"Secret Service Wants a Fake White House to Help Protect the Real One"

"In testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, Joseph P. Clancy, the director of the Secret Service, on Tuesday urged lawmakers to give him money to build a detailed replica of the White House to aid in training officers and agents to protect the real thing. Beltsville, about 20 miles from the real White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, is the location of a 500-acre Secret Service training site in the verdant terrain of southern Maryland.

“Right now, we train on a parking lot, basically,” Mr. Clancy said. “We put up a makeshift fence and walk off the distance between the fence at the White House and the actual house itself. We don’t have the bushes, we don’t have the fountains, we don’t get a realistic look at the White House.”"
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/us/secret-service-wants-a-fake-white-house-to-help-protect-the-real-one.html?_r=0&referrer=

This is slightly ridiculous and slightly definitely real.