Small World Department: Image of JWR’s Ferret Scout Car Used for Gray Propaganda

As editor of SurvivalBlog I’ve had a number of “Small World Department” coincidences occur in the past six years. Most of these have been chance meetings with blog readers and mutual acquaintances, everywhere from Reno, Nevada to as far away as Switzerland. But the latest coincidence is absolutely astounding: As you may already be aware, the Russian FSB produces some gray propaganda under the pen name “Sorcha Faal.” Their department’s most recent bit of hyperbolic dezinformatsaya was in an article over at the fairly wacky “What Does It Mean?” web site. (The web site uses the dotted quad address: 207.58.165.85 — which ironically is in McLean, Virginia!) There, they recently posted an article titled: “Obama Issues Secret Order For Military Raids On Civilians”. It included an un-captioned photo showing some menacing-looking storm troopers in all black uniforms, sitting on the front of a military vehicle. Well, guess what: That was MY military vehicle — a Ferret Mark 4 Scout Car that I bought in the late 1990s, as part of my Y2K preps. In late 2002, I sold that vehicle, shortly before I moved back to the boonies. The pictured “storm troopers” were in fact some friends and acquaintances that were journeymen-level science fiction convention costumers and prop builders. In the summer of 2002, they asked me for permission to pose in their Aliens Colonial Space Marines costumes and also their black Jin-Roh Panzer Cops costumes, and I gladly consented. The photos were shot in the side yard of my Fremont, California home. The photo shoot was all great fun and the group thought that my Ferret made a great backdrop for their sci-fi fan photos. Little did I know that one of those digital images would be slurped up from the Internet nine years later to be used for Russian gray propaganda. (FYI, Jin-Roh was a Japanese anime “alternate history” series, with the premise that the Axis powers won WWII and that Germany then conquered Japan. Hence, they wore German “coal scuttle” helmets.)

What a small world we live in! All this time I thought that I was a disharmonious reactionary Capitalist Rotor. But now it appears that I’ve unwittingly been used as a post-Soviet Rotor.

Special note to the “Sorcha” sisters: “Stoi, durakam. Ya znayu sekreti!