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MythBusters: Hoffa

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This episode saw the return of some old tricks (dead pigs and remote controls). It wasn't one of their best episodes, though stinky pigs and remote control cars always make good TV :).

The main myth for this episode was the story of Hoffa's body being buried near the ten-yard line of Giants Stadium. Part I of this mythbusting brought back the use of dead pig corpses, last seen uses to bring "dead body scent" to a Corvette (no, these weren't the same corpses :) ). They buried the pigs under the sidewalk of the M5i building, slowly discovering that wet concrete that dries on top of rotting corpses acquires the smell of dead pig, especially when the gases from the rotting pigs percolates up through the wet concrete. All of this was to show that their equipment could detect a buried body beneath concreate, and also show that a body encased in concrete creates a pocket around it from the gases.

In the second part of the mythbusting, they visited Giants stadium, chatted briefly with Jim Fassel, and then scanned the various parts of the field (end zones, fifty-yard line, ten-yard line) and stadium seats of the stadium. The scan showed nothing detectable buried in the areas rumored to contain Hoffa's body.

Read on for details on the taxicab/jet engine myth and the lethal daddylongleg myth.

The secondary myth for this episode was the 'myth' that a taxicab driving behind an airplane was flipped over by the force of the jet engines. Jamie demonstrated his remote control hacking skills for the second time (last seen used to convert a police car to do remote control doughnuts) and converted a three-year-old Dodge Intrepid to wireless. We got to see more of the remote control conversion in this episode than in the police car episode. The hack turned out to be pretty worthless, though, as the jet engines hardly shook the car as it drove past, nor were the engines able to flip the car when it was lined up perpendicular. The best they did was tear a bunch of stuff off, and push the car back a bit.

The filler myth for this episode was the myth that daddylonglegs can deliver lethal bites to humans. Predicatably, this myth was busted, though they did show Adam getting nervous about a bunch of daddylonglegs crawling over his arm. Eventually he got bit, which cause a tiny burn that went away immediately.

More MythBusters episode summaries