As a kid, I remember tearing out the pages of a serial story in "Saturday Evening Post", called The Smuggled Atomic Bomb". (Was interested in physics, science n'stuff - being of the misapprehension that Science must. be. Good. [For Us], and chemistry I Knew was fun..)

In this story, they had the diameter of the Pu ball juust about Right (I knew about 4/3 pi R\ufffd, bein a little smartass). Guess I have to see if that collection survived the n-moves since. 'Twas an entirely plausible story, eliding only the focus upon the fact of how very-much harder it is to initiate a Pu implosion than - the child's play of U235. (This detail I was then unaware of; they weren't telling us shit about the Good Stuff, in those days.)

So then, back to '03:
the only time-dependent matters I can think of have to do with the Supers, and the most-modern little artifacts (as used by the God-licensed Powers) as need some fresh Tritium.. but you can do lots with less or with slightly decayed.. and then there's all the Li6 clever things you can achieve, as an acolyte of Wholesale Death.

Suitcase bombs? All fission and not very efficiently - last I heard were ~70 TONS TNT-equiv. Doubt you can eke out a hell of a lot more, even with Ted Taylor being clever (dunno if the Russ HAD a miniaturization fetishist of Ted's er calibre). Still, it's pretty hard to schlep 140 Kpounds of TNT blocks around in the dark; after your 41st trip, someone might wonder. Surely would be handy for the depraved; and we make lots of New Depraved every day; all those families of a deceased.

So.. ever Thus; and the Fact of a presence -???- remains, as then: deliciously UnKnowable. IMhO.
Never mind your clever scintillation counters in helicopters and other such pizzazz. If one is Here: there's only One Way we'll find out - except for the comforting hope of omnipresent human stupidity or oversight.



Bon appetit. Run with the hyenas - expect a bite.