Local Man Discovers Rats In Republican Ad

Now, it's the most controversial political ad of the presidential campaign.

At the heart of the national buzz surrounding the prescription drug ad, is a Ballard man who thought he spotted a "rat".

"Out of the corner of my eye I saw something flash and I thought, 'what's that?'", said Gary Greenup.

So Greenup taped the political ad then went through it frame by frame before he found what he thought he'd seen.

"Rats is the word that comes up," Greenup said.

It's only there for one frame of video, which is 1/30th of a second. But Greenup caught it, called Democrats to tell them, and now finds himself caught up in a national scandal.

Governor George W. Bush - campaigning in Florida - insists his troops didn't intentionally slip the word "rats" into the ad. "The idea of putting in subliminal messages is ridiculous", Bush said. "The idea it's in one frame out of nine hundred in my opinion hardly makes a conspiracy."

But Vice President Al Gore doesn't buy the idea that "rats" was an accident. "I've seen clips of it and pictures and I find this a very disappointing development," said Gore. "I've never seen anything quite like it."

The Republicans pulled the controversial ad, but Governor Bush insists that's because it's already run enough, and not because of the uproar over "rats".

An uproar that started when a Ballard man saw something, no one else had.