The Tungsten Bar Satirical Story People Believed

Back around 2009, a guy by the name of Rob Kirby wrote a story about how all the gold in Fort Knox was stolen. It was a whopper of a story, with a few big giant holes. But just about everybody seemed to believe it, with nobody seeming to question it.

So, we wrote an article at Kitco (which quickly got moved to the 'members only' section, and then later sent to the bit bucket), with a satirical piece like his. Only it was a lot more absurd (with us supposedly getting a recording of the girls calling "Lunch Time, Boys!" -- which distracted guards that were hungry due to the baloney cartel). Crazy. But the first few responses were people who believed it (until they read that it was fake).

For propserity, here it is:

The REAL TRUTH about Tungsten Bars in Fort Knox

Hi All,

Mr. Kirby recently told a whopper of a tale about how all the gold in Fort Knox was stolen in the 1990s. In
reality, NO GOLD WAS STOLEN! Here I prove it with plenty of alleged evidence.

When I read his story, I immediately wondered why there would be 1.3-1.5 million 400 ounce bars of tungsten
shaped like gold bars sitting in Eastern Europe. And the logistics seemed impossible. And getting into and
out of Fort Knox seemed impossible, too. So I researched, did more research, and even more.

Amazingly, it turns out that Mr. Kirby's tale is almost COMPLETELY TRUE! He just didn't get a couple key
details from before and after the mission.

President Clinton did indeed plan this, and went through with it with some help from President Bush. The
key missing detail after the mission, though, was that when all the gold from Fort Knox was brought to an
undisclosed location, it was discovered that it was not real! All the bars, too, were made of tungsten!

President Clinton thought that he came up with this amazing plan all on his own. However, it turns out when
he was younger, he stumbled across a top-secret paper written by President Kennedy in early 1963, shortly
after the Cuban Missle Crisis. Kennedy outlined the details of how he collaborated with the Tungsten Cabal
(located in Eastern Europe, which was happy to get massive amounts of tungsten off the market for many
years, to keep the POT (price of tungsten) up) to move all the gold out of Fort Knox to a safer location,
on January 14 or January 16, 1963. The details stuck in President Clinton's subconscious, but he forgot
all about having read it.

This explains why there were 1.3-1.5 million tungsten bars lying around in Eastern Europe, and why they
were shaped exactly like 400-ounce gold bars. And, it confirms beyond any doubt that logistically it could
be pulled off (since it was already done in 1963).

The key difference in the missions is that in 1963, the soldiers guarding the Bullion Depository were
tricked into leaving by playing loud recordings of air raid sirens (remember, this was in the height of
the cold war). They would immediately run for cover for a few hours to a day, during which time the gold
was replaced with tungsten. When the soldiers returned, the operators of the clandestine mission would
quickly change from pulling the real gold AWAY from the depository to pushing the gold TOWARDS the
depository, and claim that they were charged with temporarily removing gold during potential air raids
(by Executive Order), and were returning the gold. The soldiers, thankful to be alive, bought it.

In the 1990s, though, there was no concern that someone would steal the gold in Fort Knox (which we now
know was really tungsten, but the soldiers did not know). The price of gold was low, and there were no
major wars going on, and no giant Ponzi schemes in the news. So this time, the operatives played a loud
recording of 'Lunch time, Boys!' (trust me, it sounds VERY authoritative, we got a copy of the recording),
and the soldiers quickly went off to lunch for a few hours (so happy to eat, because the Baloney Cartel
kept them hungry), during which time Kennedy's tungsten bars were replaced by Clinton's tungsten bars.

Each of the people involved in both of the heists were given between 1 to 7 of the gold bars from Fort
Knox (the exact number depending on their role), with strict instructions not to sell them within 20
years. Recently, one of the members of the 2nd Clinton-era heist went to sell their bars on a major
online auction site, only to find out at that point that they were just tungsten (at which point they
refunded the money of the buyer, for fear of negative feedback). So she decided to spill the details
of the heist to Mr. Kirby (but not the details of how Clinton picked her for the mission, which she
was too embarrassed to share). Fortunately, she was the only one to know all the details of the mission,
so we now know exactly what transpired on that mission.

Apologies to anyone who is named in this story, which was completely made up (based on snippets of the
Kirby story, which this is a satire of). Copyright 2010 About.Ag, All Rights Reserved, Used With Permission.
And That's All, Folks! Oh, wait, one more thing -- Clinton lost the top-secret summary of the original
mission, so the real gold from Fort Knox is lost, so if you have a metal detector, you could become VERY
RICH!