For many blinkered doom mongers, CERN scientists are on the verge of unleashing Earth-devouring black holes as they prepare to fire up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator in an effort to re-create the universe’s first moments of existence.
Big bang... duly avoided. Image: CERN.
However, while CERN insists such global obliteration is an impossibility, recent arrests connected to the prominent research facility have suggested a different kind of terror could be looming over the already controversial collider.
According to UK broadsheet The Independent, an unnamed 32-year-old nuclear physicist working on the LHC project was arrested late last week by anti-terrorist police after a year of surveillance revealed links to an Afghan network of terrorist cells spread throughout Europe.
The physicist, who is believed to be of Algerian origin, was arrested on terrorist charges along with his brother – although the brother played no role within the CERN facility, which is situated on the border between France and Switzerland. A selection of the man’s computer hardware was also confiscated.
Eager to suppress any knee-jerk reaction regarding the so-called ‘Big Bang’ experiment, which is due to go back online this coming November following lengthy repairs, authorities at CERN have said the scientist was not found to be threatening the LHC directly, but rather was colluding with terrorists to select other viable targets.
Speaking with French publication Le Figaro, a spokesman for the French Ministry of the Interior explained that the investigation “showed without doubt that there were targets in France and elsewhere and indicated that we have perhaps avoided the worst.”
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