Posted 1/5/2009

SPIES IN YOUR HOUSE

At 10:30 last Saturday morning, Sarah Bluborne received a call from a neighbor visiting Dubai. The neighbor wanted to know if her house was all right. Later they chatted about the kids.

During the call, Sarah referred to her two-year-old as "a holy terror."

Her call quickly lit up the lights on the National Security Agency in Maryland. Within a week, a security alert had gone out to Homeland Security, the CIA, the FBI and a whole host of lesser agencies.

One month later, Sarah began suffering some weird home invasions.

One day, little Debbie ran into the kitchen screaming, "There's a bee in our family room!"

Sarah picked up a broom and ran into the family room, where she saw an odd-looking bee buzzing about. Swinging her broom mightily, Sarah got the bee to buzz off (through a partially open window). But the bee would make several appearances in the days that followed.

The next evening, Sarah's husband started swatting at something that looked like a large mosquito. After running, swatting and missing for ten minutes, he finally got the mosquito to leave him alone; it flew upstairs and perched on a beam. The mosquito would periodically buzz around Sarah and her family during the next two weeks.

A week later, a hummingbird deserted the garden and somehow made its way into the house. It, too, eluded the frantic chase that followed. Like the bumblebee, the hummingbird would evade capture by perching on an overhead beam.

Sarah's family was really puzzled about these strange home invasions. Especially the mechanical-like appearances of the mosquito, the bee and the bird.

Little did they know that all three invasions had been ordered by Washington.

The humming bird was from the FBI, which has always lagged at technology. Its mechanical hummingbird is known as a "micro aerial vehicle" (MAV), which was designed for the purpose of spying.

The bumblebee was developed by the National Security Agency as its entry into the MAV world of spying. The MAV bee is much smaller than the hummingbird and therefore less noticeable.

The mosquito was created for the CIA, whose OPS division often chooses the bloodiest of all alternatives in problem-solving. Their term for spilling blood is "wet work," which fits right in with the bloodsucking habits of the female mosquito.

Actually, this is a story – a fictionalized take on where the Pentagon is going these days. Prototypes of MAV insects and birds have been developed and are undergoing testing.

Things are so far along that a private firm is offering a MAV version of a butterfly for sale to the public. It can fly around the house or yard for seven minutes before its battery needs a five-minute recharge.

If you want to keep spying mosquitos and bees out of your house in the future, you will want to avoid certain phrases when on the phone.

Avoid calling your two-year-old "a holy terror."

When telling your wife about a business failure, don't say "I bombed out."

History buffs should refrain from calling the B-17 "a bomber."

You will want to avoid the kinds of phrases that could bring a spying insect into the house.

I understand that one agency is even working on a cockroach.

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