A sudden explosion in Gaithersburg, Maryland has revealed that a federal facility was running a shady side business that would put even the late and great Heisenberg to shame.
A secluded lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) exploded Saturday, injuring a security guard and throwing a protective shield 24 feet. The NIST lab is reportedly used by the Department of Commerce to conduct experiments, but police found pseudoephedrine, drain cleaner and an honest to goodness meth recipe at the scene. Clearly, someone was cooking up illegal methamphetamines on government property.
The source of the blast is still unknown. The injured officer did have burn wounds consistent with cooking a bad batch of meth, but no arrests have yet been made. Federal investigators are looking into incident with keen interest, and even Congress is perplexed by the presence of a meth lab in a federal laboratory.
“The fact that this explosion took place at a taxpayer-funded NIST facility, potentially endangering NIST employees, is of great concern,” says Lamar S. Smith, a congressmen from Texas. “I am troubled by the allegations that such dangerous and illicit activity went undetected at a federal research facility.”