Dudes -- it was a freakin' flower!

An odd-looking Canadian quarter with a bright red flower was the culprit behind a false espionage warning from the Defense Department about mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters, The Associated Press has learned.

The harmless "poppy quarter" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.

I had heard of, but never seen one of these coins, designed to memorialize the WWI Canadian war dead. I can understand that folks who reported them may have been suspicious. But surely someone in Washington might have actually looked at the damn things before sending out an espionage alert -- you know, check with a coin dealer or something.

Some days I fear for my country.

Posted by: Greg at 10:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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