It's not true anymore, but during WW2 they specifically laid out the lights on campus to match the lighting pattern of the arsenal. Given navigation of the time, the german bomber crew would know they were "about" at the radford arsenal, and would look down, and lo! A target that matches their "Looks like this at night" card...
People who live in blacksburg at the time didn't catch on for a while why whenever there was a blackout drill every light on campus came on. And why there were lamp poles in the middle of fields no where near the sidewalks...
Of course, now, with a GPS, it's not as useful - even a half blind terrorist in a cessna can get within 300ft of the arsenal with his windows all blacked out.
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Re: terrorist target
Date: 2003-03-21 12:38 am (UTC)People who live in blacksburg at the time didn't catch on for a while why whenever there was a blackout drill every light on campus came on. And why there were lamp poles in the middle of fields no where near the sidewalks...
Of course, now, with a GPS, it's not as useful - even a half blind terrorist in a cessna can get within 300ft of the arsenal with his windows all blacked out.