If it was possible for this story to get weirder, it just did.  Exponentially.  

Jack McIntyre has a website wherein he posts information on a project called a "Thyropod," a powerful tank with anthropomorphic legs.  Apparently, the government is working on this project, even though a mech (as these vehicles are commonly called in the science fiction crowds) is completely worthless in a modern battlefield environment.  As his story goes, he was working on this project in secret and subsequently left the operation when he saw signs that they were adding nuclear missile mountings to the Thyropod.  Along with this outlandish story, he also posted photographs and drawings that we debunked in our last story on this subject.  He also posted an email address with which he could be contacted for more information.  We jumped at the chance. 

We soon received this email:

Dear All,

I'm sending out a bulk email as I have about 50 messages from people asking for a link to my ftp server. I had emailed a few enthusiast sites when I uploaded the information onto my Angelfire page, but I am still surprised at the response I'm getting.

I tried to get onto my ftp server today, but the information I put there isn't coming up. I called the host and they say that they're trying to restore it.

I've put a couple of things onto the bottom of my web page which will explain to all of you the situation at the moment and be assured that I'll email you all separately when I can.

Regards,

Jack Macintyre
https://www.angelfire.com/journal2/thyropod

This situation appeared to be rank paranoia on Jack's part, with photographs of mysterious vans that appeared outside his apartment. 

Then, we got another email from the same email address, this time from a woman claiming to be Jack's wife:

Dear all,

Could I refer you back to my husbands site and ask you not to use this email address anymore.
Please read my message and all will become clear.

Thank you,

https://www.angelfire.com/journal2/thyropod/

The message on Jack's old website appears as follows:

We are sorry, but this site no longer displays the old material. 

Please may we also ask that email to Jack’s old address stops as this has affected him badly.

Jack’s obsession with a computer game drove him over the edge three months ago when he was let go from his company in Sheffield. After a while, Jack received a trial version of MechWarrior4 and played it continuously. Some of his closest friends say that Jack could spend days in front of his PC. ‘Training for the real thing against the US’ he called it.

Most of the time Jack believed that he was battling to save our house from a 40 foot, 80 ton, 90 mile an hour robot, then other times he believed that he was the robot itself.

Jack was a brilliant man and a loving husband, but he became increasingly agitated and paranoid after playing the trial version of the game which he downloaded on a page he found on the Internet.

I wish to highlight the dangers of this game to everyone by including the Internet address of the site at the bottom of this page. This is a warning, don’t go near it, you could end up like Jack. 

MechWarrior 4: Vengeance

So, has poor Jack jumped feet first into the deep end of paranoid psychosis?  Is a juvenile hoaxer simply covering his tracks after taking an innocent parody too far?  Has Jack been captured by the authorities, only to then post this lame disinformation as a means of discrediting a rightfully paranoid whistle blower?

Personally, I'm going for the hoax theory.  Something tells me that this isn't the last we've heard of Jack and his thyropod.  Comments?  Let us know.