The Potential Of A Stealth Chemical / Radiological Attack On The NYC Subway System

My motivations for writing this article are the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system and the US Army's 1966 stealth biological attack on the New York City subway system. 

I summarized some of the important information about the Army’s attack in an earlier article. Some stealth-type cyber attacks on infrastructure have not been detected for several months. I am using this article to illustrate the dangers of stealth-type non-cyber attacks. 

The subway personnel and the police department that patrol the New York City subway have fresh air masks to protect them in the event of a sarin-type attack or an attack that is visible in real-time. The masks will not protect them from a biological agent that is inactive for several days, such as anthrax. The masks will also not protect them from the type of chemical / radiological attack that I illustrate in this article. 

For the unenlightened, a dirty radiological bomb disperses radiological isotopes into the environment to harm people. Some of the isotopes that have been proposed as potential radiological threats are cobalt 60 and cesium 137. These are heavy gamma-ray emitters. 

The radiation-detection devices that are carried by the New York City Emergency Medical Services and some New York police officers all belong to the Geiger-counter type that picks up gamma-ray radiation. To fully talk about a radiological bomb, I have to discuss other radiological emitters that can harm people.

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What makes a nuclear dirty bomb so interesting is that the CIA (Army) did some important leg work in the New York City subway system and created a biological attack. Due to the Freedom of Information Act, some information about the Army’s activities came to light from the experiments it conducted in 1966. It still conducts experiments; however, I have obtained this information from the hacker group "Anonymous," which does not have to worry about the Freedom of Information Act. 

Gamma rays are not the only radiological emitters that can harm people. There are also x-rays, beta waves, alpha particles, and neutrons. Figure 1 presents a diagram that shows how easily these radiations can be stopped by barriers. 

Figure 1

This diagram shows how alpha particles can be stopped by a piece of paper.  Beta particles can be stopped by a piece of plastic, and gamma rays / x-rays can be stopped by a piece of lead. Gamma rays are the most penetrating and the most easily detected. Most law enforcement agencies in the world detect these types of rays for dirty bombs. Figure 1 does not show neutrons, but they are more penetrating than gamma rays. 

You have seen the penetrating power of gamma rays, but there are other factors to consider when examining the radiological damage to biological organisms. These factors are all summed up in Figure 2. This chart shows the destructive capabilities of different radiological agents and gives the quality factor (QF) of each agent's destructive power.

Figure 2

The higher its QF, the more destructive the agent is to biological organisms. The first radiation types listed are x-rays, gamma rays, and beta rays, which all have a QF of 1. The second on the list are neutrons with different energies and QFs ranging from 5 to 20. Protons are next, with a range of energies and QFs of 5 and 2. Last on the list are alpha particles, with a QF of 20, making them the most destructive for biological entities. 

Alpha particles have the least penetrating ability; however, if they are ingested or inhaled, they are very destructive and will ultimately produce cancer or other ailments in the individual. They are also the least detectable with a Geiger counter.

The poisoning power of alpha particles has not gone unnoticed by the Russian Federation. It has used polonium 210 (a very high alpha particle emitter) as a poison against its enemies. This is documented in an article in The Guardian.

The next question is how to obtain an alpha particle source. This is an easy question; for example, uranium ore is rich in alpha particles. It also emits gamma rays of very low intensity. If you hold a Geiger counter probe about 2 feet away from it, it will probably not register anything. Uranium is also a toxic element and a heavy metal; if ingested or inhaled, it can produce cancer or other ailments. Uranium ore is available from rock hound stores, where you can buy 5 lb in bulk, and in some cases, 50 lb in bulk. 

What do you do with uranium to make it inhalable or ingestible? You use a ball mill-type device. It is a cylinder that contains either steel pellets or ceramic pellets. If you were dealing with 5 lb of uranium or more, it might take you over a month to grind it down to a particular size that can easily be inhaled. You would also have to wear a mask to ensure that you would not inhale any of the uranium particles. Uranium does not only emit alpha particles as a radiological danger, but it also poses a chemical threat.

Now that you have this ore ground down, how do you get it into the subway system? Do you set off a bomb to scatter it? In 1966, the US Army—performed experiments with innocuous bacteria that were in light bulbs. They also poisoned the system through the ventilation ducts on the ground level. These ventilation ducts were large enough to take on a substantial quantity of powder.

Undoubtedly, the subway system is highly vulnerable to a stealth-type attack, whether it be radiological, biological, or chemical. If you think back to the 9/11 attack, more people died from the cancerous chemicals released from the collapse of the buildings than from the original attack. 

Back then, the public was told that it was not dangerous to be in that area or breathe the air. This type of government response could feed right into some type of stealth-type terrorist attack. A terrorist could announce this stealth attack and then later use it to discredit the government's ability to protect its citizens. Of course a big component of terrorism is psychological and fear.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.