Spooky

The Peripatetic Engineer has a recent post that's scary:

A recent article concerning military training in Los Angeles reminded me of an incident that happened back when I worked in Big Oil.
I was called into a meeting where I met a Special Forces major from the Joint Readiness Training Center and a Spooky Civilian. (The civilian was wearing a lapel pin replica of the Meritorious Service Medal). We exchanged business cards and they made their pitch.
This was about a year after the First Gulf War. It seems that the military had some difficulties in destroying Saddam's offshore platforms, and they wanted to train on how to do it better. They knew that the oil industry needed to remove platforms at the end of their life and offered to do the job for us at no charge. They just wanted the fun of blowing the thing up and learning how to do the same to the enemy's platforms, should it become necessary.
While their offer was indeed interesting, we explained that, not only did we have to remove the platform, we had to clear the sea floor of debris, and could not leave any scrap steel that could snag fishing nets or otherwise make a hazard. This pretty much ended the discussion.
Things continued on with a short discussion of a terrorist drill where they would perform a HAHO jump, with the intention of landing paratroopers on the platform while SEAL Team 6 infiltrated from below. It sounded like fun, but we were concerned about what a bunch of Louisiana rednecks would do if they suddenly saw armed men dropping in from the sky and climbing the platform legs.
We took a short break before we adjourned. When I came back to the meeting, I noticed that the business cards, that I had left on the table with my notebook, had disappeared. It was as if it had never happened.

Rico says that this is what happens when you talk spook business with people who don't exist...