Showing posts with label Mysterious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mysterious. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Nobody Has Any Idea What the Hell This Mysterious Crashed Drone Is [Airplanes]

Nobody Has Any Idea What the Hell This Mysterious Crashed Drone IsAn (allegedly) American drone just crashed in Pakistan. That's not altogether surprising—we fly drones over them all the time to hunt militants. But this one's different. It's tiny. And, uh, it's shaped like a bird. What is it?

Danger Room's Spencer Ackerman points out the ornithological similarities between the mystery UAV and the SmallBird drone—but they're clearly different. The Pakistani specimen holds no weapons—only what appear to be cameras, or what DefenseTech speculates are "four sensor apertures." There's also some strange photographic-looking equipment lying nearby. DT asked their drone gurus, and the only thing resembling conjecture they could turn up is the possibility that "It may be a Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk with the tail plane modified to look more like a bird for camouflage." That's very clever!

But not clever enough to keep it from falling out of the sky, it'd seem. It appears to have crashed on its own, rather than being shot out of the sky—the wreckage looks almost entirely intact, save for some scorch marks. At any rate, we can be sure of one thing: Pakistan's got it, and they're probably giving it a very thorough inspection right now. We need to be more careful about not dropping our stealth crap in their backyard. [Danger Room and DefenseTech]

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Thursday, August 25, 2011

A Man Found a Mysterious, Possibly Mafia-Connected Safe Inside a Casino Wall and Plans to Open It Live on the Internet [Security]

A Man Found a Mysterious, Possibly Mafia-Connected Safe Inside a Casino Wall and Plans to Open It Live on the InternetMike Laub recently bought Bill's casino in Lake Tahoe and was in the process of renovating the building. But when he started tearing down walls, Laub found a four foot tall, black locked safe that was hidden underneath a staircase and sealed off behind a wall.

What the hell? How did no one know about this? What could be so important to seal the safe off completely? To not even let it be accessible, even. That's the question that'll be answered in the next few days.

Laub thinks the safe belongs to a previous owner of the casino, Richard Chartrand. Chartrand was killed in 1968 when a bomb exploded underneath his car as he backed out of his driveway. Hm. Casino owner + money + bomb death + the 60's = Mafia anybody? That's what the speculation has always been at least. So if Chartrand was killed by the Mafia and the safe belongs to Chartrand, it doesn't take a wiseguy to know that the Mafia would take a keen interest as to what's inside. And though the mafia might not be as powerful as they once were, things could get mighty interesting once that safe pops off.

A Man Found a Mysterious, Possibly Mafia-Connected Safe Inside a Casino Wall and Plans to Open It Live on the InternetBut while Mike Laub was talking to the press about how bizarre the safe was, his son, Jordan Laub has promised Reddit that he'll open the safe live online. In his words, he'll be there before the newspapers with a blowtorch and in charming teenage ignorance, says he's not worried about the mafia. The way I see it, the contents of the safe can go one of two ways: 1) whatever's inside is big enough that the mafia is going to kill someone over it or 2) it's going to be very disappointing (like Capone's vault). I'm hoping there's a third scenario. [Tahoe Daily Tribune via Reddit via @kn0thing, Image Credit: Adam Jensen/Tahoe Daily Tribune]

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