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Mysterious sweet smell returns to Manhattan, without explanation
The Sweet Smell came back.
Call it molasses- or maple syrup-like, the mysterious fragrance that confounded the noses of perhaps thousands of New Yorkers seven weeks ago returned to several spots in Manhattan Thursday.
Once again, no one knew what it was.
"Sweet," said Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the city department of environmental protection, which received a handful of calls Thursday afternoon from lower Manhattan to midtown. He added: "We keep sheets here for phone calls that we get and it's just, 'sweet, sweet, sweet.'"
Dozens of calls also came in to 311, and 911 Thursday afternoon, and by 4 p.m., the city's office of Emergency Management was once again acting as the sweet smell sleuth, coordinating the efforts of multiple agencies. "We have reports of it above 96th street," said Jarrod Bernstein, a spokesman for the office of emergency management. "Maple syrup. Same as last time."
By all accounts, the smell tsunami seemed to center in the center of Manhattan this time around. A fire department spokesman said a rash of calls came in from the West 40s; Michaels said one lone call came from Maiden Lane, near Wall Street.
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Nerve gases are clear and colorless. Some have no odor but some do have a faint sweet smell. They are extremely dangerous because they affect the nervous system. Nerve gas can enter the body through the air or on contact with the skin. They can be released using bombs, missiles, spray tanks, rockets and land mines.
U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.
Originally posted by ShadowXIX
It would be so much smarter to a use perfectly safe chemical with no smell, taste or color and then have sensors rigged up all over to detect how it spread. Using anything that would be able to be detected by humans would be rather crude and stupid.
Originally posted by ShadowXIX
You did get me thinking though Shaker perhaps it was a test by a org. that did not have the resources of say the US goverment. It could give you a general understanding IMHO all be it a crude way.
[edit on 13-12-2005 by ShadowXIX]
On Oct. 27th -- also a Thursday -- reports of the smell concentrated south of midtown, with an abundance of calls around City Hall and Chelsea. By the next morning, the smell had shifted to entice olfactory senses in Astoria, Brooklyn and Staten Island. Officials deemed it harmless, if mysterious.
Thursday was a windy day, increasing the possibility that the smell was more widely dispersed, officials said.