Restored and declassified nuclear testing videos.

[Retired LTC USAR]

(CBS) in the thick of Cold War tensions from 1945 to 1962, the United States carried out a whopping 210 atmospheric nuclear tests, with multiple cameras filming each test from different angles. Some 10,000 of these old films were stashed away and virtually forgotten, slowly decomposing in high security vaults across the country — the images contained inside at increasing risk of being lost with every year that passed.
Now, a self-described “crack team” of film experts, archivists and software developers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has brought some of these films to light for the first time in decades on the most public platform there is: YouTube. Working from a pool of 6,500 films, the laboratory team painstakingly scanned, reanalyzed, and released an initial set of 63 nuclear test films this month.
In addition to strengthening benchmark data for understanding nuclear blasts, the researchers are motivated by another hope: continued nuclear deterrence.
Read and see more: Restored and declassified videos reveal power of Cold War nuclear tests - CBS News

Below is the link to the you tube videos. I watched a couple and they are pretty cool!

LLNL Atmospheric Nuclear Tests - YouTube

 

[Rule3]

Pretty scary stuff!

 

[les.b]

Explosive!!!!

 

[Big Cholla]

As a kid in Las Vegas during the '50s, I watch several of the above ground shots. Then on special occasions we would go to the Mt. Charleston area and be out on an overlook on the road between Lee's Canyon and Kyle Canyon. The Army would have a young EM there. His job was to order everyone to turn away from the blast site as the flash would cause severe damage to one's eyes.

As a young Construction Engineer I worked at the Nevada Test Site in the construction of the above ground facilities supporting underground tests. I also helped in construction of the underground 'vaults' in which some tests were conducted. The after affects of those underground tests are and will continue to be monitored for the foreseeable future. One or two of those underground tests 'vented' putting far more radioactive matter into the atmosphere than most of those above ground tests.

It was a very interesting phase of my life. I actually sat on a freshly delivered atomic weapon (in its encasement) one day and ate my lunch. I was the management person in charge and had to stay with the weapon until the technicians came and took it into their custody. ......

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

I actually sat on a freshly delivered atomic weapon (in its encasement) one day and ate my lunch. I was the management person in charge and had to stay with the weapon until the technicians came and took it into their custody.

Kind of reminds my of Slim Pickens riding a nuke onto Moscow, in Dr. Strangelove. Yee-Haw!

Ivan

 

[Big Cholla]

ME TOO

I actually sat on a freshly delivered atomic weapon (in its encasement) one day and ate my lunch. I was the management person in charge and had to stay with the weapon until the technicians came and took it into their custody.

Kind of reminds my of Slim Pickens riding a nuke onto Moscow, in Dr. Strangelove. Yee-Haw!

Ivan

When I saw that movie, I had the same thought! And, it never occurred to me until just now....that lunch might just be the reason the I have never sired any kids....... :-( ........ No, actually the radiation from that encased weapon was nil. That sort of thing was very very very closely monitored at the NTS.

 

[Targets Guy]

Visiting the original site brought a glow to my eyes.

 

[Rule3]

A lot of younger folks have no idea how, very very close we came to the "end" around the Cuba Missile Crisis!

Read the book Alas Babylon written around 1959.

Homestead AFB and McDill were toast.

Me and my sister on vacation out West! (kidding)

 

[Ron M.]

A lot of younger folks have no idea how, very very close we came to the "end" around the Cuba Missile Crisis!

Read the book Alas Babylon written around 1959.

Homestead AFB and McDill were toast.

Me and my sister on vacation out West! (kidding)

Read that book in high school...an early primer for post war survival. Too real for me. And in the end, nobody won.

 

[DWalt]

Saw something on TV recently about the nuclear waste material storage site on Eniwetok Atoll where something like 60 nuclear weapons tests were performed back in the 1950s. No one knows exactly what is stored there, or how much of it there is. It's in a huge in-ground circular tank several hundred feet across with a thick concrete lid. And the concrete is starting to crack.

 

[les.b]

I suppose that I was about 14 when Mom and Dad took me to see "On the Beach" (1959?). For those of you who have never seen it, watch it on one of the old movie channels. It's a wonder I turned out normal (well, I suppose that's debatable). I was sure that the world would end before I graduated High School.

Best Regards, Les

 

[Targets Guy]

I suppose that I was about 14 when Mom and Dad took me to see "On the Beach" (1959?). For those of you who have never seen it, watch it on one of the old movie channels. It's a wonder I turned out normal (well, I suppose that's debatable). I was sure that the world would end before I graduated High School.

Best Regards, Les

It is the best California has looked in any film.

 

[Ron M.]

I suppose that I was about 14 when Mom and Dad took me to see "On the Beach" (1959?). For those of you who have never seen it, watch it on one of the old movie channels. It's a wonder I turned out normal (well, I suppose that's debatable). I was sure that the world would end before I graduated High School.

Best Regards, Les

Powerful movie, Les B. The married couple taking suicide pills after giving them to the baby, Fred Astaire suffocating with his race car engine on, the sub leaving port for the last time. Ava Gardner watching from "on the beach".

 

[Rule3]

I suppose that I was about 14 when Mom and Dad took me to see "On the Beach" (1959?). For those of you who have never seen it, watch it on one of the old movie channels. It's a wonder I turned out normal (well, I suppose that's debatable). I was sure that the world would end before I graduated High School.

Best Regards, Les

I thought that was a great movie. Scary but good.

 

[Rule3]

Saw something on TV recently about the nuclear waste material storage site on Eniwetok Atoll where something like 60 nuclear weapons tests were performed back in the 1950s. No one knows exactly what is stored there, or how much of it there is. It's in a huge in-ground circular tank several hundred feet across with a thick concrete lid. And the concrete is starting to crack.

Yep good old Govt thinking, Lets take some of the most pristine beautiful places in the World and test, store Nukes!

 

[les.b]

Yeah, you're right, it was a good movie; but given the atmosphere of the fifties...when I went to the Post Office, there were signs pointing to the bomb shelter in the basement, with the radiation symbol on them...just the whole "end of life as we know it" package, it was pretty grim at times.

And that was before the Cuban missle crisis!! Well, we made it. Funny thing is, that years later, visiting as a guest several times In Russia, meeting with ordinary Russians about my age, they assured me that they were going through the same thing back then. They thought that we were going to destroy them.

Best Regards, Les

 

[Lee Barner]

I loved Strategic Air Command(SAC)'s motto" Peace is our Profession, War is just a Hobby". lee

 

[Ron M.]

Read up on the Howard Hawk's movie...1956

The Conqueror, with John Wayne as Genghis Khan (there's a great visual there). Filmed near a nuclear test site. More deaths from cancer than the standard deviation would elicit. We had drills where we went under our desks...glad to know laminate would protect us back in the day...

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

If you go to Google Earth and search "Sedan Crater" you will see the largest crater ever made by a nuclear device in the US. It is adjacent to Groom Lake Road. Follow the road North and it will terminate at Area 51. I traveled that road many times in the '80's delivering liquid oxygen. The Sedan crater was awesome to see. The whole area is pock-marked with craters, but none come close in size to this one.

Sedan Crater - Wikipedia

 

[Mike0251]

Loring AFB Maine, B-52 SAC, 1st grade. Mandatory provisions in our GI housing. Everyday class practice hiding under your desk...lmao, like that would help. Same year, gym class, murder ball (good ole days), school announcement on the PA, President Kennedy assassinated. Sent everyone home. Mom and her girlfriends on the couch crying their eyes out with a bottle of whiskey. Never forgot that day.