These videos give a new look on what Atomic Detonations look like, that few men have ever sought eyes on. Earth simply lifted off the ground and turned into a radioactive tsunami of dust. A globe of pure light, exploding into an engine of devastation and death.
Most atomic tests (we are told) were declassified, but some remained classified. This is a glimpse into what may have been hidden. Angles that they felt, would shock the public into never backing Nuclear War.
The logic being, at a distance it looks small. Distant. Just like war should be, small and distant, an enemy dehumanized. But these angles were close. Too close. Close enough they feared, the public would reconsider firing a nuclear warhead at the Soviet Union, or vice versa, the public of the Soviet Union might not back a war with the United States; if they knew how horrifying the possibility such a mere instant sight was within the possibility of their own home.
Well, nearly 70 years later. Out of Los Alamos, tests ranging from the Pacific to restricted Nevada testing grounds; these shows of the ultimate power of destruction are declassified, laid bare, and shown.
When one thinks of a nuclear explosion, they often think of some distant thing because that is all we usually have to reference. This is what all of it would look like, were it you witnessing your final moments before everything you knew was gone.
The first of these declassified weapons tests recorded is one of Operation Dominic in a restricted zone in Kansas. At the height of Cold War tensions, Operation Dominic was something of a fireworks grand finale: A series of 31 tests conducted in 1962, done in rapid-fire succession. It was a response to the Soviet Union resuming their own tests once the 1958–1961 test moratorium ended. Some of the weapons were detonated mid-air over Christmas Island. It was not detonated under water, or on ground. This is a rare, eerie glimpse, at an explosion detonated in atmosphere.
A beautiful globe that would rain down deadly atomic radiation in waves on all below it, a fleeting second sun that would, unlike most nuclear explosions, not be the last thing you saw. Such a detonation would usually allow you the privilege to suffer.