[ WP ] The Chernobyl disaster was all a conspiracy and there was actually no radioactive meltdown . Something much worse happened there , and you 're the conspiracy theorist who just figured it out..

The readings do n't lie. Zero radiation at the Elephant's Foot. I risked my life for this, that sweet moment of satisfaction: `` I knew it!'' But the bitterness set in just after I turned the Geiger counter off. Standing there, hunched over the rusted railing in complete darkness, with only the ghostly sounds of dilapidated metal groaning and escaping gasses gently hissing from cracked pipes. I should n't have turn all the lights off. This area is a death trap, even without radiation poisoning being a factor. I stood there and thought back to why I came here. 
 
 A bit of history: I'm an urban explorer. My interest in the supernatural actually led me on this path. After selling my startup, I packed it in and went on the road. I was fat could barely hoist myself onto a meter-tell ledge. But I loved watching those videos of people squeezing into ruins of modern society. I enjoyed watching them psyche themselves out thinking someone was following them. I loved the faked videos of creatures darting about in catacombs under Paris. It just all made sense to me. Yeah, the stuff on YouTube was all bullshit, but what about that one time it was n't? I had an opportunity that few people will ever get. I became a vagabond millionaire. I literally cashed out my shares and disappeared. I began walking, then jogging, then running, then sprinting. I shed my weight and my reservations about being a member of society. I set out for adventure. Real adventure. Not one-off rock climbing or thrill seeking. I started to explore the world that everyone forgets, or, as I stood in the sarcophagus of Chernobyl, everyone wants everyone else to forget. 
 
 But I digress. I had played the STALKER series of games and I had read everything unclassified about Chernobyl. It seemed to be an explorer's dream. Danger from all angles. Danger from the law, from the environment, from the corium that would kill with just moments of exposure, even more than 30 years later. I had been to some forbidden places and seen some strange things, but this was my magnum opus. Unfortunately, no one but myself knew of my adventure thus far. My camera was lost to the uncaring wilderness and my `` documentary'' was a wash. This setback was not nearly as glorious as one might imagine. I tripped and dropped it into a drainage grate. In fact, up until walking into the NPP, nothing really got in my way except for myself. 
 
 I was definitely a trespasser, though. I chose not to get sanctioned access to any part of the exclusion zone. I simply walked into it. I hopped over a fence and Bob's your uncle! Security is lax in the outer areas and for most of the way there, I'd only see an occasional helicopter or patrolling vehicle, none of which were particularly imposing. I just ducked down and tossed my ghillie cape over myself. I never even got a second look. I literally just walked up to the NPP, surprised that a sniper round did n't take my head off when probing the outskirts of the reactor buildings for unlocked or unbarred entrances. I found a couple but I knew my destination. I chose to worm my way into the tunnel that was dug underneath the sarcophagus. To my surprise, the Geiger counter actually dropped off near the tunnel. It should have been rising sharply as I looked for a way into it. 
 
 At this point, you're thinking that I have a death wish. It could better be described as ambivalence. I was banking on the documentation leaked into the deep web a few months ago. It was an eyewitness account of an officer who had been in charge of `` seeding.'' Seeding? His job was to orchestrate multiple airborne drops of chemicals from barrels onto the grounds on and around the Chernobyl station to `` slow the rate of fire spread.'' Unconventional, yes, but the time he reported executing these orders was earlier than the reported times of the first signs of meltdown or explosion. Only after their `` fire controlling'' efforts did the top blow off of the NPP. So essentially, groups of helicopters were dumping something over the entire area before the meltdown occurred. They were out there the night before the power plant even began its ill-fated tests. 
 
 For most, this is the end of their research. A chuckle of disbelief and moving on to the next article. I did n't stop there and I planned and executed a trip to the former USSR. Amazingly, I found that a number of small villages were evacuated the day before. As if the government already knew the meltdown was going to occur. Indeed, they were told that there was an incident at the NPP and that they needed to flee to safety before they lost their window of opportunity. Note that no one who shared this was under the age of 75 or 80. None knew the miracle of the Internet and none even owned a telephone. This was enough for me. It was my chance to find the truth. I set out that day to the NPP hell-bent on discovering that truth. 
 
 So I stood there, Geiger counter off and silent, contemplating my next move and the implications of this all. There was no meltdown. There were fires, fires hot enough to melt metal. There had been radiation, which I can only attribute to the `` fire control'' helicopters sprinkling dust over the site. It made enough sense to be plausible and the Geiger counter did n't lie. But the cost in human life! The disaster even helped bring down the Soviet Union. This hoax was universally destructive to the government that set it up, if it was even the government set it up. If this had been staged, what was it staged to cover up? As if in answer, I turned my headlamp on and peered around the room. Sure enough, among the detritus, a hatch. A newer, shiny hatch, with a thin layer of dust over it. It was disused, but it was far newer than the building around it. So I stood there, in the most environmentally restrictive man-made place on Earth, staring down a Lost-style hatch, leading to something that the most elaborate hoax in history had been orchestrated to hide. 
 
 What did I do? You bet I opened it. I wished I had n't. I wished that the Elephant's Foot had irradiated me to senility and I had died there in that desolate mess of concrete and steel re-bar. That would have been infinitely preferable. I wish now that that little room had become my sarcophagus as well.
