Engineer punishes package thieves with smelly 'glitter bomb' boxes that record the messy surprised when opened
A former NASA engineer gets revenge on doorstep thieves with his invention.
A former NASA engineer took matters into his own hands after he had a package stolen off of the porch of his California home in the middle of the day seven months ago.
Mark Rober attempted to get the police involved and even caught the thieves on camera, but he said authorities told him that it wasn’t "worth their time" to check into, he said in a YouTube video posted Monday.
Rober explained in the video that his “revenge bait” was an inspiration from the movie “Home Alone.” He disguised the package as an Apple HomePod Box, which would also be GPS-enabled. He would also record the theft with cellphones.
And once the thief picked up the package, a glitter bomb attached to the package would go off.
“Ultimately, when they opened the package, I wanted to celebrate their choice of profession with a cloud of glitter,” Rober said in the video clip.
He also programmed a can of “fart spray” to go off on top of the glitter, adding insult to injury.
Rober, who helped design hardware being used on the Mars Curiosity Rover, said it took six months to put the special package together.
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