How fun! Once, after climbing around in a dusty old church attic like this, I had to head straight to the airport for a flight. Barely made it on because something in the dust kept flagging as dangerous. They were using a test strip on my backpack and clothing and analyzing it in some kind of machine. Stressful as I was already pressed for time! Finally got a clean test and they let me through.
If this was in the US, it's all security theater. Basically if you get flagged, they swab everything in your bag to find what's getting flagged, and if it's legitimate they pass you through, or they keep swabbing you if its just your hands/arms because they also inspect your bag. It's kind of dumb, but also kind of makes sense.
For extra fun times, baby wipes / wet wipes get flagged as explosives in the US when they use the sniffer devices.
The system is also likely designed to have false positives so they can validate that the security people are doing their job. This is more obvious on the x-ray machines but resembles the "can you spot the phishing email" emails that often get sent out in corporate environments to detect people who need additional security education.
grahamburger · · focus · HN ↗
ndr · · focus · HN ↗
tristor · · focus · HN ↗
For extra fun times, baby wipes / wet wipes get flagged as explosives in the US when they use the sniffer devices.
donalhunt · · focus · HN ↗