Now Blowing Up YouTube: Secret Nuclear Test Footage
The films are being preserved by a weapons physicist before they decay
By Michael Harthorne , Newser Staff
Posted Mar 15, 2017 4:27 PM CDT
(Newser) – The US government has about 10,000 films of the 221 atmospheric nuclear tests conducted between 1945 and 1962, covering the destructive power from all sorts of angles and distances, Business Insider reports. But until recently those films were literally rotting away in top-secret storage. Gregg Spriggs, a weapons physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, tells Paleofuture the films were "on the brink" of being "useless." Not anymore. Spriggs has scanned 4,200 of the films to digital and gotten 750 of them declassified. And this week he posted 65 of the films —an "initial set"—to YouTube.
"I think that if we capture the history of this and show what the force of these weapons are and how much devastation they can wreak, then maybe people will be reluctant to use them," Spriggs says. But he isn't just preserving the nuclear test footage for historical purposes but to learn as much as possible from it scientifically, the Verge reports. Atmospheric nuclear testing has been banned since 1963, and these old films represent some of the best data available for scientists in the present. Spriggs' laboratory has only found about 6,500 of the test films. He says it will take two years to digitize the rest of them and many more years after that to get them declassified. http://www.newser.com/story/239825/formerly-classified-nuclear-test-films-posted-to-youtube.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=earthlink&utm_campaign=rss_topnews
If you follow the link you come to here:
I hope they save many more and they should be required viewing for every General, Admiral, President, and chickenhawk in Congress.
What I don't understand is why there would be any problem in getting any of them declassified. These are films of tests that took place before 1963. I fail to see how any secrets could be revealed by showing them or releasing them to the public. In fact I think it is strongly in the public interest to remind everyone of just how destructive these weapons are, since with a lot of the talk being thrown around about letting Japan or South Korea or Saudi Arabia have them or starting a new nuclear arms race or "Why do we have them if we're not going to use them?" it would seem that many people have forgotten just what a terror we are talking about here. Many people need a reminder of how bad these weapons are and how many millions of innocent people will die if they are used. Talk about them is far, far, far too casual these days IMHO.
To me, other than giant mushroom clouds and extremely bright lights, some of which appear to be viewed through a long drainage pipe thing, they don't show much-- but they're scary enough for sure! I find myself wanting more information-- what kind of bomb, how large an area was wiped out, what were the total effects and how far away they went.
Since I grew up when they made little kids cower under our desks, just in case, this causes a great deal of fear inside me, and makes me want to go down to the basement and change out all my saved water jugs... And start making more saved water, etc. It makes me want to stock up on food, etc. Even, clean out the basement, so there is more room to live, if we need it.
Geemonetti! These bring back nightmares!
These are only the first batch. So far he has 4200 of them digitized and is working on more. The bottleneck is getting the ones he has done declassified. I see no real problem with that except red tape and I am sure they will be much more dramatic. Though what these ones do show should be scary enough for most people. It's certainly a project worth keeping an eye on and I hope that when he gets some better shots that there is some sort of documentary highlighting them. When it comes to these weapons people need to have the hell scared out of them.
Me, too!!!
They showed some of these on “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams" one of them in color. Brian Williams contrasted them with Rex Tillersons words about how a different approach is needed in dealing with North Korea. There have been rumors of some on the Right who want to launch a nuclear strike on North Korea's nuclear facilities. Besides the pure horror of using one of these weapons again, which almost everyone alive today really has no idea of just how powerful they really are. Today's nuclear weapons, even they they have not been modernized, are still many, many, many times more powerful then even the ones shown in these tests. What such a strike on North Korea will do is to make them send their army swarming across the border into the South. It will either be a real nightmare of a conventional war, or that lunatic sitting in the oval office will continue to make it nuclear, spreading radiation around the world, even to here in the U.S. There is zero upside in using our nukes unless it is in retaliation of a massive first nuclear strike against us! At least in that case no on would be alive to blame. Yes, those movies of a post nuclear world where people survive for generations are fiction. It will not happen. All will die within a few months in a full exchange.