-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf
Of Hermit
Sent: 21 September 2002 12:48 AM
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: Re: virus: Antigravity propulsion update
"Red Mercury." Heh.
Most of the time, for "Red Mercury" read Tritium (used in night-sights,
on
watches and as an accelerator to convert "atom bombs" into Hydrogen
bombs).
In the mid 1980s, Israel was quite happy to provide Tritium to South
Africa
in exchange for weapons grade nuclear materials. The Tritium was shipped
by
Safair in containers labelled "Mercury Oxide" in order to avoid
attention
from the many curious eyes watching transactions between the two
countries.
By the late 80s, South Africa was working on various projects with the
Soviet Union, and a barter deal was established where Tritium was
shipped to
the Soviet Union in payment for other things more useful (mainly
aircraft
engines) to a currency strapped South Africa. For whatever reason (I
suspect
because nobody could be bothered to change the labels), the "Red
Mercury"
label was perpetuated, and possibly due to the propensity of
peripherally
involved BOSS barflies to blab in barter for beer, the by now antiquated
cover story appears to have been picked up by the Russian Mafia. At
which
point the more lunatic fringe confidence tricksters of the Russian
underground began attempting to sell Mercury Oxide, Mecuric Iodide and
Mercury with red colorants to anyone willing to listen - usually agents
of
the MVD, FIB, Minatom or FIS. Naturally the materials they touted was
hyped
in order to improve the market value, and by the time that they were
done
(and the story reached the press sometime in the early 90s), "Red
Mercury"
had become the weapon to end all weapons, Allegedly a substance that
might
do anything from fusing Deutrium and Tritium directly, to causing
explosive
outbreaks of pimples.
In fact, as with almost all of the stories of smuggled nuclear material,
the
value was as imaginary as the Curie count - except to the media - who
hyped
the possible dangers even more than the more honest confidence
tricksters
had done. Which in a bizarre twist resulted in a vast increase in the
value
of Mercury Oxide (commonly used on the backs of mirrors), largely
instigated
by the outrageous prices which Western "intellegence" agencies were
prepared
to pay for it...
Regards
Hermit
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid =263 14>[Blunderov] Thanks for the info. Subsequent to my post I found this most interesting document.
<snip> COMMENTARY No. 57 a CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE publication SMUGGLING SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIALS Reports of the trafficking of Red Mercury (claimed to have the composition Hg2Sb207) have been circulating for many years. Red Mercury was touted as a mediator in nuclear weapons design, particularly as an essential ingredient in pure-fusion weapons, a view expressed most recently in International Defence Review (6/94) by Dr. F. Barnaby, a former Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. What is known about Red Mercury is that it was the Russian code name for the production of Li6D - a legitimate component of thermonuclear weapons, but not some mystical or magical ingredient for other purposes. In recent years Red Mercury has been widely discredited, and the "market" for it appears to be diminishing.
Of the nearly 1000 known incidents of smuggling, all but a handful have been of isotopes or materials entirely useless to nuclear weapons manufacture, thus reflecting the technological ignorance of both the supply and demand sides of the "market". However, four prominent exceptions were of truly special nuclear materials and all occurred within the last eight months of 1994. In May 1994, six grams of plutonium - Pu239 (99.75% purity) - were found in the garage of businessman Adolf Jaekle, in the southern German village of Tengen. In another case, six people were arrested in June 1994 in the Bavarian town of Landshut with 0.8 gram of weapons-grade uranium - U235 - for sale. Although the isotopes were certainly weapons-grade, the quantities involved were fortunately minuscule. In August 1994 at Munich Airport, 350 grams of 87% pure Pu239 were discovered aboard a flight from Moscow, and three couriers arrested; 200 grams of lithium (Li6) were confiscated at the same time. Both of these materials are required in the construction of thermo-nuclear weapons, and the amounts are significant. In the case of the plutonium, this amounts to almost 10% of the fissionable material required in an (admittedly) efficient weapon design. Finally, in December 1994, in the largest seizure yet of weapons-grade uranium, Czech officials in Prague confiscated 2.722 kilograms of U235 enriched to 87.5%, and arrested three men later identified as "nuclear workers". As in the case of the earlier German seizures, the materials were believed to have originated in the former Soviet Union (FSU), although Russian authorities have stridently denied that any of their weapons-grade material has gone missing.
<snap>
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