« Damage to Lunar Orbiting Spacecraft by Ejecta from Lunar Landings | Main | Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Completes Second Flight »

Thursday, April 22, 2021

TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPS: Empire of Grifters: “Quadro Tracker”

The amazing “Quadro Tracker”—invented by a former used car salesman named Wade L. Quattlebaum—is like Doc Smith’s “object compass”, except with dead ants, it claimed to be able to detect lost golf balls, drugs, weapons, explosives, missing persons, and game animals. Around 1000 units were sold at prices ranging from US$400 to US$8000 each to gullible school districts, law enforcement agencies, and airports, including the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Quadro Corporation, who marketed it between 1993 and 1996 before being shut down by the FBI and its principals indicted for mail fraud, said it worked via “static electricity produced by the body inhaling and exhaling gases into and out of the lung cavity” to “charge the free-floating neutral electrons of the signature card with the major strength of the signal”.

At trial in January 1997, the three principals of the company were acquitted of mail fraud and conspiracy.

Posted at April 22, 2021 12:31