If the object is so dangerous, people are warned to keep 5 m distant from it, wouldn't a geiger-counter, on a slow moving vehicle, spot it at 10 m? And by 'slow', I'm thinking 50-75% of the speed limit?
Shoot, a convoy of 8 vehicles could sum the 'pings' of radioactive decay and drive at full speed, getting their data streams in sync, to raise the signal to noise level of detection. Were there any engineers involved in the recovery efforts thus far?
Of course, you can't find something that a kid has picked up and taken home... tick, tock!
