In a move that’s bound to spark more than a few conspiracy theories, the New York Police Department released harmless gas into the subway system during this morning’s commute. The goal is to study the threat to the city posed by chemical weapons. Maybe next they’ll simulate an attack from the Cloverfield monster.
The NYPD released harmless perfluorocarbons for a period of thirty minutes this morning. Certain perfluorocarbons are included in a list of toxic substances by the Canadian government, but not all forms made the list. Before releasing the gas, officers set up an array of sensors in all five boroughs of the city.
As the gas spread through the subway system, the sensors tracked it to give the NYPD and Long Island’s Brookhaven National Laboratory an idea of how chemical agents would disperse. This information is most useful to the New York subway system, but it’s likely that it could help other cities understand how best to manage or prevent a chemical attack in their subways as well.
If you happened to be in New York and were wondering what was going on, that’s what was going on. Gas tests. Feel free to leave links to any weird conspiracy theories you find, or have, in our comments section.
(via NBC News, image via Marcin Wichary)
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