March 16, 2017

5 Terrifying Nuke Videos That Were Kept Secret for Decades—With Good Reason

As Donald Trump says, “nuclear is just the power.”

Filming a 1955 nuclear explosion at the Nevada Test Site Wikimedia Commons

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

 

This week, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory released a batch of unclassified films of above-ground nuclear tests conducted by the United States between 1945 and 1962. So far, it’s posted more than 60 clips on YouTube. More are coming: The federal lab has scanned more than 4,000 of these aging high-speed films and declassified 750. The footage is mesmerizing and terrifying. National security may not have been the only reason they were kept secret. 

The effort to locate, review, and preserve the films is not entirely archival. “The legacy that I’d like to leave behind is a set of benchmark data that can be used by future weapon physicists to make sure that our codes are correct so that the US remains prepared,” said Greg Spriggs, a weapon physicist at the Northern California lab who is overseeing the project. Though he added that he hopes atomic weapons will never be used again, his data probably will help refine our nuclear capabilities in preparation for the day when they might be used. The United States still spends more than $50 billion annually to maintain its nuclear arsenal and is producing a new generation of customizable bombs that are expected to cost more than $1 trillion.

President Donald Trump has said that he wants to expand the United States’ nuclear arsenal, breaking with decades of bipartisan policies aimed at reducing the global nuclear threat. He has also spoken fatalistically, if semi-coherently, about nuclear weapons. “For me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me,” he said during a Republican debate in 2016. Shortly after Trump took office, the keepers of the Doomsday Clock set it at two minutes to midnight—right where it was put in 1952 after the development of the hydrogen bomb.

Even if you’re familiar with the frightening and beautiful images of nuclear explosions, these newly unearthed videos are a sobering reminder of the world-altering power we have spent decades perfecting—and have entrusted to a single person. Grab your Bhagavad Gita and take a look.

 

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate