Pseudoscience that Kills Lives

ADE 651

Amazing things are happening in the safety and security market. It sells rather strange goods. Take, for example, ADE 651 . A small device with a plastic handle and antenna. The metal antenna turns to the side when it detects hidden explosives. The manufacturer, the British company ATSC, touted it as a “long-range substance detector , ” capable of detecting the presence of various types of explosives, drugs, and even diseases (HIV, hepatitis) efficiently and accurately from a distance, depending on program settings. The British sold such devices to more than twenty countries, including Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, at a price of up to $ 60,000 apiece.

Of course, the device will not detect anything. This is an absolute fake,

ATSC directors were arrested back in 2010 after an investigation conducted by BBC reporters . It turned out that the functionality of the ADE 651 is based on pseudoscience. The device is nothing more than a dowser rod , only in scientific terms, like "electrostatic attraction of ions" (quote from the official site). It does not even have batteries.

The investigation also proved that the company sold “explosive detectors” with the full understanding that they did not work.

It would seem that those guilty in prison, the company is closed, the pseudo-scientific principles of the detector are ridiculed. But no. Similar devices that operate on the principle of a "magic wand" have entered the market, writes The Intercept .

Among the clones are Quadrotracker, HEDD1, Sniffex, GT200 and others. They are easy to order online.


Screenshot of Alibaba November 25,

2015 Unfortunately, people continue to die. Recently , suspicions have arisen that such fake bomb detectors are still used by security personnel at the Sharm el-Sheikh Egyptian airport - at the very airport where the Russian airliner Metrojet 9628 took off.

In Iraq, “magic detectors” also did a lot of harm. After an increase in terrorist attacks with bombings of cars stuffed with explosives, authorities purchased 7,000 bomb detectorsto scan cars. Something was even found sometimes, in accordance with the theory of probability. But in the end, the number of terrorist attacks only increased, because law enforcement officers had a sense of false security.


Iraqi policeman checks car for explosives using an “electrostatic attraction of ions”, photo 2012 A

journalistic investigation in 2010 led the United Kingdom to ban the sale of this type of device, and company director James McCormick was given a prison term of ten years. However, the business of pseudoscience continues. Props of explosive detectors are in demand in underdeveloped countries with high corruption and illiterate populations.

At the trial, one of the ATSC employees testified against the boss. Once he questioned the performance of the ADE 651 and asked the director a question. He answered: “The device works as expected. He does what he must do: money. ”