ues to the whereabouts of the fuel. Finally, one cold December day in 1986, scientists came across a large highly radioactive mass approximately 2 meters across in size. Because of its unique shape they titled it the Elephants Foot. Their only dilemma was, what the heck is it? This problem probably would have been easy to solve if the Elephants foot wasnt emitting 10,000 Rankins of radiation per hour. One of the scientists came up with the idea to shoot the Elephants Foot to obtain samples. Although they didnt want to wreck the beauty of the Elephants Foot they decided it was a good idea (how pretty could solidified fuel be anyway?) Due to the extreme bureaucracy of Russias government, finding a gun was much harder then one would assume. They first went to the army, only to be sent to the police, who sent them to the KGB, who sent them back to the police. They finally got a police man to come and shoot 30 rounds at the foot. They found that the Elephants Foot was composed of many layers and was made up of silicon dioxide mixed with fuel that had dripped from the reactors base. Now that they had more of an idea about what they were looking for, they decided the next place to look was the core. It took them half a year to break through, and when they did they were shocked to learn it was completely empty. This was good news safety wise, but that still left everyone scratching their heads dumbfounded. After the fuel shock, they decided to search the rooms under the reactor that were generating a lot of heat. They pooled all their money together and were able to buy a toy truck for 15 rubles (roughly $.52 at todays exchange rate). Much to their dismay, the toy truck didnt prove to be a wise investment, but it did detect a large mass that got them excited. They rigged up a camera dolly to go in, it found a lot of destruction, but no fuel. They had to go in themselves.This time they were going directly under the reactor. Th...
