“Everyone remembers where they were that horrible day that Dr. Doomington unleashed the Quackinator on the University of Northern Mississippi and turned everyone into ducks,” says Officer Carruthers of the DPS in a statement. “And the incident in Cascadia last year was really a wake-up call for us–if Professor Chaosz, who everyone thought was just a kindly science teacher, could hurl moviegoers into the fictional world of the film they were watching with his Imaginverter…it could happen anywhere, at any time.”

The Active Mad Scientist training seminars at Southern Michigan University are designed around three simple principles: “Flee,” “Fear,” and “Fight.”

“Obviously, the best solution to an Active Mad Scientist is to simply leave the area as quickly as possible,” says Carruthers. ” That’s ‘Flee.’ It gives the Area 51 Response Team time to arrive and secure the area. But that’s not always possible, as we saw at the incident in Sacramento where Sinestroni erected a Reality Barrier to prevent escape.”

“Fear” advises that people relocate to designated shelters and huddle in wordless terror in the hopes that the Active Mad Scientist will pass them by. “We’ve hardened certain campus locations against mad scientists,” Carruthers adds, “with lead linings, ray scramblers, polarized laser-proof glass, NBC sealing, and magic spells (well known to be a weakness common to mad scientists).” The officer does concede, though, that there are circumstances in which the “Fear” strategy will not work. He cites the notorious 2002 attack on a Pennsylvania supermarket with mutagenic nanodroids by Das Angstverkäufer GmbH as a particular example.

Finally, the “Fight” step urges people who are cornered like rats to strike back at an Active Mad Scientist with whatever means of self-defense they have available. “Obviously this is a last resort, if ‘Flee’ and “Fear” fail, only. We don’t need anyone being a hero and getting themselves frozen in carbonite.” Officer Carruthers explains that the best method if it comes to fighting is to try and grapple the Active Mad Scientist at point blank melee range: “They generally tend to be very weak physically and quite nerdy,” he says. “Though be sure to assess beforehand. Grappling with Doktor Destroyo is not the same as going toe-to-toe with Baron von Muscles, PhD.”

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