A Mysterious, Dead, Radioactive Person
And so when the body arrived at the morgue for the autopsy, nobody was expecting it to set off the newly installed radiation detectors. Firemen trained in the handling of hazardous materials were called to the scene, dressed in full protective gear in order to assess the problem and the level of contamination.
A few hours later, officials from the medical examiner's office dismissed any concerns, and with that, dismissed the story, claiming that the dead man had apparently undergone some sort of recent medical treatment or diagnostic test that involved radiation. The story appeared on 1010 WINS, and a few other news outlets that day, and yielded a brief mention in Monday's New York Times. Then it was gone.
But it was just a little too neat. I wasn't satisfied. There were simply too many questions left unanswered.
I contacted a source close to the case who wishes to remain anonymous, and was informed with some regret that all he could tell me was what he had heard from the chief medical examiner?which was, essentially, what everyone else had heard. He had also heard rumors that the dead man had some sort of radioactive implant used in the treatment of colon cancer, but he put no stock in that, choosing to accept what the M.E. had reported.
Even the Times, regardless how quickly they had dropped the story, seemed a tad suspicious, as expressed in the final line of the article: "Without knowing the man's identity, no one could say...how a man who appeared to have been homeless might have received such a sophisticated test."
How, indeed! Have New York's homeless formed a union and arranged a benefits package for themselves? It seems unlikely. Or are there medical institutions in town that are handing out free radiation treatments for the destitute and cancer-ridden, purely out of the goodness of their hearts? That seems doubly unlikely.
"Where do the homeless go?" one prominent local attorney wondered, speaking of the regular citywide sweeps. "We don't know. And are they now slowly returning to the streets of Manhattan... radioactive?"
Perhaps the presumed "test" or "treatment" undergone by the unidentified dead man wasn't a "treatment" at all, but an experiment. The government has come clean on the fact that they have run dangerous medical experiments on prison inmates. After catching so much flak for that, have they now turned their efforts to performing their insidious tests on America's homeless population? It is a population almost no one would miss?until one of them escaped. Think about it?why would the city morgue feel compelled to install a radiation detector? According to a spokesperson quoted in the Times article, it was because some of the waste being removed from the building during recent renovations was determined to be radioactive.
Yes, well, I suppose that's one possibility. Another is that they were expecting a slew of radioactive bodies to be arriving in the near future.
These all seem, to me at least, perfectly reasonable explanations for why a radioactive dead homeless guy was found on Manhattan's east side on a warm summer morning. But there's another possibility, one I never heard mentioned anywhere. Perhaps it was just too shocking to consider?or, perhaps, the officials in charge knew much more than they dared let on, for fear of the effect it would have on the public: this is how every single Japanese monster movie ever made begins.
The evidence is there on film, videotape and now, in some cases, DVD. Not only Godzilla, but Rodan, Mothra, Gamera, King Ghidorah, Yog, H-Man and a dozen more as well?all spawned, in whole or in part, by radiation?and their appearances in major metropolitan centers all preordained by the discovery of mysterious, dead radioactive people.
No wonder the story was dropped so quickly. Any day now?perhaps even before this story hits the streets?one of the above-mentioned giant monsters?perhaps even Ograh, Megalon, one of the Gargantuas?or the dreaded Monster Zero!?could be battling it out in Central Park, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
Well, you never know. The Japanese always seemed pretty surprised when it happened?and it happened there a lot.
Until that does happen, however (as I fully expect it to), the case of Radioactive Man remains a mystery, and the people who know what really happened aren't talking.
As my girlfriend put it, "It's kind of like Silkwood?except with monsters."