THE AHMED MOHAMED “CLOCK”: A HOAX

September 20, 2015
by Ken Berwitz
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Ken Berwitz


Congratulations to 14 year old ahmed mohamed (his name now will go uncapitalized).

Not for creating a clock and being victimized by his Irving Texas high school when he brought it in to show to his teachers…

…but for pulling the guts out of a 1986 model Radio Shack clock, putting them into a suspicious-looking case that could easily have housed a bomb, and bringing it into school to create exactly the furor that it caused.


“Cool clock, Ahmed.Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you tolike science. It\’s what makes America great.”

President Barack Obama,September 16, 2015

It was a Hoax.

Ahmed Mohamed\’s claims that he assembled a clock at home thathe took to school is starting to unravel.

Two investigators whohave studied the image of Mohamed\’s device provided by Irving, Texas policehave concluded that Mohamed did not make the clock. Both conclude that Mohameddisassembled a manufactured clock and installed it in a large pencil boxwithout its casing. And both say it is possible it was done to provokesuspicion or to resemble a bomb.


And from “Anthony” of artvoice.com…which comes complete with pictures that, it seems to me, prove he is correct:  

…there has indeedbeen a hoax. Ahmed Mohamed didn\’t invent his own alarm clock. He didn\’teven build a clock.

For starters, oneglance at the printed circuit board in the photo…A modern hobbyist usually wouldn\’t bebothered with the outdated design techniques. There\’s also silk screening on theboard. An “M” logo, “C-94” (probably, a part number -C might even stand for “clock”), and what looks like an American flag. More about that in a minute.Point for now being, a hobbyist wouldn\’t silk screen logos and part numbers ontheir home made creation. It\’s pretty safe to say already we’re looking at \’70stech, mass produced in a factory. (NOTE:  this is later corrected as an \’80\’s clock).

See this eBay listing,up at the time of this writing. Amhed\’s clock was invented, and built, byMicronta, a Radio Shack subsidary. Catalog number 63 756.

The shape and designis a dead give away. The large screen. The buttons on the front laid outhorizontally would have been on a separate board – a large snooze button, fourcontrol buttons, and two switches to turn the alarm on and off, and choose twobrightness levels. A second board inside would have contained the actual “brains” of the unit. The clock features a 9v battery back-up, and a switch onthe rear allows the owner to choose between 12 and 24 hour time. (Features likea battery back-up, and a 24 hour time selection seems awful superfluous for ahobby project, don\’t you think?) Oh, and about that “M” logo on the circuitboard mentioned above? Micronta.

When I first wrote about ahmed mohamed, I made a point of saying that it was wrong to associate Muslims, in general, with terrorism.  I mentioned that I knew many muslims over the years who were terrific people and we all should know better than to generalize this way.  

That still goes.  100%.

But in THIS SPECIFIC case?  It is a virtual certainty that we are looking at a hoax.  A set-up.  A kid, probably put up to it by his publicity-hound father (who has pulled stunts like this before) to create an incident.

I would say that it even fooled President Obama.  But the word “even” suggests that it is a surprise he would be fooled by something like this.  And, to tell you the truth, I\’m not surprised at all. 

In any event, unless someone shows me something very different than what I am seeing now, I chalk this up as a hoax.  A stupid, destructive hoax.

Shame on ahmed mohamed and triple shame on his father.

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