A bunch of Redditors think the government is covering up a nuclear event that happened recently

[a7y]

So yeah, I was browsing Reddit and found this shit. Obviously, it's Reddit, so [b]take it with a grain of salt[/b] but they do bring up a lot of good points.

Basically, they believe something happened near the border of [url=http://i.imgur.com/cNmGX.jpg]Indiana and Michigan[/url] and the Department of Defense supposedly [url=http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42346.pdf]owns around 130,000 acres of land[/url] near that area. People who also live nearby have reported seeing [url=http://i.imgur.com/pkmZZ.jpg]multiple[/url] [url=https://p.twimg.com/Au1M2IjCMAABGNZ.jpg]helicopters[/url].
I'm pretty bad at making summaries, so here's the pasta:

(I suggest you go to the actual [url=http://redd.it/uqlq9]Reddit source[/url] because I couldn't be fucked with pasting all of the links)
[quote]
Before you label me as a tin-foil hat wearer, consider the following:
Live records for multiple radiation monitoring stations near the border of Indiana and Michigan have shown radiation levels as high as 7,139 counts per minute (CPM). The level varied between 2,000 CPM and 7,000 CPM for several hours early this morning (EST).
Normal radiation levels are between 5 and 60 CPM, and any readings above 100 CPM should be considered unusual and trigger an alert, according to information listed on the RadNet website (at EPA.gov)
Digital Journal reported earlier today that near the Indiana & Michigan borders Geiger detectors from the EPA & Black Cat were showing insanely elevated radiation levels. They quickly changed their story fundamentally, but not before I went OCD on it (see also my username). I personally conversed with the NRC today as well as the Hazmat response Captain for the Indiana State Police.
Here is a quick pic, before it was redacted / "corrected". Notice it is NOT the EPA's RadNet open-air detector in Fort Wayne, but another privately run detector near South Bend, owned by Radiation Network:

RadiationNetwork

They then "made a correction" and called it a false alarm, claiming that their "false alarm" was also the same cause for Black Cat... but what about the EPA's federal detectors, the ones that don't use the same information streams as RadiationNetwork? Read on:
EPA's "near-realtime" open-air geiger counter for Ft Wayne Indiana no longer shows live data but cuts off May 19th. This morning, it didn't (hence the basis for this comment), but by using the EPA.gov RADNET query tool, WE CAN STILL PULL THE DATA UP as in this screenshot <- For more cities and a breakdown of the wind spread, check here
Want more? The area of interest isn't very far away from this strange event that just happened the other day where no fault line is present.
More? The DOD owns about 130,000 acres of land in the area.
Also, I remind you that it was the EPA's federal detectors and privately owned / Internet enthusiast detectors FROM TWO DIFFERENT PLACES (BlackCat & the Radiation Network) reporting the same incident.
Tell me Reddit, am I paranoid?

EDIT 14 pwns EDIT 7: Redditor says: Central Ohio here. I work at a large public university (not hard to guess which) next to a small research reactor that's located near the back of campus. There's (normally) a large fleet of hazmat response trucks and trailers parked in the nearby lot. Most of them are NIMS early response vehicles funded by Homeland Security (says so right on them). Haven't seen them move once since I started working a few years ago. Tonight? All gone. edit: will try to get pictures tonight/tomorrow

EDIT 7 comes first: To those who say it was still a malfunction:
You miss a VERY elementary point: one detector was privately ran in South Bend. That one "malfunctioned". But then the data is corroborated by a federally ran detector in Ft Wayne, a good drive away. And then more data as time goes on from other detectors. Like here, where one can see the drifts over Little Rock, AR 12 hours later, which lines up with the wind maps. For those that don't seem to know, that's a long way away from Ft Wayne. And the "average" CPM level in Little Rock has been around 8 CPM for the past 12 months.
and to those that point to the pinhole coolant leak in Dayton:
that pinhole leak couldn't possibly account for the levels seen here, and it was in hot standby mode (hot & pressurized, but no fission) because it was being refueled. And the workers would have triggered alarms if they were contaminated.

EDIT 11 also jumps the line: On a tip, I called the Traverse City Fire Dept and asked them if they noticed anything unusual, muttered that I was with the "nuclear reddit board". They confirmed they had unusually high readings, and that they reported them to the NRC earlier today.

EDIT 1 It's spreading as you would expect

EDIT 2 More "human numbers":
The actual dose from other redditor / semi-pro opinion + myself is speculated to be... RE-EDIT: Guess you'll never know, because armchair-physicists want to argue too wildly for consensus.

EDIT 3: high levels of Radon in the area??

EDIT 4 I heard from a semi-verified source that minot afb in north dakota, one of the largest nuclear bases, is running a nuclear response and containment "training exercise" right now with their b-52s. take this with a grain of salt, I'm not vouching for it EDIT: this redditor verifies

EDIT 5: some redditors keep talking about seeing gov't helicopters: here and here and here <- UPDATE: this one now has video

EDIT 6: Someone posted it to AskScience, but a mod deleted it and removed comments

>>>> EDIT 8: > Twes [+1] 11 minutes ago I mean, it is kind of interesting to speculate about... I will at the very least continue to watch this thread/ news stories. I don't know if someone in the 2000 comments has posted this, but before the spike, radiation levels were around 1 to 2 times normal. After the spike they are staying at a constant 5 to 7 times normal. [url]https://twitter.com/#!/LongmontRadMon[/url]

EDIT 9: - Removed for being incorrect -

EDIT 10 Battle Creek, MI helicopters & ac-130: [url]https://p.twimg.com/Au1M2IjCMAABGNZ.jpg[/url] & sauce: [url]https://twitter.com/#!/BeRONSON[/url]

EDIT 12: reliable source! says: > Got an email from friend at NMR lab at Eli Lilly in downtown Indianapolis. Said alarms just went off with equipment powered down; Indy HLS fusion teams responding; says NRC R3 not responding tonight.

EDIT 13: this will be where pictures are collected. Got pics? Send to OP. New helicopters (Indianapolis) to get started with, and some Chinooks, 20:30 EST West Branch, MI: [url]http://imgur.com/pkmZZ[/url]

EDIT 14 now up top ^

EDIT 15: first verifiable statement from a redditor / security guard at Lily in Indianapolis >> "There's nothing dangerous going on at Lilly. Nobody is being evacuated and nothings leaking or on fire but a fucking TON of federales keep showing up. Don't know what the alarm was about but theres been a lot of radio traffic" Proof!

EDIT 16: Removed, was irrelevant

EDIT 17 AnnArbor.com tweeted on the 4th about the mysterious "earthquake" rumbling: [url]https://twitter.com/AnnArborcom/status/209674582087569408[/url] >> Shaking felt in our downtown ?#AnnArbor? newsroom. Did anyone else feel the movement? ?#earthquake?

EDIT 18: 1:50AM EST: we're now doing it live (FUCK IT! WE'LL DO IT LIVE!!): [url]http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=[/url] <remove> Way to kill it Reddit! This is why we can't have nice things - 2:18AM EST - 3:45AM EST

EDIT 19 Interesting Twitter account. Claims to be owner of the other Twitter account (in Edit #8)... Verified by the Internet at large: [url]https://twitter.com/joey_stanford/status/210967691115245568[/url] [url]https://twitter.com/#!/joey_stanford[/url]

EDIT 20 This was posted up by a Redditor in the comments, purportedly from Florida, based on wind map is possibly connected & is definitely elevated to a mildly disconcerting level: [url]http://i.imgur.com/77pPn.jpg[/url]

EDIT 21 Joey Stanford has said video proof is coming! Keep an eye on his twitter page! he is a dev for Canonical, and in charge of the Longmont Rad Monitoring Station in Longmont, Colorado: [url]https://twitter.com/#!/joey_stanford[/url]

EDIT 22 3:30 AM, OP doesn't sleep. Apparently neither does GabeN, with his first comment in two months (Hi Gabe! Hope you were up all night working on something that ends in "3")... still got my ear out for real news, stay tuned. editception : looks like I was trolled by a fake GabeN account.

EDIT 23, 9:30 AM. This forum for cops had this statement by someone with over 5,000 posts on that site: > We've been encountering some high readings at the labs here. < note: this was posted well before this was submitted to Reddit, at noon yesterday

EDIT 24: maxed out the length of a self post. GO HERE FOR MORE
[/quote]
[url]http://redd.it/uqlq9[/url]

Second post he refers to:
[quote]
If you somehow missed it, the OP

EDIT 24, 10:30 AM: Contacted by several media, with the domain name in the reply email listed being "proof" of their identity. Lining up a couple interviews. EDIT: missed the 96.5 interview offer because I was too busy... so many inbox messages 0.o

EDIT 25, 11AM EST: Joey Stanford, dev for Canonical (Ubuntu) & Launchpad + the guy who runs the Longmont Radiation Monitor in Longmont, CO has posted up proof of high radiation .... see also his twitter feed

EDIT 26: I never once said it was dangerous or that it was NOT dangerous. BUT, for those who want to take preventative measures / keep flooding my inbox EDIT: removed medical advice regarding potassium iodide due to mod request.

EDIT 27: Media blackout / suppression? Points out another commenter: [url]http://i.imgur.com/Dstqz.png[/url] @11:15AM EST I verified this to be an accurate screenshot and lots of folks have been checking it all night and there were no results. EDIT 27b, 20 minutes later: now there is one result but it is the "official" malfunction story (a literal copy/paste of what's on Digital Journal) that's already been debunked by the fact it's more than just a single detector. @ Journal Gazette: your copy/paste article sucks, and you should feel bad.

EDIT 27C, 11:45 AM EST: Now I have tons of results that are not exactly relevant but still listed. See also comments section for the others who no doubt SAW it before it was called out... [url]http://i.imgur.com/xKf9y.jpg[/url] | Update: other redditors verify / international redditors tell us what you see please (don't forget your ISP if you post, please)?

EDIT 28: Not good, and I'm calling an expert for a second opinion on this. EDIT28a: I tried to debunk 28, but all I ended up with the chance that a professional (from #25) called it without considering the calibration of his equipment. Very unlikely, but not impossible.

EDIT 29, noon EST: Hearing in some of the science circles that it might have been solar in origin, sideburner "theory" until someone gives concrete proof. Someone ask phys.org plz

EDIT 30, 12:40: just a note, the top comments in the other thread where I was supposedly "proven wrong, it was just a SINGLE malfunctioning sensor" were posted prior to any updates, including the addition of other sensors in other parts of the country, videos, pics, twitter feeds, strange helicopters & explosions, wind dispersion patterns, lack of MSM coverage, etc etc. And most of the top comments are simply arguing over how much radiation it is in terms of mSv, which isn't the point. It hit well over 350x "normal" and 70x the "alert level" and clearly spread from there, so why isn't the gov't saying anything? Why pull the EPA's own datasets?

EDIT 31: after nearly 20 hours, someone FINALLY actually uses the public tool like I've encouraged since the start of this. Go flood the query tool, see for yourself before they get pulled / all the data gets removed (like the other data sets the EPA pulled, and some of the cities now don't return anything but zeros (like nashville))

EDIT 32: Take with a grain of salt, but here's a video showing a military convoy in Big Rapids, MI... going through an apartment complex at night.

EDIT 33: The handheld detector in Edit 25 may have a bad germanium resistor, says the guy who posted the video: [url]https://twitter.com/joey_stanford/status/211154420417826816[/url]

EDIT 34: More data, interesting to the spike: [url]http://radmon.stan4d.net/[/url] (scroll down for graphs)

EDIT 35, 2:30 EST. nobody will see this, says random redditor <- that's what it looks like in Brazil, btw

EDIT 36 Regarding possible solar activity, this was issued as an alert for the 7th of June: [url]http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/pdf/lnms/Special_Notice_to_Mariners_NGA_NAVAREA_IV_293_2012.pdf[/url], USCG Special Notice to Mariners, Subj: SOLAR ACTIVITY – COMMUNICATIONS/ELECTRONIC NAVIGATION

EDIT 37 @ 4:20ish: See this /r/news link. Title: "Explosions, military helicopters, and hazmat team observed in blacked-out radiation zone on the Michigan and Indiana border right now"

EDIT 38: 5:30. New /r/politics record for most comments? Original thread alone has 6600+, this one's at 2600 and climbing o.0

EDIT 40 : Over to (hopefully the last) list of updates... getting interesting, and looking more like solar. Here is ANOTHER radiation spike, from the EPA's own tool... in Tampa Florida: [url]http://i.imgur.com/0NV8I.png[/url] go here for the latest
[/quote]
[url]http://redd.it/urm6c[/url]

[quote]
If you somehow missed it, the OP | Also note to the karma conspirators: this is a self post. I get no karma for it.

EDIT 40 Regarding theories that RadNET query data trend movement is within the norm, notwithstanding the fact that the query tool no longer shows ANY data for some cities it is entirely feasible for the ESA to ALTER the data. Anyways, here is a plot data chart to visualize a spike that showed up in Tampa, Fl: [url]http://i.imgur.com/0NV8I.png[/url] Looks more and more like solar in nature but I can find no evidence of an M class or better flare that was made public.

EDIT 41, 7:30PM: By popular request, [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/uqlq9/reddit_i_think_there_is_a_giant_nuclear_coverup/c4xrkip]this is interesting[/url] but I remain skeptical of it's authenticity.
[/quote]
[url]http://redd.it/usal9[/url]

[smeismastger]

Well, this is a bit concerning.

[editline]8th June 2012[/editline]

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/KVEqg.png[/IMG]

[DainBramageStud]

cockup before conspiracy

[Dokaman]

And here comes the rage against Redditors, brace yourself.

[lordcrypto]

its a conspiracry guys

GUYS the new wolrd order is coming !! get your gas masks and your .45ACP loaded with 230 grains

[BloodFox1222]

This could be nothing but i wonder if they are actually on to something. Guess if these guys suddenly stop posting we will know.

[Hakita]

I find conspiracy theories like this amusing, mostly because they imply that the government can hide something.

[smeismastger]

[video=youtube;ztyL3mTX7d8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztyL3mTX7d8[/video]

[editline]8th June 2012[/editline]

I hope you folks have some antirads stored

[KorJax]

Pretty freaky.

[DainBramageStud]

Has it been considered that a fracking operation accidentally liberated underground radon?

[OvB]

[quote]EDIT 10 Battle Creek, MI helicopters & [del]ac-130[/del]: [url]https://p.twimg.com/Au1M2IjCMAABGNZ.jpg[/url] & sauce: [url]https://twitter.com/#!/BeRONSON[/url][/quote]

It's just a normal C-130.

[rrunyan]

oooooo I love conspiracies :3

This one looks pretty boring though by comparison.

Still nukes are always a good topic.

[smeismastger]

Resonance Cascade

[Webby2020]

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;36249406]Has it been considered that a fracking operation accidentally liberated underground radon?[/QUOTE]

Thats still something extremely dangerous and worth alerting the public over. Radon is the number 2 cause of lung cancer in the country.

Even if not enough to cause damage to humans that is still a pretty bad ecological disaster waiting to happen.

Also just because its Reddit doesn't mean its instantly discredited. Again typical FP xenophobia and generalization strikes again.

[Shootemout]

Get your bottle caps ready kids! We're moving to the Indiana-Michigan border!

[DainBramageStud]

[QUOTE=Webby2020;36249476]Thats still something extremely dangerous and worth alerting the public over. Radon is the number 2 cause of lung cancer in the country.[/QUOTE]

Yeah it's just that there are many things that could have caused it.

[meefy]

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;36249601]Yeah it's just that there are many things that could have caused it.[/QUOTE]

swamp gas

[fippe]

Tinfoil hats on, everyone, it's obviously govt. conspiracy.

Personally, I'd say its maybe a solar flare spiking meters up and nothing real and redditors are getting worked up for no reason.

[meefy]

from a weather balloon

[DainBramageStud]

[QUOTE=Fippe;36249625]Tinfoil hats on, everyone, it's obviously govt. conspiracy.

Personally, I'd say its maybe a solar flare spiking meters up and nothing real and redditors are getting worked up for no reason.[/QUOTE]

At night?

[Webby2020]

Solar radiation can still fuck you up at night. Its not like the sun disappears when it goes under the horizon.

But there would be more severe shit on the day side of the planet, though.

[DainBramageStud]

And I'm not seeing how a solar flare would cause large amounts of radon to appear.

Or how it would only trip the sensors in a very small area, rather than the entire hemisphere facing the sun.

[Webby2020]

But if it was a radon gas pocket why is there nothing going on about it in the media or news from the government. That's pretty serious.

[DainBramageStud]

[QUOTE=Webby2020;36249696]But if it was a radon gas pocket why is there nothing going on about it in the media or news from the government. That's pretty serious.[/QUOTE]

simple: they're incompetent

[acidcj]

If something major actually did happen, it would be being detected around the world. Radiation is really easy to detect, even in incredibly tiny levels.

[Loriborn]

This is freaking me out, but I've already come to terms with the fact that stuff like this usually ends up being nothing anyway. If it is something, I can't do shit about it anyway and would rather live in ignorant bliss than worrying that I'll develop some kind of third arm.

[Webby2020]

But it is being detected in a lot of places.

Increased radiation levels have been reported by facilities and universities across the country and unconfirmed/un-credible sources say as far south as Brazil.

It only happened yesterday, give it time.

[Loriborn]

[QUOTE=acidcj;36249729]If something major actually did happen, it would be being detected around the world. Radiation is really easy to detect, even in incredibly tiny levels.[/QUOTE]

Non-government officials and independent researchers would have said something by now anyway. It's nearly impossible for the government to prevent everyone in the country from garnering media attention if this really is a big deal.

[Kai-ryuu]

so a bunch of basement dwelling neckbeards think that there is some sort of evil government conspiracy to cover up a nuclear incident in the middle of the country?

[LooperNor]

[QUOTE=Fippe;36249625]Personally, I'd say its maybe a solar flare spiking meters up and nothing real and redditors are getting worked up for no reason.[/QUOTE]

I'm not saying there can't be a reasonable explanation for this, but a solar flare would not cause such a radiation spike in a very pinpointed location on Earth, and then not cause any radiation anywhere else.