Columbine Explosives Were Props
They Never Meant to Blow Up the School - It Wasn't A Failed Bombing—It Was A Well-Disguised Diversion
When I first got my hands on some never-before seen unredacted Columbine documents related to their explosives, I thought I’d find descriptions of failed wiring jobs and bomb components that were far too complex for them to have understood.
I thought I’d find evidence of two reckless kids trying to make bombs—and failing miserably.
That’s not what I found.
Instead? I found props and glorified fireworks.
The majority of their devices looked like bombs. Some were even wired like bombs. But those were built to fail.
Not accidentally—intentionally.
And the moment I matched up the leaked crime scene photos of their timing devices with the internal notes on those devices... and took common sense and basic electronic circuitry into account… I realized the bombs were just for show.
All four of their large propane tank bombs failed, and that failure appears to have been intentional. When you study the circuitry? It was simple and perfectly sound. It shouldn’t have failed. It was two wires and a battery.
It’s not that they were bad at building bombs.
It’s that the bombs were never supposed to work.
And some of them were nothing more than props.
Which brings us to a question no one seems willing to ask: Why design something that looks real, but fails on purpose?
And if the answer isn’t incompetence...
Then what is it?
Did they want investigators to find their bombs and believe they were serious?
Let’s take a closer look.
The Propane Bombs: Were They Designed To Fail?
According to the official story, Harris and Klebold made two separate bombs using a 4.5-gallon propane canister, gasoline, fireworks, a pipe bomb, and other components all placed inside of two separate duffel bags that they left in the school’s cafeteria before the attack. They can be seen on the CCTV footage bringing these heavy bags into the cafeteria just around 11:00 a.m. (This footage has been removed from YouTube).
Below is a crime scene photo of one of their cafeteria propane bombs after being removed from the duffel bag:
This photo, along with the documents released, makes it obvious exactly how these propane bombs were designed, which I will get into shortly.
Spoiler: despite reports of “detonators,” that term is grossly misunderstood. A detonator is simply something that initiates an explosion. A simple match that starts a fire can be a detonator. None of their time bombs were designed to explode the second a timer went off. Detonation does not equal explosion.
These bombs were built to undergo a multi-stage process prior to “exploding” that would have begun with a timer creating a small electric fire that would eventually catch the gasoline on fire and end in a BLEVE. It sounds complex, but it’s not. It’s actually a type of explosion that happens all the time.
There are many problems with the stories we’ve been told about these devices.
First, based on the components and construction, it’s clear the large propane “bombs” were wired for a BLEVE and not an instant explosion. A BLEVE Is a Boiling Liquid, Expanding Vapor Explosion. Propane tanks don’t just explode on command with a detonator. They won’t even explode if you shoot them. They only explode when the pressure inside the tank becomes greater than the release valve can release. But accomplishing this requires a very hot fire to burn next to the propane canister for a long period of time. The result? The tank fails, explodes, turns into shrapnel, and the propane creates a vertical fireball.
That brings up an important myth that needs to be put to rest.
Contrary to popular belief, if the cafeteria bombs exploded., they would not have taken out the library above. At all. There would not have been structural damage, either. Not with 4.5 gallon tanks. That was just hype.
All that would have happened would have been a vertical fireball that scorched the ceiling. The actual tanks would have exploded horizontally.
The problem? Those propane tank bombs would have needed that fire to burn for quite a bit of time to reach the point of failure, giving everyone time to evacuate, not to mention the sprinklers would have put out the fire long before the tanks failed.
They want us to believe Harris and Klebold never accounted for the sprinkler system putting out the fire that would have to burn for 5-10 minutes to make their bombs work?
And let’s consider the fact that their whole cafeteria bomb “plan” hinged on using an electrical circuit to light some stick matches inside of a bag and keep those stick matches lit long enough to light additional components.
All that is wishful thinking for happening inside of a bag.
Keep this in mind because I’m going to show you the limited ignition power their timers would have produced using their exact circuitry so you can understand why their bombs were just props and that first match ignition would never have ignited the fuse for the next step. Also keep in mind that I’m only going to show you the end result - I will not be demonstrating how to build anything.
Let’s look at what’s wrong with their bombs and why it’s not just a matter of rookie mistakes.
Problem #1: Did they really forget fire needs oxygen to burn?
With limited exceptions, fire requires oxygen to burn. Specifically, their setup needed oxygen. Their main bombs—the ones that were supposed to go off in the cafeteria—were packed into duffel bags. Sounds fine... until you realize being in bags would deprive the chemical reactions of oxygen. No oxygen, no fire, no boom. And these weren’t dumb kids. They knew this. They had been making these timing devices and explosives for at least a year or two.
Have you ever tried to light a match in a full duffel bag while it’s zipped shut? I can barely get a match to stay lit in my house long enough to light incense.
They want us to believe that Harris and Klebold engineered a plan to blow up the cafeteria, intending to kill 500+ people, by creating two large bombs that would rely entirely on igniting a handful of household matches inside of an oxygen-deprived duffel bag?
Really?
Cool story, bro.
Problem #2: It’s been rumored that they never tested their bombs or timers
When learning that their bombs failed, some people speculate that they just never tested their bombs ahead of time. That’s not true. Harris posted about their test runs to his website on AOL. I won’t post those documents here, but you can find them elsewhere if you search.
Harris also posted that he “didn’t have time” to test all of his bombs before the big day, but what does that even mean? They had been making and detonating and testing the exact bombs they used in the “incident” for a long time. It’s not like you can make a bomb, blow it up to “test” it, and then reuse that bomb later. I’ll get into the website contradictions and evidence that his whole website was fake later in another post.
According to a close friend and TCM associate, Chris Morris, they already made explosives that were powerful enough to leave craters in the ground. What was there left to “test?”
“I had heard Eric and Dylan talking about them taking one of them up to the mountains and blowing it up, and uh, they said they had left a crater in the ground that was around four feet deep and around, like, eight feet wide almost.”
-Chris Morris
You can read more about Morris here (I’ll cover him in detail in a future post).
The size of the crater could have been an exaggeration, but it was known in TCM circles that they knew how to make timers. Since they knew how to make timers, why would all of their timers on four separate bombs fail the day of the shooting? That’s a pretty big coincidence.
And the timers weren't complicated. In fact, the circuitry is so simple a kindergartener could make one. It only took two wires. How do teenagers spend over a year making and detonating bombs with timers, and then on the big day they all turn out to be duds?
Well, if you’re part of a false incident and want to fool investigators who aren’t on the inside, you’d make real bombs wired perfectly, but then you’d stuff them into duffel bags to make sure that first match never ignites. And your car bombs? Well, you wouldn’t even set the timer in the first place. No timer, no completed circuit, no boom. Just props that look real.
Problem #3: The cafeteria bombs failed, but not for obvious reasons
The official narrative is that both cafeteria bombs failed because of “faulty wiring.” I was able to trace this narrative back to a man named Bruce Porter, who gave an interview to Now Is The Time and stated that a bomb squad expert told him personally that “a single loose wire” was to blame.
“I spoke to one of the bomb squad experts from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation who told me that a single wire in the detonator of that propane tank bomb failed, it was loose.”
-Bruce Porter
They want us to believe that a single loose wire prevented two separate bombs from exploding? That’s not physically possible.
And by “detonator” they mean “the timer that powered the electric match” because there was no instant detonator. But boy does it sound dangerous when they call it a detonator!
Porter claims to have spoken directly with a CBI bomb squad expert who told him there were two propane tanks connected together as one bomb, and one loose wire in the detonator caused the failure. He’s either misremembering, or reading a script. There were two bombs and one wire could not have caused both to fail.
One fact stands out that makes Porter appear to be reading a script: he knew the exact time Harris planted a bomb in the cafeteria at a time when officials were saying it happened 15 minutes later.
Porter says he was told Harris put the bomb in the cafeteria at 11:00 a.m., which is accurate, but until several years ago, nobody knew that. Police maintained that they didn’t plant the bombs until 11:14-11:22 a.m. and claimed they never found them on the CCTV tape (yet someone finally found them and now we know they were visible the whole time).
How did Porter know so early on that Harris planted one of the bombs at 11:00 a.m.?
Additionally, they used duct tape to hold down their wires (visible in the leaked crime scene photos), and considering the simplicity of the circuit, unless they forgot to tape one of the two wires down, there’s no possibility for a “loose wire” in the first place. But by calling it a “loose wire” it conjures up images of complex wiring and gives the impression that these kids tried so hard to make sophisticated devices (and failed), when that's not anywhere near the truth.
There’s another issue with Porter’s credibility. He’s sharing second-hand information allegedly from the bomb squad that doesn’t match the evidence. In another part of his interview, he claimed their pipe bombs exploded and sent shrapnel everywhere.
“The pipe bombs themselves scattered shrapnel in every direction.”
-Bruce Porter
Their pipe bombs didn’t fragment. At best, some of the end caps blew off. They made loud noises and some flew into the drywall, but they didn’t actually explode. Below are alleged crime scene photos from the school, and I say ‘alleged’ because we have no way to know if they are actually from the school or staged elsewhere.
For now, we’ll put Porter’s statements aside as a rumor that perhaps the CBI bomb squad member was just parroting, but had no real, firsthand knowledge of.
The “plastic hands” rumor
Another rumor is that the cafeteria bombs failed because the alarm clocks had plastic hands. Rumor has it, Westclox stopped making timers with metal hands, and Harris and Klebold didn't know plastic doesn’t conduct electricity. This presumes they built their timers to use one of the hands to complete the circuit.
This rumor is easily debunked by looking at the leaked crime scene photo of one of their timers:
This photo explains everything. What you’re looking at here is a manual alarm clock with the face plate removed, some wires, and a 9-volt battery attached to the top. The circuitry you’re looking at here is wired to use the bells to complete the circuit (not the hands), and the bells are metal. This is correct.
It’s worth noting that you can still complete a circuit using plastic parts. Plastic components are commonly used to complete circuits in electronics projects, and if you get into hobby projects, you’ll understand how it works.
You’ll notice the clock in the photo is a bit destroyed. It’s missing the second hand, hour hand, and minute hand, along with the hammer that rings the bells. It’s likely that the hammer is attached to the other end of the wire that we can’t see in the photo.
The only hand left is the alarm hand. This gives the impression that the timer somehow went off and something exploded, but this clock actually came from Klebold’s BMW and was destroyed when they disrupted the propane device in the back seat:
I’m going to do my best to explain what they did without providing instructions for making anything. What I’m sharing here is basic electronic circuitry appropriate for hobby projects, and in no way instructs how to build a bomb.
But first, we need to look at some discrepancies related to the timers.
Officials gave the impression that both cafeteria propane bombs were connected to manual Westclox brand alarm clock timers. According to contradictory official documentation, they used digital kitchen timers for the cafeteria bombs. The manual alarm clocks were used for their car bombs and diversion bombs.
Despite some documentation stating they used kitchen timers for the cafeteria bombs, you can see a manual alarm clock in the photo above. This bomb didn’t detonate. It caught fire when Harris shot at the bag from the cafeteria landing. Investigators claimed some smaller bombs detonated in the bag when Harris shot at it, which caught some flammable liquid on fire, and the fireball activated the sprinklers.
Researcher SarinGasAttack did some amazing research and was able to prove that it was, indeed, a Coleman fuel canister that Harris ruptured. However, if you look at the cafeteria tape, you can see a horizontal fireball, which could only happen if propane escaped from the tank (not vapor). The tank recovered had NO punctures or damage, and there’s no way the pressure relief valve would have activated that fast. What came out of that tank was not vapor - it was propane. How did the propane escape from the tank?
Multiple witnesses in the cafeteria area reported smelling propane and thought the stove in the kitchen was leaking.
When a propane cylinder is lying horizontal and the pressure relief valve opens, liquid propane gas will escape, but the fire wasn’t burning long enough to open the release valve. Plus, if you look at the height of the horizontal fireball, it’s clear the tank was NOT lying on its side - it was standing straight up, which means the propane that came out of the tank was NOT from the pressure relief valve and came out of the tank itself.
That could only have happened if someone manually opened the propane valve. But we don’t see this on the cafeteria tape. Well, there’s a lot we don’t see on the tape that should be visible. I’ll make another post later about how that CCTV footage is likely doctored.
More propane “bombs” that did not “explode”
Their car bombs were nearly identical to the cafeteria bombs, except they were not contained in bags. They also failed.
According to the official story, they also made two smaller propane bombs using smaller canisters connected to pipe bombs and manual alarm clock timers that were each stuffed inside of a backpack. These devices were dubbed the “diversion bombs” and were placed in a field somewhat near the school. According to the official story, one of these devices ignited and started a fire. It’s said that this was supposed to be a diversion to keep first responders busy and away from the school.
So… one out of a total of 6 propane time bombs worked? And the only one that worked just happened to be one that was set in a field where nobody would be hurt? While all the bombs that put people in real danger just happened to fail?
Let’s go back to the timers for a minute and finish up closing the rumor about how they wired the timers wrong by using the hands.
How we know they used the bells to complete the circuit
In short, they didn’t use the hands to complete the circuit. Put simply, if they used the hands to complete the circuit, we’d see a screw in the face, like this:
The absence of a screw plus the visible wiring to the bells is how we know their timers were wired to use the bells to complete the circuit.
This is important because knowing this, we can set aside all the rumors about faulty wiring for their time bombs. The crime scene photo shows a solid connection to the bell and with that much duct tape, there’s no way a wire was “loose.” I can barely get duct tape off my finger. When you tape a wire with duct tape, it stays put. With this circuit, we’re not talking about wires that get put into holes or lightly wrapped around a post. They’re literally taped down with duct tape.
Plus, there are only two wires to secure. The circuit they made is too simple to fail. There has to be another explanation.
But we have another problem…
If the cafeteria bombs were wired correctly, but failed because there wasn’t any oxygen in the bags, which sounds logical, why did both of their car bombs fail, too? Those weren’t stuffed in bags, but they failed to detonate as well. It seems like they wired everything properly, but just never set the timers.
Now here comes a wild card. According to additional official documents, the cafeteria bombs were made using kitchen timers. You know, these things…
There’s a clear difference between a “kitchen timer” and “alarm clock,” and it’s hard to believe that a seasoned investigator would put together a report describing all of the components recovered from the cafeteria bags and then refer to the timer as a “kitchen timer” on accident. (I am working on finding my source for this. It was in one of the official reports released by a CO official in response to public interest. My apologies, after 25 years of research I have close to 100 Gb of files on several hard drives).
No, it was no accident and it’s totally believable that they may have used a digital timer. Digital kitchen timers are commonly used to create detonators for fireworks. Considering how much Klebold and Harris were into fireworks, it’s not hard to imagine they used these timers frequently. Fireworks were a component in the cafeteria bombs, so it would make sense for them to have created a device they already knew how to make.
So whether or not one of the cafeteria bombs used digital timers, we know the vehicle and diversion bombs used manual alarm clocks. All of them happened to fail to ignite, and we’re supposed to believe Harris and Klebold thought matches would ignite for more than a second inside of bags.
Wow.
Let’s see what would have happened inside of those bags… what kind of spark would have been created?
Problem #4: Their “electric match” design wasn’t powerful enough for a low-oxygen environment
While we can’t know exactly how they wired their cafeteria timers without photos, there are only a handful of ways to do it, and regardless, there’s really not much power. That wouldn’t normally matter, but we’re talking about igniting components inside of a closed bag…
Based on the components recovered, they appear to have been basic, simple electric matches you’d use as model rocket igniters, controlled by a timer. Really simple stuff here, guys.
You don’t need much power if you’re just trying to create a flame for a second to light something else, but accomplishing that inside of a closed bag?
Here’s what it looks like when a kitchen timer is used to ignite gunpowder. Keep in mind that the powder Harris and Klebold used was from fireworks, and it was much lower grade than actual gunpowder.
So what does this look like close up at the source of the electric match ignition?
That’s it. That’s an electric match ignition. That’s what you get when you use a kitchen timer (or any timer) to create a fire. This brief flash was supposed to light a handful of matches that would stay lit long enough to ignite Visco (canon fuse) inside of a duffel bag. That sounds overly optimistic. Visco can ignite pretty fast, but how long will matches stay lit in a bag? Is a momentary flash enough?
In any case, we’re told their timers never even worked. Nothing ignited, not even the first match. So… if the timers never went off, then nothing was ever lit on fire, but their wiring was fine, their circuit was stupid simple and the photo shows it was proper, which can only mean…
They never set the timers.
Some have speculated that the alarm button just got pushed back in, but we’re talking about 5 timers here that never “went off.” I can see one or two alarm buttons being pushed back in accidentally… but five? That doesn’t make sense.
But since we were also told a single loose wire single-handedly caused the failure of two separate bombs, it’s hard to take any “official” conclusion seriously.
Here’s what it looks like to light a bottle rocket with an electric match using a timer wired to complete the circuit using the hands:
Imagine that happening inside of a bag.
Now imagine that this was supposed to keep matches lit long enough to light yet another fuse.
Now here’s what it looks like to light some matches using the exact circuit we see in the crime scene photo of the alarm clock timer recovered from Klebold’s BMW:
Now imagine that happening inside of a bag.
This story falls apart so easily under the slightest bit of scrutiny. But let’s continue. It gets better (or worse).
Problem #5: Investigators played up the danger of their “crickets”
This is a cricket:
They’re called “crickets” because they’re basically just noisy, glorified fire crackers. They can hurt you if you get hit by the shrapnel, but these are just carbon dioxide canisters filled with powder and a fuse. The kind of CO2 canisters you use for whipped cream. They’re very small. And unless you fill them with sand, you can’t really make a faulty cricket.
This is what a cricket explosion looks like using flash powder, which is much higher quality than the fireworks powder Harris and Klebold used:
You can view the entire video here.
Investigators played up the number of bombs recovered during the investigation, noting there were 99+ devices. That sounds like a lot of bombs. However, the majority of devices recovered at the school were these little crickets they carried in their cargo pockets. According to the documents, they recovered 48 crickets. However, by calling them “48 carbon dioxide bombs,” it makes it sound like an impressive number of bombs.
Wow! 48 CO2 bombs! How on Earth did they lug all those bombs into the school?
Officials told the world that these crickets were so deadly, they could have killed everyone.
"They were set there to get us," Burdick said. "These two gentlemen - and I use that term loosely - wanted to take everybody out." The carbon dioxide bombs - often called "crickets" - were the smallest of the bombs. One of them, which, again, was faulty, was attached to a quart of homemade napalm and placed at one of the two doors to the library, Young said. Eventually, 26 students escaped through that door to safety.
"Had that device functioned, they wouldn't have gotten out that door," Young said, implying all of the students would have died."
-Chuck Burdick, Littleton Fire Department's operations chief
Denver Post, 2/14/99
There are so many problems with this statement. It’s nearly impossible to have a “faulty cricket.” It’s literally just a fuse and powder in a canister. And you have to light the fuse in order to make it go boom. An unlit cricket is not faulty. But that’s exactly what they’re trying to say here.
He’s seriously arguing that a device requiring manual ignition posed a real danger… even though no one lit it. And it was “faulty” because it was never lit. That’s like saying your house narrowly avoided tragedy because someone walked past an unlit candle… and then saying they were lucky to survive because the candle must have been faulty.
By that logic, your kitchen is a ticking time bomb because you own matches.
These weren’t failed bombs.
They were stage props.
And the only thing that blew up was the story they sold to the public.
The fact that someone from the fire department said these devices were “faulty” because they didn’t explode on their own is a giant red flag for a scripted narrative.
Here’s an actual crime scene photo of one of their crickets wrapped in duct tape with stick matches:
This is what investigators said would have killed everyone.
Yep.
This is also the type of bomb they tossed at Makai Hall in the library that he tossed away just in time for it to explode in the air. Now, these can cause injury, but they played it up as if he was about to get his face blown off by a pipe bomb.
For a size perspective, here’s a crime scene photo showing Harris’ boot and rifle stock along with some crickets. Investigators said Harris booby-trapped his body and that’s why they had to be careful in the library and wait so long to go inside. Again, we have officials trying to make you believe that these devices were just waiting to explode without being lit.
Didn’t they know you have to light the fuse to make these crickets go boom?
Alright, so now we know most of the bombs were just glorified fire crackers that could blow someone’s eye out, but you’d have to be really unlucky to die from a cricket blast. What’s next?
Ah yes, let’s look at the Molotov cocktails. Because the device by the library door that SWAT and police were afraid of that they said could have killed 26 people was a Molotov cocktail.
For reference, this is what a Molotov cocktail looks like when it’s thrown:
This would have “killed everyone?”
This really would have killed everyone??
I mean, sure, people would have been burned, but.. when you look at what a Molotov cocktail fire actually looks like, it’s not hard to see that they played up the threat to dramatic heights.
The device Harris and Klebold placed at the library doors - the molotov with a cricket taped to the side - was designed to be detonated by lighting the cricket in lieu of throwing it. The explosions seen in the above three videos are exactly what this device would have produced had the cricket fuse been lit. At best, it would have created a short-lived fire that may have burned people if anyone was standing right there, but definitely would not have killed anyone. And after several seconds, the fire would have died down and everyone could have jumped over the tiny flames to safety.
They want you to believe that an explosion like this would have killed every student trying to exit the building:
Now let’s look at the document that was redacted for public release. When you read this document, it appears that they redacted bomb components to protect the public from knowing how the explosives were made. It appears to be serious and/or complicated when it’s redacted:
Note how they discuss the “15 devices that were thrown out of the trailer.” This is a reference to an incident the media hyped up. Apparently, they were loading bombs into the bomb trailer, and a match struck the side of the trailer and lit the fuse of a bomb and it exploded and tossed out 15 devices. Most people got the impression that this was a huge explosion. After all, it tossed out FIFTEEN devices! And some of them detonated! Well, they were just crickets.
It’s interesting to note that he claims nobody was injured, but there are other documents that describe injuries that were treated.
I have a photo of the exact bomb trailer, but can’t locate it at the moment, but it’s really small. The only way 15 devices could have been thrown out is if they were small.
(I’m still trying to figure out how a match can lightly touch the side of a metal trailer and ignite the fuse when I can’t even get my strike anywhere matches to light on the dang box).
Now let’s look at the unreacted version:
Okay, so now we know for sure these were just props. They taped crickets to the outside of 16-ounce propane canisters? That’s not a bomb. That’s not even functional. You can’t make a propane canister explode with a cricket. It doesn’t work that way. At least their Molotov cocktails were functional. But attaching a cricket to a propane canister? That’s nonsensical.
Now we know why they redacted this information. These bombs were just props.
Keep in mind that this propane canister with a cricket taped to the side was the device SWAT said they were afraid was going to blow at any minute, and they bravely picked it up and set it aside to rescue students. It wasn’t even a Molotov cocktail that could have started a fire. It was literally a prop.
Now we also know that investigators rendered their Molotov cocktails safe by cutting off the cricket. Wow, it was that simple? That’s like rendering a candle safe by removing the wick.
Phew!
On another note, they had to have “wired” their car bombs that morning because the only Blue Rhino tanks recovered came from their vehicles, and they purchased them that morning. The propane canisters recovered from the cafeteria were rusty, which means they were older. Interestingly, they were seen bending over the trunk of Harris’ car and at another time, they were seen bending over the trunk of a tan sedan, with multiple other people, early that morning. Were they preparing their props with their co-conspirators?
So… what do you think of their “explosives” now?
Does the official story match what you’re seeing with your own eyes?
We were sold a tale of two teenage masterminds—Harris and Klebold—the nearly-mass-murdering bombers who almost killed hundreds.
Except they didn’t.
The reality? Clumsy devices that were never meant to go off.
Timers left unset. Fuses left unlit. Props, not weapons.
They looked real enough to fool the first responders.
But once you dig into the photos, the documents, the construction...
it’s obvious: these weren’t weapons. They were props.
So here’s the question no one wants to ask:
Why did the investigators—and the media—work so hard to make these two seem more lethal, more sophisticated, more mythic than they were?
Why inflate the threat?
Unless the story we were given wasn’t meant to inform...
It was meant to control.
Until next time—keep your alibi airtight,
The Lost Crime Files
Incredible observations and definitely not something that the public at large would have noticed, but the way it's explained here is well-detailed and demonstrated. I'm literally in awe of what you have found here. The logic defies the narrative, and it is clear to see. Amazing work and an amazing article!
Imagine lugging all that crap around campus to never use any of it in the school or parking lot. This is one exposes a lot of the storytelling.