I think the rain here is radioactive!!!

I thought I'd try and see if the rain is radioactive. The method is to swipe a paper towel across one area of my vehicle where rain has collected. Using my Inspector USB geiger counter, I count the total CPM for 10 minutes. I repeat with a dry paper towel to get the background count. Then I divide the total count by 10 to get the average counts per minute. Here's what I found:

Jan 7 2013 - evening: 39 CPM
Jan 8 2013 - morning: 70 CPM
- lunch: 91 CPM

Background has been in the range 30-35 CPM. In other words, the most recent reading shows 3x the level of radiation.

I conclude that the rainwater is irradiated. I live in Vancouver, BC on the west coast of Canada. Downwind of Fukushima where the jet stream is right now.

@ebayfield - Thank you! Nice geiger counter, I own the InspectorEXP. For others that may not be familiar with the Inspector, am I correct in saying that the display in your picture is showing a total timed count of 913 counts. I assume it was a 10 minute count since you listed 91 CPM in your post above so that was 913 total counts divided by 10 minutes which gives an average of 91 CPM. Knowing this it is fair to say that you had counts higher than 91 CPM.

Please watch this guy, he actually does some gamma spectroscopy on his rain and finds that this is likely Radon washout. Many times! There are a lot of rain-related videos that have been being put online for years now, and to be honest I'm getting pretty tired of people jumping to conclusions about where it's from and what is in it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3pJ0aQMYzU

I like this guy's channel because he actually does further investigation into the isotopes present, shows the whole process to do so and equipment used, as well as the underlying physics.

Fukushima is not the only source of radiation. There is an entire multi-billion year history of natural isotopes and their decay products all around us, as well as countless releases from power plants, research and waste processing facilities, weapons testing, and last but not least catastrophic accidents.

Please understand that it's great to gather scientific data, but rushing to post it and jumping to conclusions doesn't really do us any good.

Here's an easy experiment to eliminate Radon washout that relies on Radon's relatively short half-life:
Seal your sample in a container for a week, then test it again. Test it multiple times throughout the week if you like.

If it's Radon, the levels of the sample will slowly fall to background over that time as the element and it's daughters decay.

Great suggestion. No, I'm not jumping to conclusions that it's Fukushima; just irradiated. That could be radon washout; being on the Pacific coast, I wouldn't expect radon to be as much of a factor as the eastern seaboard.

Good theory though. I'll re-check in about 5 days to watch for radon decay. BTW: that guy on YouTube is a genius. And yes, radon is hazardous to health also...so I'm staying out of the rain. I've tested many rain samples here and it's the first to go over 40CPM; so very strange. Would love to find someone who can do some better testing on the sample.

Radon is absolutely dangerous, and when I started asking my friends and co-workers what they did about it, a lot of them just shrugged and said they didn't care. Don't exactly know what to do about that.

The EPA here has a map by state of what Radon levels were found in each county. Does Canada have anything similar? I'm still not certain how it gets distributed, from its origin to getting in rainwater.

Dear ebayfield
Your right our neighbors at our kids home in downtown Victoria ,
Her hair was falling out in clumps,
her doctors didn't know why. .duh
We told her to start taking potassium iodide, and later she told us that it has been helping.
The air current hits the island pretty hard.
I know last time we were there my husband and I where feeling tired and suffered from headaches far more than usual.
That was cool that you tested the rain!
I think the government has been seeding the clouds for rain to ground Radiation clouds. When we were there last time, we saw so many Chem trails ! Before Japans
Meltdown we rarely saw any !

Did you have a chance to re-test your sample? Just curious. I want to do the same but it's been an incredibly dry year for California.

That sample got tossed out with the trash. So I'm gonna have to re-do it with another sample. Not been able to get one that hot. But is was 20% above background. Will share results in the next few days to see what decay I found.

Well, I think high levels of radioactive rain-out, even if it is just radon progeny, are probably cause for concern, if they are 'excessive'. Does human activity, including mining and use of depleted uranium, contribute to elevated levels of radon in the atmosphere? I read somewhere (I think) that breaking up mined rock can release previously trapped radon by a factor of 10,000 times.



No, there is something that requires further consideration with the simple approach you propose. Radon is a water-soluble gas. We then would expect for the gas to dissipate as the rain-swipe towel drys out; so how would one distinguish this evaporative dissipation away from the towel (where it was previously concentrated in the rain water) from half-life decay?

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Ephesians 3:10

I agree and it is up to each of us to consider what we feel is 'excessive' because the so called experts most of the time seem to be in bed with the government/power companies.

Too many try to say it is just radon, but as we learn more about their testing procedures and what a "detectable level" really means, we understand that no detectable level" does not mean nothing was found!

Furthermore, when the EPA said that the air quality was safe for rescue workers at the site of 9/11. So watch this short 44 second video and remember when the EPA or others tell you don't worry, these are just safe levels... this is your health, not theirs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxdttHY59b4

I hear her saying here that she said what she did in order to get the city (people) back on it's feet and not let the bad guys win. I believe during a meltdown here in the U.S. they will do the same, this included fallout from Fukushima and the plume washing up on the West Coast along with what radiation they know to be in our food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijtLUisQKpA