Strangest fact: We’ve finally found a conspiracy theory where the FBI are the good guys. Agent Ron Kelly heard about the device from a cop friend and was suspicious. He purchased a device and ran it through an X-Ray machine, which revealed that it was hollow. It was an empty plastic box containing no electronics whatsoever. The only metal parts were “a couple of wires and an antenna, which were not connected to each other.” The antenna in question was taken from a transistor radio. As Kelly reported, “It didn’t take a lot of effort on our part to determine it was a phony.”
Thing we were happiest to learn: At least there are worse things the cops can waste your tax dollars on. The Quadro was put into use in—surprise!—Texas and Florida, with what the commander of a Texas narcotics task force modestly called “mixed results.” “Sometimes we’d find something, sometimes not. Our rate of success was about half.” In fairness, Texas’ police clearance rate on violent crime is just under 40%, so the empty plastic box with a radio antenna glued to it doesn’t look so bad after all.
Thing we were unhappiest to learn: There is literally nothing worse the schools can waste your tax dollars on. Multiple school districts in Kansas paid $955 apiece for the devices, as did schools in—wait for it—Texas and Florida. One Texas school district defiantly continued using the device even after it had been banned, “saying they hoped it would be a deterrent.” A school district in Mississippi paid $2,000 for two devices and never used them, which isn’t the entire reason they’re 51st out of 50 in education, but it certainly didn’t help. And that still might be an improvement over the schools that did use it. The principal of Carencro High in Lafayette, Louisiana, raved about the device, saying, “I heard that there had been some trouble with it, but I tell you what, I’m impressed with it.” And again, the “it” in question is a $955 empty plastic box that doesn’t work. And somehow, Louisiana is still ahead of Mississippi in education.
Thing we were sadly not surprised to learn: While Quattlebaum and his two partners were indicted on mail fraud charges, and despite making the most obviously fraudulent thing that has ever existed, were acquitted of all charges. The only person to suffer any consequences whatsoever was Guy Womack, a U.S. Attorney from Texas who had a side hustle selling Quadro Trackers to cops. During a hearing for conflict of interest, lying to investigators, and abuse of federal resources, Womack pleaded the Fifth 42 times… and was not charged with a crime. He settled out of court for $5,000, while denying any wrongdoing. Again, we live in an age of scams, and as the old saying goes, you do the crime, you do… end up having a good time. Or something like that.
Best link to elsewhere on Wikipedia: Also unsurprising, given the lack of consequences for the obvious scam artists selling an obviously fake device, the Quadro Tracker had knockoffs. U.K,-based company Global Technical, when not busy being the villain in every action movie, produced a device called the GT200, which was “physically nearly identical” to the Quadro, since if you’re not going to be punished for fraud, you may as well also not be punished for patent infringement. Global Technical had one innovation—raising the price to £22,000. The U.K. also had a novel innovation of their own—sending Global Technical’s founder to jail.
Likewise, the creator of a rival device, the ADE 651, was convicted at the Old Bailey after the device was used to detect bombs in Iraq, and the result was many undetected bombs, and hundreds of deaths.
Further down the Wormhole: But wait, it gets worse. Another obviously fake device called Sniffex was offered to the U.S. Navy. The Navy ran tests and concluded the device “does not work.” The Navy still bought eight of them, for fifty thousand of your tax dollars. The SEC charged Sniffex’s producers with being “little more than a front for a $32 million stock fraud scheme.” Wikipedia doesn’t say whether the CEO or the mysterious “Bulgarian residents who actually controlled the company” were punished (although we can guess), but Sniffex was called out by The Amazing Randi, who publicly offered a million dollars if Sniffex could actually do what its press releases claimed, and successfully detect explosives.
Apart from being a renowned stage magician, James Randi is a high-profile skeptic, who’s made a second career out of debunking claims of the paranormal. In 1989, Randi went so far as to offer up his own money as a prize for someone who could demonstrate genuine psychic powers, on a two-hour TV special hosted by Bill Bixby. (Bixby was likely chosen because of his earlier role in a crime drama called The Magician, although the actor is far better known for My Favorite Martin, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, and The Incredible Hulk.) Bixby got into acting by making industrial training films, after dropping out of college following a stint in the Marines. He spent most of his active duty stationed at Naval Air Station Oakland, known to civilians as Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport. The airport was dedicated by Charles Lindbergh himself, and it boasted the then-longest runway in the world, built specifically for the Dole Air Race. We’ll look at that fateful, catastrophic aerial competition next month.
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