Indie-Resource.com

Something I got from my wife in an email, and thought I would share it with EVERYONE:

NOT A JOKE - VERY SERIOUS


Pass this on to everybody you know. Anybody that sees a plastic bottle in their yard would think nothing of picking it up to throw it away. Looks like these things are starting to pop up around the U.S. Check the Snopes web site below, it's pretty scary.

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 someone to pick it up intending to put it in the trash.
It takes about 30 seconds to blow after you move the thing. So if you see a bottle laying around with anything in it, call 911. Read the story, and a video is attached to the Snopes website showing what it can do.

See "SNOPES" below....it's true.

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

When I was 14 or 15 my friend and I used to make these and blow them up in empty fields. However, they don't use Draino, they use hydrochloric acid (HCl), such as the kind sold for use in swimming pools. The amounts of HCl in Draino is not sufficient to cause the reaction (edit: Sorry, there is no HCl in Drano. Maybe Drano works too, but I cannot see how it would. Since the above letter was written by the police, they may not have wanted to tell the real chemical). To my knowledge, there is no way to make them delay so that can be placed in a yard and reliably blow up when handled by someone at a later time. The reaction that causes the explosion is due to the HCl stripping off the aluminum oxide that naturally forms all over the aluminum foil as a reaction to air. This produces a decent amount of gas which causes the bottle to expand until it explodes, creating a small concussive/shrapnel explosive. Naturally, I won't go into any of the amounts of ingredients to produce one here, and trying to "figure it out on your own" could kill you, so don't try it.

Nevertheless, I think it may be a bit paranoid to be worried about these in your yard. They either explode in a few seconds, or don't at all. There is a much better reason to be wary about bottles in your, however: "One-Pot" methamphetamine garbage. The new way that meth cooks are preparing meth only requires a few small ingredients and a bottle (the "pot" in "One-Pot"). Many meth cooks have taken to driving around while cooking so that the smell doesn't build up at their home, and when they are done, they simply chuck the bottle out the window, which could realistically put it in your yard. The reaction requires lithium aluminum hydride (LiAlH4) for the reduction of Sudafed into meth, and LiAlH4 is highly explosive toward water, even atmospheric amounts. This means that you or a child sees the bottle in the yard, wonders what the goo inside is and opens the bottle, and it could explode just from the moisture in the air on a high humidity day. Yes, these meth cooks are out of their minds for doing this (particularly outside in their car), and many of them do get blown up, leaving them with head-to-toe burns, or dead.

So in summary, do not mess with bottles in your yard that appear to have anything except clear liquid in them (both the bottle bomb and the meth "pots" will appear thick and possibly gooey inside) and even then, only dispose of them. Do not open them. However, the most realistic threat is really coming from meth cooks, not bottle bombs.

i have watched a meth head cook up a batch of this. Scary stuff watching a guy who dropped out of school in the 7th grade now handle something so dangerous and use all these chemicals that will be later smoke, snorted, and injected into people. It is the disease that is killing america. Worse drug known to man. Hitler is still killing.

I agree with Jack, no way disturbing this will cause it to react, it either does or doesn't. Unless maybe they stand it upright and place the foul just under the cap somehow where pick it up or splashing it causes the reaction.

Glove companies should be furious that they are losing potential customers to these houligans.

too soon?

OP: I used to make those back when i was younger but i would put a ballon on the end of the bottle and trap they hydrogen gas. They made quite the nice fireball at night when you shoot them with a shotgun

In my area these "One_Pots" have been showing up on the sides of roads. No one has been injured by them yet thankfully.

The craziest thing I've ever done was make homemade thermite. I've loaded thermite into paintball shells with a little magnesium and steel shavings. Again this makes for a nice show at night but I don't recommend doing it......

Ravinos wrote:In my area these "One_Pots" have been showing up on the sides of roads. No one has been injured by them yet thankfully.

Really, though, everyone is getting injured by them in the area. Who knows what dumping this stuff on the side of the road is doing to the environment. For each bottle found and properly disposed of, probably 5 more are not dealt with and eventually eat through the bottle, seeping into the ground. Lithium aluminum hydride is nasty stuff that can do untold damage to a local ecosystem.