Operation Upshot-Knothole ANNIE nuclear test, 1953

Posted by Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/blog/2012/0...

Atomic bomb test ANNIE, March 17, 1953. This footage is interesting because the audio is more or less unedited. The timing between seeing the explosion and hearing the blast wave is off by a few seconds, which is how it would be in reality for an observer at that distance (because light travels much faster than sound). All together the audio is great here, so put on some headphones and experience it as if you were actually there.

"In an effort to calm public fears about weapons testing, Annie was an "open shot" -- civilian reporters were permitted to view it from News Nob, 11 kilometers south of the shot-tower. Annie was a weapon development test, it was an experimental device (code named XR3) that provided additional information to normalize the yield-vs-initiation time curve. It was a Mk-5 HE assembly using a Type D pit, and used a betatron for external initiation (the third such test). Total device weight was 2700 lb, predicted yield was 15-20 kt." (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/T...)

Video source: US National Archives (http://research.archives.gov/descript...), created by the US Department of Defense (public domain). I have trimmed off some less interesting footage from the original (an interview with a general, some helicopters) as well as a second of the beginning of the tape.

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  Science & Technology

[RestrictedData]

So the UFO comments are pretty silly, but they did get me to focus on that handful of white lights you see rising shortly before the bomb goes off (2:15). I am pretty sure those are flares — they are putting up straight lines of smoke which will show the propagation of the blast wave (the "lightning" at 2:31). Google "Smoke trails and nuclear tests" for a full explanation. I hadn't noticed that originally, I'm not sure I've ever seen one where you can so clearly see the flare rockets launching.

[orbiter55]

Thank you sir for posting a polite and useful response to the odd arial phenomena observed before the blast. Though I do take issue with the word "silly" as I feel the UFO subject as well as the nuclear testing subject are both very interesting and very serious in nature and implication. I followed your link to the flares and and found it highly informative and convincing (2:15) but inadequate as an explanation for all the lights seen (1:53 etc). Anyway, kudos on a great blog and this video.

[RestrictedData]

I just think it's silly to immediately assume everything odd you see on old video is a flying saucer. I don't know what thse early lights are, but given the poor quality of the footage and the context (they are probably just lights illuminating the test site or target, and their apparent "movement" is clearly because the camera is panning), I don't see any reason to assume they are anything unusual. One shouldn't jump to the far-out interpretations before first ruling out the banal ones.

[jbcola74]

The sound at 2:23 ? is this due to EMP interacting with the microphone?

[RestrictedData]

That seems actually quite plausible. It's exactly coincidental with the blast and sounds somewhat like I'd expect a magnetic field to sound like going through a microphone receiver.

[intrptr]

Very interesting the duration of the flash. Heat building upon heat...

[puncheex2]

This was the first televised live atomic blast. The TV cameras (using orthocon technology) were monsters, monochrome, photographically "slow" and not very sensitive. They were designed to be used in a studio with controlled lighting, they don't do so well outdoors. The hour is just before dawn (5:20 local) in the winter (March 13) Nevada desert. Most shows were shunted right onto the network and weren't recorded (a very expensive, new technology). This one was apparently committed to film.

[puncheex2]

If you look at any depiction of the Grable(atomic cannon) test, you'll see white a black smoke around the area before the explosion, and afterwards. These are tests of the effectiveness of the two kinds of smoke to defend an area against the thermal spike. They both proved to help against the thermal pulse.

[MichaelSephiroth]

Exactly, if you see, same as in the commonly known as "Atomic Cannon" test, they are sent at exact distances from eachother in a straight line starting from the radius the explosion should hit. By what I was told, they are also leaving a different trail of certain gas materials to test their effects in front of a nuke, not just for measurements of the blast.

[puncheex2]

Those are the rockets that leave all the vertical smoke trails everyone comments on in all the atom bomb tests. The smoke trails shift as the shockwave in the air passes them, and leave a visible record of teh shockwave through the air. They are fired a t-6 seconds.

[bhermit29]

I am from the future and I can assure you are correct about the flares, additionally they leave dense smoke trails in the pattern of lightning.

[Conorscorner]

My dad's family lived in parowan which is like 15 miles north of st. George, they:re all dead now from a very rare lung disease

[Jim Gregg]

There's a metafilter post linking here today January 26, 2013 10:31 AM. Two of the comments there: 1) "[EMP is] a brief enough phenomenon that it would have been a pop on the audio channel, not an extended outage." 2) "The buzzing sound right at the blast seems like an overexposed image bleeding into the optical audio track along the edge of the film."