Iran: We have defeated evil nuclear-sensing Western lizards!

Iran has gone full David Icke and accused lizards that "attract atomic waves" of spying for the West. Hassan Firouzabadi, a former chief of the Iranian general staff, told the country in a radio Q&A session that a group of pro-Palestinian campaigners had, for reasons not explained, brought lizards with them into Iran. They …

[Anonymous Coward]

was it a collared lizard?

[Anonymous Coward]

surely, if you are spying,

it would be a monitor lizard...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait until they find out

Wait unti they figure out that Ayatollah Khamenei was replaced with a Westworld-type cyborg.

[MyffyW]

Laughable, but there are buffoons in all countries.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe - a British woman held in Iran on fabricated charges - has yet to be released because of our own ham-fisted Foreign Secretary.

[Voland's right hand]

has yet to be released because of our own ham-fisted Foreign Secretary.

She stood little chance being released regardless of the QuasiMoron's performance.

What is happening in Iran at the moment is a repeat of USSR in the 1930es and countless other dictatorial regimes. If you run out of external enemies or the remaining ones become too big to try to chew on you have to invent internal enemies and/or try to stitch various "undesirables" with the "cooperating with foreign power" offence. This is exactly what Iranian judiciary which is slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun is doing at the moment.

[PNGuinn]

"...The QuasiMoron's performance" @Voland

Y'know I never knew playing a cathedral organ was within his skillset.

Anyway, I'm going to steal that sometime. It'd make a smashing job title.

Oh, wait ...

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: "...The QuasiMoron's performance" @Voland

playing a cathedral organ was within his skillset

He has a skillset?

[Anonymous Coward]

Iranically, Ike no better

you have to invent internal enemies

So if hostile agencies spend millions developing crafted attacks like Stuxnet, they definitely wouldn't have a budget for recruiting infiltrators and fifth columnists?

[choleric]

help please

Can they send their experts over? My Apache server logs are infested with geckos.

[Queeg]

Re: help please

Don't panic, they're just looking for bugs

[sisk]

Re: help please

Can they send their experts over? My Apache server logs are infested with geckos.

Could be worse. At least it's not tridents.

[Mark 85]

Re: help please

Are the geckos trying to sell you car insurance?*

*For the Brits.. the gecko is used by an American insurance company in it's ads.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are iranian generals

trained in secret encampments in Idaho?

[Christoph]

Ah, those loony foreigners, eh?

They're obviously much sillier than the wonderful USA, which merely bans entire countries.

[Stevie]

Re: Ah, those loony foreigners, eh?

Meanwhile in a room full of rich, white (well, mostly) industrialists a few thousand miles away: "All I ask for is a few newts with frickin' Geiger-counters on their heads!"

[BrownishMonstr]

Played right into their hands

They'll be quoting your article as evidence this and much more is being done to them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Played right into their hands

Aren't they supposed to be completely open about their nuclear activities anyway?

[Mark 85]

Re: Played right into their hands

Then we should laugh at them and fart in their general direction.

[BrownishMonstr]

Re: Played right into their hands

Yes they are supposed to be open with their nuclear activities. But I'm guessing there are many factions within the country, each with their own ideology and place on the political spectrum, there is—like many countries—a lot of bollockticking going on.

We may be laughing at them but few in the country would know.

[MrRimmerSIR!]

Watch out, El Reg!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-related_animal_conspiracy_theories

Vulture

In December 2012, a Sudanese newspaper reported that the Sudan government had captured a vulture in the town of Kereinek, which they said was an Israeli spy bird and was tagged in Hebrew and equipped with electronic devices. Iran's Press TV later claimed the bird was an eagle "equipped with Mossad’s tracking and other surveillance devices."

Ohad Hazofe, the avian ecologist, told Israeli news site Ynet: "This is a young vulture that was tagged, along with 100 others, in October. He has two wing bands and a German-made GPS chip." Hazofe denied that the device had any photographic capabilities. In an interview with CNN, he stated that "I'm not an intelligence expert, but what would be learned from putting a camera onto a vulture? You cannot control it. It's not a drone that you can send where you want. What would be the benefit of watching a vulture eat the insides of a dead camel?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "What would be the benefit of watching a vulture eat the insides of a dead camel?"

That's a somewhat odd remark coming from an avian ecologist, who you might think would be interested in vulture feeding behaviours. But it makes sense if coming from an intelligence expert! :-)

[Kane]

Re: Watch out, El Reg!

"What would be the benefit of watching a vulture eat the insides of a dead camel?"

And I thought they smelled bad on the outside!

Mine's the one made from Tauntaun skin.

[PNGuinn]

Re: "I'm not an intelligence expert"

"I'm not an intelligence expert, but what would be learned from putting a camera onto a vulture?"

Probably an awful lot round here.

OTOH, whether you'd want to ....

[Lars]

Re: Watch out, El Reg!

"What would be the benefit of watching a vulture eat the insides of a dead camel?".

Ten million views on YouTube and perhaps, if lucky, a link in a tweet by some daft person.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Watch out, El Reg!

>What would be the benefit of watching a vulture eat the insides of a dead camel?

I'm sure there's a market for that sort of thing somewhere on the Internet.

[MiguelC]

"But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

They would say that, wouldn't they?

[TheOldGuy]

Re: "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

Ah yes, the old 'innocent tourist' ploy.......

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

So are we saying it's best not to pretend to be tourists when spying? "Just passing through" is more plausible.

[Chris G]

Re: "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

They had actual fishing rods and fish.

Problem was the fish were still in their tins.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

If they were salmon fishing in the Yemen it might have been believable.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

@TheOldGuy Re: "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

<Inspector Clouseau voice>Ah yes, the old 'innocent tourist' ploy.......</Inspector Clouseau voice>

Must dig out one of those old Pink Panther films again

[Jeffrey Nonken]

Re: @TheOldGuy "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

I see your Inspector Clouseau and raise you an Agent 86.

<Don Adams voice> Ah, yes! The old "innocent tourists" trick!

[Alistair]

Re: @TheOldGuy "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

I see your Inspector Clouseau and raise you an Agent 86.

I say we put Inspector Clouseau, Agent 86, and Columbo in one movie. Hell, we have the technology, and *someone* out there has $6,000,000 for the project........

[404]

Re: @TheOldGuy "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

Lego Batman could handle it... Awesome pecks, nine abs, and never misses leg day... pew pew pew!

[Robert Moore]

Re: @TheOldGuy "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

<Don Adams voice> Ah, yes! The old "innocent tourists" trick!

Missed it by that much...

Mine is the one with a shoephone manual in the pocket.

[TheRealRoland]

Re: @TheOldGuy "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

I was recently 'membered about Louis de Funès. Man, that was a trip down memory lane.

[Alistair]

Re: @TheOldGuy "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

Must dig out one of those old Pink Panther films again

Nope:

Must dig out all of those old Pink Panther films again, but definitely not the newest one.

[Nick Kew]

Translation?

While it seems entirely likely that Iran has its share of nutters, is it not possible that translation issues might offer an alternative explanation in this instance?

[MrRimmerSIR!]

Re: Translation?

That's very naively sweet of you. You'd be surprised how many nutters there are in power - when you remove the democratic filter, all sorts of crazy get into power.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Translation?

when you remove the democratic filter, all sorts of crazy get into power.

Looks like that filter hasn't been working too well in much of the Western world of late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chameleons ?

Like the meme

There's no way of knowing how many chameleons are in the room right now

[Number6]

Re: Chameleons ?

I've heard that there's a chamelephant in the room but I can't see it and people are reluctant to talk about it.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Chameleons ?

I've heard that there's a chamelephant in the room

Well - you know how to detect it - just put out some butter and wait for the footprints to appear.

Or introduce some mice. I'd offer you some but they appear to be mostly disassembled.

[Stevie]

Bah!

So is this general saying that there are nuclear materials or manufacturing plants that *weren't* disclosed to the monitoring, er, monitors?

Because a certain orange gentleman is eager for such news. Positively itching to get a piece of news like that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bah!

"Because a certain orange gentleman is eager for such news."

Cheddar Man?

[Chemical Bob]

Re: Bah!

Captain Orangutan

[Will Godfrey]

Re: Bah!

The librarian {thanks Terry}

[foo_bar_baz]

Full Stalin

Pro-Palestinian campaigners were deemed to be Israeli spies and presumably sent to the gulag. A bit like idealists who travelled to the USSR only to end up in Siberia due to excessive paranoia.

[John Sanders]

I think...

Psyops much...

[Cynic_999]

I suppose ...

There are animals that can detect infra-red (snakes), ultra-violet (bees), ultrasonic (bats), infrasonic (snakes again), low-level electric fields (sharks), minute changes in gravity (oysters), magnetic fields (pigeons) etc. It is quite within the realms of possibility that there are animals that can detect radiation, so the concept itself is not ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I suppose ...

Apparently the red ghost shrimp can detect beta particles and X-rays.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: I suppose ...

there are animals that can detect radiation

Like us you mean? After all, visible light is just friendly[1] radiation..

[1] Unless ginger or suffering a migraine

[John_D]

Re: @TheOldGuy "But when we arrested them, they said they had come for fishing and were tourists."

"I say we put Inspector Clouseau, Agent 86, and Columbo in one movie."

2 out of 3 aint bad - Murder By Death....epic movie ;o)

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard crazier things

Can they not just kill the lizards by staring at them or is that just goats?

[Florida1920]

Jim Morrison Lives!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0Qtgd9T7kg

The one with the gecko in the pocket.

[Twanky]

Yobba Rays On!