Former NASA Engineer Builds Farting Glitter Bomb to Teach Porch Pirates a Lesson

If you’re looking to exact revenge on the porch pirate who stole your Amazon package, look no further than YouTuber Mark Rober’s clever tactic. As The Verge reports, the former NASA engineer disguised a seemingly ordinary package as a “glitter bomb” and planted it on his porch. Then he sat back and waited for someone to take the bait. You can see the hilarious results in the video below.

It all started when Rober’s security cameras captured someone stealing a package from his porch, but the police told him an official investigation wouldn't be worth their time. So he decided to opt for some vigilante justice instead.

He had technical know-how on his side, having previously constructed things like a hot tub filled with liquid sand and a dart board that moves to ensure you'll always get a bullseye.

This time around, he decided to celebrate the thief’s “choice of profession” with a “cloud of glitter.” While Rober admits he could have just used a simple spring-loading mechanism for the task, also wanted to capture the thief's reaction on camera.

He spent six months working on the design and outfitted the box with motion sensors, a GPS tracker, and four cell phones with wide-angle cameras. All of this would ensure that the thief was caught on camera, no matter which angle they opened the box from.

The technology inside the box is probably worth more than your average Amazon order, so he also installed some fart spray for good measure. It continues to release five sprays of the foul-smelling stuff every 30 seconds, practically guaranteeing that any thief would throw away the package before they realized what it contained. (Spoiler alert: That's exactly what happened.) Then, using the GPS trackers, Rober could recover it and reuse the device.

Even if he didn't get his package back, it's designed to automatically upload the footage to the cloud, where Rober could watch it.

The whole package is designed to look like an Apple HomePod. And, because Rober was having fun with the little details, he slapped a fake delivery label on the box. The sender? Kevin McCallister of Home Alone fame, who inspired the project, Rober says.

He had the chance to test it out on a few unsuspecting thieves, and you can watch their hilarious reactions in the video below.

[h/t The Verge]