“Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you…”

Evidently, there’s a fellow up there in Canada by the name of Troy Hurtubise.

Aw, hell…maybe it’s better to just borrow an intro from the Old Cowboy in The Big Lebowski…

“Sometimes there’s a man—I won’t say a hee-ro, ‘cause what’s a hee-ro?—but sometimes there’s a man, who…‘wal, he’s the man for his time’n place.”

Troy Hurtubise is an inventor, of sorts. Yes, he sports tattoos of eagles on his forearms and dresses somewhat dramatically, favoring clothing with an “Old West” flair like long, black riding coats or fringed buckskin jackets with cowboy boots. And certainly, in marked contrast to his closest predecessors in scientific innovation, men like Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin, Troy Hurtubise has typically been known to carry several hunting knives on his person and holds black-belts in 2 different martial arts. But primarily, he’s an inventor. Of sorts.

“The French have agreed to pay him a “substantial” amount of money for the technology if it passes rigorous tests in France….

”They couldn’t believe what they saw”

“One of them told me it was as if I’d discovered a new universe.”

Troy Hurtubise dropped-out of high school at 16, but then returned at age 22 and went on to graduate. He pursued some Natural Sciences studies at local Fleming College, but by 1997 Troy Hurtubise was “a 33-year old unemployed scrap metal dealer living with his wife and four-year-old son in North Bay, Ontario”. That’s the year he finally completed his 10-year and $110,000 dream project. That’s the year that Troy Hurtubise created the Ursus Mark VI Bearproof Suit.

No one could deny that the Ursus Mark VI Bearproof Suit would indeed withstand the attack of an enraged Grizzly. No one could prove it either, it seems…but surely, no one could deny it. It made Troy Hurtubise famous in his home town. Canada’s National Film Board produced a film about him, which proved to be its most successful documentary ever. He even appeared on the Roseanne Barr show in December of 1997, where fellow guests Penn and Teller assailed him with a baseball bat and sword while Mrs. Barr administered swift kicks to the crotch (it should perhaps be emphasized that he was wearing the suit when all this occurred…).

But alas, the destiny of the Ursus MarkVI Bearproof Suit did not lie in the direction of saving countless bear-mauled lives and limbs. Rather, destiny decreed it was to be auctioned off by a bankruptcy court in an effort to recover the $36,000 in unpaid debts Troy Hurtubise had amassed while building it.

”Troy Hurtubise has done the seemingly impossible with his newest invention and defied all known rules of physics.”

Undaunted, Troy Hurtubise had already begun work on the Mark VII model, hoping to improve on the admitted “limited-mobility” issues of the original Ursus Mark VI Bearproof Suit. As nature-buff magazine Outside reported: “Suitless and insolvent, spurned by two different species of bear, [Troy] Hurtubise remains surprisingly cheerful…he fully expects a corporate backer, probably Japanese, to front him the $500,000 he needs for the Mark VII, the ultimate Ursus suit…".

"Total top of the line," [Troy] Hurtubise says…."I gotta go to NASA for the materials."

At this point it would be wrong to assume that fame and respect would completely elude Troy Hurtubise. He busied himself launching his own company, TroySports, Inc., in hopes of creating and marketing hockey protection equipment based on the Ursus MarkVI design essentials. Called “Air Johns”, he and a silent partner proceeded to pitch them to the National Hockey League, as well as The Walt Disney Co. (owner of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks). And in 1998 he would received the (in)famous Ig Nobel Prize award from Harvard University, at which ceremony he was asked to serve as keynote speaker. The Ig Nobel Prize is intended to honor individuals those rarified individuals whose achievements “cannot or should not be reproduced”.

But one Invention does not an Inventor make. While close-proximity bear research would always be Troy Hurtubise’ guiding star, the road was a long one indeed. Thus he was able to occasionally find time in his underemployed schedule to squeeze out other important contributions to the human race.

For instance, an almost completely fire-proof paste-like substance called (interestingly enough) Fire Paste—a thin coating of which can dissipate temperatures as high as 2000-degrees almost instantly, and which is biodegradable and made solely from dirt-cheap, common household ingredients. Troy Hurtubise worked on it for 17 years before he perfected it. “It dissipates heat at an exponential rate”, he says. “It’s beyond belief, and I have no idea why it does, all I know is that it does.” Fire Paste earned him a report on the Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet. “I could coat the belly of the NASA space shuttle with fire paste for $25,000 (US), instead of the $60 million it costs for them to put tiles on it,” Troy Hurtubise said.

Then there’s his lightweight, inexpensive, blast-proof, high-caliber-bullet-proof “Crazy Horse” Light Infantry Military Blast Cushions (viewed in action on video here). Experienced soldiers have judged them an ideal solution for armoring Humvees and other light-infantry vehicles. Troy Hurtubise created them just last year in an effort to help alleviate the widely-reported lack of vehicle armor in Iraq.

And of course there's the mysterious substance for which he coined the name “Hurtsy”—described as “a substance Hurtubise made from quail feathers, polymers and resins”. "This will stop a .308 with 180 grains at 50 feet," Hurtubise said. "Stop it cold. We can stop a .300 Winchester Magnum at 50 feet. Hurtsy is 50-times, pound-for-pound stronger than steel and 85 per cent lighter." It was (rather strangely) demonstrated to bind “four cotton makeup pads together under the strain of holding up a suspended 1,350-kilogram Volvo.” Hurtsy featured in a segment of the Ripley’s Believe it or Not television program in August of 2000.

And that’s when, as Troy Hurtubise claims he was visited by Marwan Al-Shehhi, whom American authorities purport would later fly United Airlines Flight 175 into one of the World Trade Center towers Sept. 11.

Presenting himself as an American businessman, Troy Hurtubise lost no time demonstrating his new “Superman Suit” to "Al-Shehhi". “Made from Hurtsy, Kevlar weave, cotton and magnetic particles…the components are layered and wired, and stiffened to impenetrability when attached to a nine-volt battery.” “Al-Shehhi” was so impressed by the ad hoc demonstration that he handed over $5,000 right there as downpayment for having a prototype vest made from Superman Suit material. He promised Troy Hurtubise $200,000 if the demo stood up to testing. But “Al-Shehhi” evidently reconsidered the terms of this offer, and several days later the vest was stolen from his garage—the sole item taken in what Troy Hurtubise described as “a clean job”.

For a recognized visionary genius like Troy Hurtubise, this was only the warm-up act for other encounters which the Fates, and the Power Brokers of the world, had in store for him.

Gary Dryfoos, a…long-time instructor at MIT, proclaimed there's a Nobel Prize for Hurtubise if the Angel Light really performs as described.

"There are laws of physics waiting to be written for what he's talking about," Dryfoos said.

Public clamor for an Ursus Mark VII Bearproof Suit proved a too weighty a mantle to ignore any longer, and Troy Hurtubise threw himself fanatically to its completion.

The creative energies now animating Troy Hurtubise set him on a grueling schedule. Working as much as 21-hours a day, he lost 10 pounds, eating only when his devoted wife forced him to do so. “'There were times I was so tired I'd take a bath and fall asleep in the tub for two hours and wake up in cold water' Hurtubise said, lighting a cigarette with his blowtorch.” He ruined 18 pairs of pliers, and the incessant pounding of metal began to cripple his hands. “They're curled up in the morning and I have to soak them in hot water for an hour before they uncurl." And with all these late hours of rigorous physical exertion, serious medical injuries were practically unavoidable. "’I've never been hurt inside any of my suits, but I've certainly spilled a lot of blood building this one,' he said, showing his scarred knuckles and fingers."

Thus we can only marvel that, against this backdrop of super-human inspiration to complete the world’s first bear-proof suit, Troy Hurtubise still found time to solve our impending global crisis of Peak Oil…or at the very least to hold it off for a few more decades.

Fire Suppressant Agent 333 (FSA 333 for short) was originally created as a means to put out difficult fires, such as oil fires. It will come as no surprise—because, after all, we’re talking about Troy Hurtubise here—that Diet Coke is one of its main ingredients. While testing it on an oil fire ignited in a tank of water, however, FSA 333 showed something unusual: not only did it successfully put out the fire, but it also drew the oil up to the top of the water.

Believing this might be a beneficial property for cleaning-up oil spills, Troy Hurtubise contacted a company specializing in that business. But they informed him it wasn't really the spills in open water that were troublesome, rather it was when the oil washed-up on open shoreline that it really became “a nightmare”. So our dauntless explorer next mixed a quantity motor oil into a pail of beach sand. Then he mixed in some FSA 333 and a little cold water and “lo and behold, it separated the sand from the water and the oil. The oil actually floated to the top together with the FSA as a kind of sludge that you could pick off the top of the water with a Dixie cup. And clear water is what was left. Clear water."

While Hurtubise’s claims appear, on the surface, to strain credulity, he has now placed himself miles ahead in the quest by high-tech companies to invent something that will do the same thing.

The experiment with FSA 333 got Troy Hurtubise thinking about the Alberta Oil Sands. As research would inform him: "They have enough oil down there to make the big OPEC blocks look stupid. They can supply us for a long, long, time. The trouble is they can only extract it using huge treatments of hot water and steam, and they need huge tailing ponds because of the dirty, toxic water that's a by-product. And I can do it with cold water that stays clean." Troy Hurtubise was so confident in his results he issued a public challenge to the oil industry. "I don't care who you've got, but bring a sample of tar sands down and bring whatever scientist you want and I will pop the oil right out of the sand in front of him," he said. "Five minutes with cold water. How do you like that, sweetheart? Then I'll scoop out some water from the demonstration and drink it. How's that for biodegradable?"

It seems FSA 333 was equally successful at extracting oil from shale stone, the largest deposits of which are located here in the United States. As local North Bay paper The Nugget would report, “through his network of contacts, [Troy] Hurtubise obtained several kilograms of shale rock, crushed it, heated it to about 200 F, added FSA and cold water, "and then BANG! You get this huge segment of oil on the top."”

That’s when the FBI showed up at his door.

As Troy Hurtubise’ tells it: "They say 'you don't understand Mr. [Troy] Hurtubise. This can change the balance of power. We are not here to scare or threaten you. We are saying that you have a wife and child to take care of and you don't know what you are into'". Evidently the FBI had determined that FSA 333 might be better looked after by interests belonging to the United States….

After that, Troy Hurtubise' life started to unravel.

"I had break-in after break-in, in the garage and in the house. The lab was destroyed and there was nothing left. Whoever the hell did it, it's all gone. My phone has been tapped, I've been followed regularly, so I took the formula and just buried it somewhere. Just because I did some research and made a few calls."

And to heap insult on injury, finally after years of impressive fortitude, Mrs. Troy Hurtubise announced she wanted a divorce.

The French aren't the only ones interested in Hurtubise's innovations.

BayToday.ca has obtained documentation confirming that the former head of Saudi counter-intelligence, who asked that his name not be used, has been in regular contact with Hurtubise regarding the Angel Light.

Troy Hurtubise had a dream.

In some ways his dream was similar to that reknown dream of Dr. Martin Luther King. Except Troy Hurtubise’ dream was that one day human beings and dangerous bears might live together in harmony.

But then Troy Hurtubise had another dream. Three times, to be exact. Troy Hurtubise had the exact same dream three different times. And his dream would turn physics, and perhaps human understanding itself, on its head.

“I had a dream about a year and a half ago as I do for most of my innovations, just a dream, and I saw it, saw the whole casing and everything, and I saw what it could do. I had the same dream about that three times and by the third time I had it in my head and I started to build it”. No blueprints, no drawings, no calculations or schematics whatsoever....

The device, which he took to calling the Angel Light, creates a beam of energy which allows the user to see through walls just as clearly as if they weren’t even there at all. Metal walls, concrete walls, lead, steel, titanium…nothing seems to obscure the view of the Angel Light. When he first turned it on, Troy Hurtubise said he “could see into the garage behind his lab wall, and read the licence [sic] plate on his wife's car and even see the salt on it. "You could be fooled into believing that you could actually walk through the wall and go touch the car."”

Naturally, of course, he tried it out on his hand.

“I could see my blood vessels, muscles, everything, like I’d taken an Exacto knife, cut into my skin and peeled it back.”

But that’s not all. The Angel Light allows for the detection of stealth technology, a fact he verified with a radar gun and a section of paneling from the latest model Comanche helicopter which an accomplice smuggled across the U.S./Canadian border. (“It’s amazing what you can get across the border on a Greyhound bus,” [Troy] Hurtubise said).

The Angel Light also apparently stops dead all electronic devices in the field of its beam: portable radios, microwave ovens, televisions, even an $1,800 remote control plane was knocked dead out of the sky in mid-flight.

But then he tried the Angel Light out on a tank of goldfish. “I turned the beam on it and within minutes all the goldfish died,” Troy Hurtubise said. Curiously, he'd also begun to lose feeling in his hand. “That’s when I realized there was a Hyde effect, as in Jekyll and Hyde, and I dismantled the whole thing.”

The Angel Light cost just $30,000 to build. French government agents were so impressed with a demonstration, they gave him $40,000 just to “put the finishing touches” on it, and have promised him a “substantial” amount if it stands up to testing.

So it would appear that Troy Hurtubise’s ship may finally have come in. If, that is, he can avoid any further entanglements with government agenst, theft of his equipment, personal harassment and torture, or simply being "disappeared" or “suicided” outright.

Perhaps those would seem to be big “if’s”, but let’s face it…something is intent on communicating to us all via Troy Hurtubise' dreams. Because after all, while it's certainly tempting to assume that our subconscious holds vast untapped potentials and abilities, none of those would realistically include complete schematics for assembling advanced technologies pertaining to fields we've never even studied before.

Troy Hurtubise is a remarkable individual, certainly. Who knows, he may even be a genuine “hee-ro”. But when visionary dreams come to great people, it's usually the result of long work and struggle within a particular field of study. And Troy Hurtubise’ particular field of study is bears.

"Grizzlies have a lot to offer science," says Troy Hurtubise, "but you can't get in close to the bear. You die."

Just as Lebowski's Old Cowboy informed us, "sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you". Unless, that is, you’re Troy Hurtubise.