Slashdot Mirror
Exploding Munitions Caught On Seismometer (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Seismometers have been deployed throughout the world. Scientists need a big web of them to gather data about earthquakes, and the network has expanded widely over the past 60 years. As it turns out, seismometers are pretty good at picking up vibrations from things that aren't earthquakes. A team of researchers scouring logs from 2006 were able to find clear evidence of the explosion of a munitions depot in Iraq. And that's not all: "The team, led by Ghassan Aleqabi of Washington University in St. Louis, carefully analyzed each wiggle on the seismograph and discovered it could identify a number of different things. The firing of a mortar, for example, was identifiable along with the explosion when the shell landed. Car bomb explosions also stood out, although the bouncing of the shockwave off surrounding buildings made each one a bit different. The team could even identify signals from drones and helicopters and figure out if they were approaching or moving away based on the Doppler shift."
Oh my god stop the presses! Thing that can detect shockwaves... detected shockwaves! Hooolllleeee sheeeeeeet!
He got out of bed and the seismographs had him pinpointed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Interestingly enough, I'm vaguely familiar with the project you mention and the two aren't really dissimilar but they're not exactly the same either. Those were, as far as I know, much closer to the source and were a bit more fine tuned than the seismometers that this is referencing.
That said, an interesting aside - and continuation, the devices that you placed were not always placed by hand. Some were dropped along the sides of the trails by airplane and helicopters. The Viet Minh knew about some of them and found some of them. They'd often then do things like move the sensors or create noise to deliberately mislead those listening to the sensors.
I am not certain but I also recollect reading about them being in use in Laos and Cambodia during that same time period and along the borders where the NVA also would travel but not specifically along the Ho Chi Minh trails. I'd speculate that there is much to this story that I've not heard and that there were probably additional uses then and now. I find it hard to believe that the entirety of the truth has been told.
So, for their effectiveness, I can say that I have read (and seen in at least one documentary) that the Viet Minh/Cong/NVA knew something about them and made use of them to confuse trackers and mask movements. I seem to recall reading about some of them being put in place by some LRP forces but I may be conflating two separate programs at this point and can only guess that the two are somehow related (though they sound similar).
Finally, I'm not entirely certain which one would contain it (there are something like 65 episodes, each about an hour long) but there's a documentary series called "Secrets of War." It's not the greatest of series but it does have some unique and interesting points. I'm not positive but I think that one of their episodes about the Vietnam War contained a few blurbs about this program that the AC is referencing.
I've not heard much about the program, only tidbits here and there, which is one of the reasons that I think that I'm probably not getting all the information. Most of the information that I'm able to recollect is presented and relayed by the NVA. In other words, not many people speak of and seem to know of this program. Thus, for once, I'm inclined to actually believe the AC is telling the truth or as much of the truth as they're allowed to tell.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."