to put in the garbage... scary...

I'm not sure exactly how this would work, but I'm passing it on. Snopes says it's true.
Important warning! NOT A JOKE!


Pay attention to this.

1. A plastic bottle with a cap (Like a normal water bottle).
2. A little Drano.
3. A little water.
4. A small piece of foil.
5. Disturb it by moving it; and BOOM (Less than 30 seconds)!!
6. No fingers left and other serious effects to your face, eyes, etc..

People are finding these bombs in mailboxes and in their yards, just waiting for you to pick it up intending to put it in the trash.

But, you'll never make it!!! It takes about 30 seconds to blow after you move the thing.

See "SNOPES" below....it's true. This happened a few days ago...April 27, 2010, as a matter of fact.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/bottlebomb.asp <http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/bottlebomb.asp>

UCP

Someone let one of these off in my Middle school shortly after Columbine.

I don't have first hand experience, but wouldn't it take a little while for the pressure to build up?

Wouldn't you notice it swelling?

Vanishing Point

My guess is it's stable until the materials are disturbed by handling which sets the reaction off.

Jumpy Guy

That video was scary, thanks for sending

Kyras

Thank you for sharing, Vanishing Point.

dlq04

I can assure that it is no joke. It happened in areas a couple hours SE of me a couple months ago. The person(s) doing it were leaving them in people yards for some unsuspecting home owner to pick up! Emails were sent out by the local police to county employees across the state but I believe they were trying to keep it low key, to avoid copy cats. Lot of good that does with the internet these days.

WhiteS2k

It is interesting that the Snopes article mentioned "tin foil" multiple times, but not "aluminum foil" (mentioned only once near the end). So is it the "tin" or the "aluminum" that interacts with the Draino to cause the explosion? And the video showed them shaking the bottle vigorously to start the chemical reaction, I wonder if just picking it up is enough to start things going?

raymo19

[QUOTE=WhiteS2k,Jun 10 2010, 04:52 PM]It is interesting that the Snopes article mentioned "tin foil" multiple times, but not "aluminum foil" (mentioned only once near the end).

Matt_in_VA

It is just amazing to me that some people get their jollies from hurting other people that in many cases they don't even know.

IMHO, they are in the same category as people that write viruses that take out other peoples computers causing them inconvenience and in many cases the loss of data including pictures, and other information that cannot be replaced if it was not backed up.

The good news is that after the malicious code that took out our home PC I only lost some of the Saturday car pictures that I have been posting that I did not have backed up. The pictures that counted to me, all 6158 of them going back over a decade were on my external backup drive.

Conedodger

Someone blew up my mailbox with a similar device a couple of years ago. Didn't just blow the door off, but ripped the rivets out and ripped apart the metal. I found remnants of a two liter bottle, tin foil, and an empty bottle of drain cleaner in the yard. I heard the explosion from inside the house with the windows closed. The house is 500' from the street.