I have no idea what those things are, but judging by their placement, they've just got to be some kind of million-dollar magic TSA terro-detecto-widgets.

If they're over the AIT and the x-ray belt... I wonder if they're dosimeters?

Hey Cave - is that a TSO in the first pic giving you the photography-is-evil stink-eye?

Thanks for the photos, CavePearl.

They're too far away from the equipment to be dosimeters*; you'd want to measure energy from the x-ray machine at a similar distance/orientation to where a human would be standing, not several feet up in the air.

*Of course there's every possibility that the brain trust at TSA has gotten this wrong.

My first thought is that they may simply be downward-pointing cameras for standard security (in the old-fashioned, pre-9/11, who-took-my-laptop sense) coverage. I don't know HOU but it appears from the photos that the checkpoint is in an atrium and the ceiling directly above it may be too high for surveillance cameras to get a good image. It also seems like the placement is where you'd want to monitor for petty theft (near the x-ray rollers) or aggressive behavior (in front of the NoS ).

That would be pretty boring. I'll try to come up with a more controversial theory.

Don't you know that radiation rises?! Just like steam. Sheeesh....

Yup. Isn't she a sweetheart?

I risked life, limb, and whether-or-not-I-wanted-to-fly-today to get those photos, and nobody knows what those things are?

Sheesh. Just see if I go undercover for you guys again.

I appreciate the effort, hopefully someone will have the answer.

I don't fly out of HOU but next Monday I'll scope our IAH for anything new.

I'm impressed you got the pictures and weren't detained.

Oh, OK. The next mission was a week at a $3000/night all inclusive resort on Aruba in November. We needed to know if the water was warm enough. But if we have to reassign that one that's OK...

Those are the supports for the new jumbotron's they will using to display nudoscope results for all to see.

Well, fine.

Now I have to be seen without a tan when they install the jumbotron.

I don't have a smart phone, but someone in another thread identified a photo by using a Google smart phone app that allows you to search for image matches (in the other thread, someone used the app to identify an image, part of an old movie poster without the words).

Perhaps someone could crop the photo a bit and try that.

You don't need the app, you can do this in your pc/mac browser on Google's website. Just go to images.google.com and click on the tiny camera image in the Google search bar. It will ask you to paste in the url of the image in question or upload an image. Unfortunately it probably won't work for these photos as the object is just too small.

They look like cameras to me but what do I know? I guess somebody could do the obvious and ask what they are when they go through the checkpoint.

Thanks, this is handy to know, even if it doesn't help this time.

I guess I can give it a try. I'm out of HOU again tomorrow, so I might as well ask the friendly neighborhood evil-eyed TSA matron while she's patting me down. If I get in trouble for asking about top-secret TSA terro-detecto-widgets and I'm placed in LEO custody I'm calling SeriouslyLost in Aruba for backup.

Haha, awesome! Thanks for the pictures...that was indeed the device I was referring to. They weren't over the precheck line, though, if I recall correctly.

Who knows!? You may get a response from a TSO by asking what they are... they may just look at you sternly and say "We employ many layers of ever-changing security..."