40 Years Ago, the US Lost a Nuclear Bomb 470
Hugh Pickens writes "A BBC investigation has found that in 1968 the US abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland after a nuclear-armed B52 crashed on the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base. The Stratofortress disintegrated on impact with the sea ice and parts of it began to melt through to the fjord below. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated without setting off the nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been 'destroyed' and while technically true, investigators piecing together fragments from the crash could only account for three of the weapons. Investigators found that 'something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.' A subsequent search by a US submarine was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the search was abandoned. 'There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components,' said a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. 'It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them.'"
Report to Number 1 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Report to Number 1 (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Mr cthulu_mt,
It is my duty to inform you that you have violated the Slashdot Users Union rule 34 part c which states in part that the Redundant moderation tag shall be used in cases where the obvious joke is obvious to the Slashdot community and therefore redundant. I hope that this clears up any confusion your part.
Thank you
Chester C Chester,
Director
Department of Redundancies Department
24 episode (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I can turn off the annoying 24h clock IRL.
*di-dunk* *di-dunk* *di-dunk*
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, life imitates art. 24 is about 35 years too young for it to be vice versa.
Actually it is vice-versa in this case, or I just came down with a bad case of dyslexia.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Only if Jack ties the suspect to a chair and forces him to watch Jack torture his wife and children.
Re:24 episode (Score:5, Funny)
I don't like how dark Jack has become. He shouldn't even by a U.S. employee anymore with the tactics he uses.
I prefer the early seasons when Jack was still a decent human being.
Re:24 episode (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, if you had to work all those 24-hour shifts, you'd be pretty cranky too.
Broken Arrow? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Broken Arrow? (Score:5, Funny)
Just send in Christian Slater to recover it. It'll only take him a few hours, with the additional bonus that movie footage of the recovery mission will make for a great action movie once the evil John Travolta tries to steal it.
Hey, cut John Travolta some slack. He just wants to get his hands on a thermonuclear weapon so he can give Xenu a taste of his own medicine.
Greenland eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Wonder if Sarah Palin can see it from her house.
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Not really, moreover I think this is the time to make Palin jokes, previously all Palin said scared the hell out of me, but now we all can fully appreciate her stupidity.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
She's going to run for President in the future. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Oh, stop the fear-mongering, someone who is that stupid would never be able to win 270 electoral vot..... oh, fuck.
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Considering people are still saying Al Gore created the Internet, I don't think it will be over for awhile.
I laughed at Colbert's version: because of the International Date Line, not only can she see Russia, she can *see into the Future!*.
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not over if she keeps talking...
Appearing on Fox News Channel's "On the Record" last night, Palin told ...brig
Greta Van Susteren, "If there is an open door in 2012 or four years later,
and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my
state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that
door."
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
she strikes me as not someone just from a small town, but someone who is small-minded.
As if those two were somehow mutually exclusive? She is small-minded BECAUSE she is from a small town. Welcome to America (or at least the part that doesn't live in a city).
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with Palin is she chose to stay in that environment, as do most small-minded, small-towned people, because they see nothing wrong with it. You have more foresight than most in that environment. You said it best, "there are people like me that are from small towns that are not small-minded".
I hope you appreciate the irony of dismissing entire populations as "small-minded". Do you have anything other than stereotypes to back this up? I've lived in both large (New York City) and small (Guilford, NY -- look it up) towns and I've come across my share of small and large minded people in both.
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, in my experience, the ones from small towns are more likely to be open-minded. People who live in big cities tend to think that they are living at the apex of humanity, that they and their environment are the best, and that people in small towns don't know jack. Not all people in big cities are like this, of course, but my experience is that there's proportionately more of them than there are similarly close-minded people in small towns. Lots of people in small towns are aware of the wider world, enjoy the opportunity to visit other places including big cities, but simply don't live there for various legitimate reasons.
Palin, of course, is not one of these open-minded small town people. But she is the way she is because that's who she is, not because of where she lives. She'd be just as much of a clueless asshole if she had grown up in New York City.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, I dunno. Don't you think she wore this outfit both then and now? [Somewhat adult URL below]
http://www.topcosales.us/product_detail.asp?PID=0231-7 [topcosales.us]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's not an "acceptable" shortened name, especially outside the US (I know that may be hard to imagine), but it is one that is used. And I often hear "American," "Americas" used to refer to the continents.
Anyway, I'm not being pedantic. I'm making a sly comment about Palin being criticized for calling Africa a country, when that's very similar to calling US "America." The problem here is that no one has a sense of humour. Damn uptight Usonians!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Look up "Estadounidense" in Google.
The word did catch up in the rest of the continent.
Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)
From a unnamed news source:
Hey, 50 years ago, they lost one, too! (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tybee_Bomb [wikipedia.org]
And it's far more conveniently located (somewhere off the coast of Georgia). No need to go diving somewhere in the Arctic!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Or the Broken Arrow incident in North Carolina.
http://www.ibiblio.org/bomb/ [ibiblio.org]
Re:Hey, 50 years ago, they lost one, too! (Score:5, Informative)
There's also the Palomares incident,
Well, they eventually accounted for all of the bombs. The guy who claimed salvage rights ... well, that's pretty fscking brilliant.
Re:Hey, 50 years ago, they lost one, too! (Score:5, Informative)
Quite a few nuclear weapons have been lost over the years.
Re:Hey, 50 years ago, they lost one, too! (Score:5, Informative)
And one in BC, Canada in 1950, although there was no plutonium in that core. http://www.user.dccnet.com/welcomewoods/Nuclear_Free_Georgia_Strait/b_arrow1.html [dccnet.com]
Re:Hey, 50 years ago, they lost one, too! (Score:5, Funny)
From Wikipedia:
The 12-foot (4 m) long Mark 15 bomb weighs 7,600 pounds (3,500 kg) and bears the serial number "No. 47782".
I thought I'd gotten lucky, but the one I found had the serial number "No. 47783". Damn.
Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:4, Funny)
This sort of national irresponsibility needs to stop, right now.
I realise these events happened a little while ago now but nonetheless just what the hell did the USA think it was doing flying nuclear bombs around outside their own borders in the first place, this was, it can now be seen, a completely indefensible and irrepsonsible course of action and one for which the USA should now make a full apology.
The best course of action now is for the USA to hand over full documentation of the accident to a responsible and trustworthy country, France for example, and let them conduct an investigation to first of all try and find this nuclear timebomb and second of all to assign blame and set up the process for trying those who are guilty and punishing them appropriately.
Now the USA is at least out of the hands of the mad cowboy and we've good reason to hope Obamas administration will behave far more honourably we can hope their will be no repeats of this disaster but nonetheless until we in the rest of the civilised world can be sure of that the EU should impose regular nuclear inspections on the USA just to double check the same terrible mistakes are not being made today.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"Completely indefensible and irresponsible?" Those nuclear bombs stationed outside US borders (and the US nuclear stockpile in general) were probably the only thing keeping the Soviets from rolling their tanks all the way to Paris. And if you think US imperialism is bad, try living under the Soviet version.
The US (USAF?) does need a major overhaul of its nuclear handling policies; this crap would've never flown under SAC. You can pin that one on Clinton, and it's certainly stupid to blame this particula
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Ooops, forgot... when I blame Clinton, it's for eliminating SAC and starting the ball rolling the latest incidents (live warheads flown on bombers without knowledge, missile crews asleep, etc.). Obviously he's not responsible for this particular incident, either.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Funny)
The US (USAF?) does need a major overhaul of its nuclear handling policies; this crap would've never flown under SAC. You can pin that one on Clinton,
Yes, because everybody knows Clinton was in power in 1968.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Funny)
Don't be so quick to dismiss this, after all Obama was involved with a terrorist group back in the '60s.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sure the drugs made him feel like he was in power.
Not likely -- he didn't inhale, remember?
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Interesting)
Those nuclear bombs stationed outside US borders (and the US nuclear stockpile in general) were probably the only thing keeping the Soviets from rolling their tanks all the way to Paris. And if you think US imperialism is bad, try living under the Soviet version.
- you may believe this, but this is just a bunch of propaganda that was pushed into the throats of the US citizens to make sure they shut the fuck up and only cheer as the US pushed their weaponry into every possible hole in the world.
Stalin was a maniac, that can be said with certainty, however after his death the USSR quickly got away from the idea of 'spreading the communism' onto the rest of the world and just tried to survive in its own planned economy. It was already the biggest country in the world (even now Russia is almost twice as large as the next contender, Canada) and holding onto that territory with hundreds of nations living on it was a challenge in itself, adding more territory with people who had completely different mentality would not work and it was understood.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Informative)
Stalin was a maniac, that can be said with certainty, however after his death the USSR quickly got away from the idea of 'spreading the communism' onto the rest of the world and just tried to survive in its own planned economy
... while continuing to occupy Eastern Europe and crushing any attempts by those countries to leave the orbit of Mother Russia.
Fixed that for you.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:4, Interesting)
But you are just confirming my statement. After the death of Stalin there was no new conquests, no new territories. Afghanistan was an attempt at showing off, also an attempt to stop the inflow of drugs into the 3 USSR republics bordering it. The same cannot be said about the USA that was and still is in constant state of war. USA was and is the main international aggressor for the past 60 years, whether the US people understand this or not, they should try and look at their own country the way the rest of the world sees it from the outside.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
But you are just confirming my statement. After the death of Stalin there was no new conquests, no new territories
I'm sure you'd find that comforting if you lived in Poland or Hungary during the Cold War.
Afghanistan was an attempt at showing off, also an attempt to stop the inflow of drugs into the 3 USSR republics bordering it
Wait a minute, you are rationalizing the USSR's intervention in Afghanistan because of the drug trade? So by your logic the US was well within our rights to intervene in Panama in 1989 (Operation Just Cause), right?
USA was and is the main international aggressor for the past 60 years
The US engaged in a number of questionable activities during the Cold War, mostly due to the perceived threat of Communism. It's a bit of a leap to say that the US was the "main international aggressor" though and I find it pretty troubling that you can rationalize aggression by the USSR but condemn it when done by the United States.
Your arguments aren't consistent with each other and it seems to me that you are more interested in condemning the United States than in having an honest dialog about the military history of the 20th century.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Informative)
Really? The "main international aggressor for the past 60 years"?
Yeah. I can't think of a single [wikipedia.org] instance [wikipedia.org] of any [wikipedia.org] other [wikipedia.org] nation [wikipedia.org] doing [wikipedia.org] anything [wikipedia.org] aggressive [wikipedia.org] over [wikipedia.org] the [wikipedia.org] past [wikipedia.org] sixty [wikipedia.org] years [wikipedia.org].
And we all know about those massive amounts of territory the US has added to its borders since 1948.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah.
Korea 1950
Hungary 1956
Vietname 1965
Israel 1967
Czechoslovakia 1968
Afghanistan 1979
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they invaded Afghanistan because they knew if they didn't a bunch of religious nutbars would take over. That was the only thing keeping the fundamentalist terrorists in check.
Of course the Regan administration saw this as 'godless commies repressing religious freedom' and started training and passing arms to the Afghan rebels to fight the communists. Russia eventually saw this as an unwinnable war and pulled out.
That provided the path for the religious nutbars to take over Afghanistan which brings us to the modern day mess we have there.
Good job Republicans!
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes Carter started it, but it was mainly a CIA operation. It took Reagan to dramatically increase funding and US involvement:
From http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_CIA_Taliban.html [thirdworldtraveler.com]
In March 1985, the Reagan administration issued National Security Decision Directive 166,29 a secret plan to escalate covert action in Afghanistan dramatically: Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers....
...
By 1987, the annual supply of arms had reached 65,000 tons, and a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon officials were visiting Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Rawalpindi and helping to plan mujahideen operations
...
As well as training and recruiting Afghan nationals to fight the Soviets, the CIA permitted its ISI allies to recruit Muslim extremists from around the world. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid reports: Between 1982 and 1992, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East would pass their baptism under fire with the Afghan mujahideen. Tens of thousands more foreign Muslim radicals came to study in the hundreds of new madrassas [religious schools] that Zia's military government began to fund in Pakistan and along the Afghan border. Eventually more than 100,000 Muslim radicals were to have direct contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan and be influenced by the jihad [against the USSR]
Like I said - Good job Republicans!
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:4, Informative)
Like I said - Good job Republicans!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wilson_(politician) [wikipedia.org]
Charles Nesbitt Wilson (born June 1, 1933), is a former United States naval officer and former Democratic United States Representative from the 2nd congressional district in Texas.
He is best known for leading Congress into supporting the largest-ever CIA covert operation, which supplied the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan after the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan took over during the Afghan Civil War and asked the Soviet Union to help suppress resistance from Mujahideen.
Good job Republicans at the behest of a Democratic congressman ...
Re: (Score:3)
Sure .. watch the movie "Charlie Wilson's War"
Good job Republicans at the behest of a Democratic congressman
Yea, but he was from Texas - there are no real Democrats from Texas..
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Eisenhower and Truman were two of our greatest presidents. A Republican and a Democrat.
Bush Jr and Carter have been two of our worst presidents. A Republican and a Democrat.
Thomas Jefferson was one of our greatets politicians and presidents. A Democratic-Republican (Holy shit! Both letters!?)
Can we please get over this party line bullshit now?
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
So when Russia invades a country to keep "religious nutbars" in check, it's okay?
So when the US creates problem like Afghanistan, Iran-Iraq, Bin Laden, etc. through crappy foreign policy, then has to go in and kill more people to clean up the first mess, that's ok?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Leaving it alone as a failed state that harbors terrorists who want to kill American citizens doesn't seem like a good alternative.
You're missing the point. It was the CIA led initiatives that CREATED the terrorists in the first place. The fundamentalists were there before, but it took the US to actually organize them, train them, fund them and give them weapons and resources that they would never have received on their own.
Before the US got involved, they were tribal, fighting with rifles on horseback. Do you really think they were a threat to the US like that?
Re: (Score:2)
It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them
That really reassures me because, there is no way a madman/terrorist/rouge leader, who has no nuclear warheads, would be more determined than the US ,that has plenty, to find it.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"just what the hell did the USA think it was doing flying nuclear bombs around outside their own borders in the first place"
Whilst I agree it doesn't seem right, it's not a lot different from some other defence strategies. Us Brits, IIRC, have a number of nuclear submarines out and about around the world at any one time. This is for MAD purposes. You may learn where our nuclear bases are and take them out in the same nuking run as you take our cities.
But if we have subs with ICBMs on random paths through th
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Informative)
"to a responsible and trustworthy country, France for example"
I actually find myself speechless...
France being the #4 arms exporter (if you exclude the EU as a whole) in the world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_exporters [wikipedia.org]
Yeah, and France's rather recent history of illegal underwater testing of nuclear weapons, the reason for the huge zone of floating dead animals in the South Pacific, also doesn't speak well of them here.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah sure, forget your founding fathers. Land of the free eh?
Some of the Founding Fathers advocated for a non-interventionist foreign policy free of "entanglements" (Washington). Others (Jefferson) were in favor of an interventionist foreign policy. Trying to paint all of the founding fathers with one broad brush stroke is a mistake.
See, the USA claims it is different, either it lives up to that, or many will ridecule it.
Every Great Power has claimed that it's "different". An objective reading of history will uncover hypocrisy on the part of nearly every nation on this planet, including yours I'd suspect. Are you really that surprised that the United States also engages in it?
War in the rest of the world meant that that trade was being endangered. Sea warfare made it difficult, dangerous and expensive to transport anything anywhere, and as a consequence, the USA had a direct reason to get involved.
I'm sure that was a contributory factor. The sinking of American ships on the high seas and Zimmerman telegram also had something to do with it.
At any rate, to come back to your initial argument that all world powers do it, keep in mind that all world powers also find out at some point that its not true. Usually that comes together with their decline, and often their destruction.
All powers eventually decline. Personally I wouldn't mind seeing my country decline a little bit and focus on the home front instead of the globe. I would want to see another Democracy come forward and assume our place in the World first though -- since that doesn't appear too likely in the next few decades I think we'll have to resign ourselves to our respective roles in the World. You may not like it but ask yourself if you'd really be happier seeing China or Russia in our place.
A matter of time. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
you still believe in Santa too?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
what?! santa claus is not real??
Re:A matter of time. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A matter of time. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah because no one is going to notice a bunch of middle eastern men running around Thule Airbase drilling holes in the ice?
Also considering how much alcohol they consume up there any extremists are going to have a real hard time keeping their cover.
Experimental nuclear waste storage? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps this can somehow be used to demonstrate that nuclear waste can be safely disposed of in the ocean floor? There have been serious proposals for disposing of waste in holes drilled hundreds of feet beneath the seabed in especially deep water.
I know this is unpopular with the anti-nuclear crowd, but a "real demo" may provide useful data.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't need to drill -- just find soft seafloor and shape the waste to imbed itself into the ground.
The major technical problem is that a few decades down the road, you might want to reuse the waste. Sea floor retrieval is slightly more problematic.
Re:Experimental nuclear waste storage? (Score:5, Informative)
Thermonuclear bombs are composed of a small amount of mildly radioactive uranium-235 and tritium, and larger amounts of minimally radioactive uranium-238 and stable lithium deuteride. The fission products that make up the most dangerous form of radioactive waste are far more dangerous, so this bomb would not provide much useful data about waste disposal.
In any event we don't really need more research. We already know that the best solution is to put it in a geologically stable and dry mountain.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, the best solution for dealing with highly radioactive nuclear waste is to burn it in a modern reactor design until we've extracted nearly all of the energy from it. The remainder is much lower volume, much less radioactive, and has a much shorter halflife. After a few hundred years, it'd be no more radioactive than the ground, so it'd be ok if it got out of storage and was sprinkled around at that point.
The reactors we currently use in the US are kind of like filling your car's tank with gas, driving a
Re:Experimental nuclear waste storage? (Score:5, Funny)
Nobody wants Godzilla showing up in 50 years.
It's just too terrifying a possibility.
Especially if there's a commercial tie-in & jingle.
The six-step plan (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The six-step plan (Score:5, Funny)
- You'll probably need an inside man in the Air Force. Expect to surgically alter his cornea so that he will pass the retinal scan during the re-jiggering of the aircraft payload orders.
- A one-time payment of $500B is nice, but will only finance SPECTRE operations for a short while, even with proper investment. Consider using the weapon directly. Igniting the arabian oil fields would cause irreparable damage to any country not properly prepared. That would be worth well more than $500B, and would be considered continuous revenue. Consider a project code name invoking Allah, but don't be too obvious.
- Should you encounter a British or US secret agent, politely invite him to lunch on your yacht. He will undoubtedly express interest in a tour, which should culminate with a demo of the ship's control center. At that point, put a bullet in his head. None of your hand-picked crew will think any less of you.
Did Denmark know or not? (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the BBC articles maintains that the US did not tell Denmark about both the nuclear bombs used in Chrome Dome missions, and the fact that they lost one.
Greenland is a self-governing province of Denmark but the carrying of nuclear weapons over Danish territory was kept secret.
But the real purpose of this search was deliberately hidden from Danish officials.
One document from July reads: "Fact that this operation includes search for object or missing weapon part is to be treated as confidential NOFORN", the last word meaning not to be disclosed to any foreign country.
The other article says:
Denmark did not co-operate with the parliament's petitions committee, and is still refusing to release key environmental radiation records made of Thule at the time.
The Danish government had always denied that nuclear-armed US planes were flying over Danish-controlled Greenland - until the crash occurred.
And according to Ms Wallis, it is still trying to brush a difficult issue under the carpet.
Which at least implies that the Danish government knew but was trying to keep a lid on it.
So which is it?
wow (Score:2)
Damn, Greenland is cold!
Meh. (Score:4, Informative)
Chances are the device was no longer operational after the crash. And, if they are correct that "The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated", then the device is probably in a large number of very small pieces.
Double meh (Score:3, Insightful)
Why worry about a lost bomb which a first world nation can't get to without a major national project. First world nations don't need lost bombs to achieve nuclear capability.
You worry about nuclear material when it can be had for a case of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka by any idiot with a truck to cart it away. Though the seabed makes for a much better movie plot.
Not the only one (Score:5, Informative)
In 1966, a nuclear armed B52 crashed [google.ca] over Palomares Spain, scattering radioactive material from multiple bombs, each 100 times more powerful than those which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Atmospheric Testing (Score:4, Interesting)
In my opinion, these accidental releases of radioactive material pale in comparison
to the atmospheric tests the US used to do before it was
banned [wikipedia.org] in 1963.
Here are some of the tests [vt.edu].
more losses (Score:5, Interesting)
Famous Last words. (Score:4, Funny)
I'll take famous last words for $1000, Alex...
Also highly amused the quote at the bottom of the page is from Stanley Kubrick, director of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.
Reminded me of this (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=297#more-297 [damninteresting.com]
Another amazing history of WWII era relics trapped under the ice (but they got them back!)
Not that rare, unfortunately (Score:5, Informative)
This doesn't count those that were recovered in sometimes very expensive operations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palomares_hydrogen_bombs_incident [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Have a cite for the 92 number? The usual number given is a fraction of that, 11.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Have a cite for the 92 number? The usual number given is a fraction of that, 11.
I'm sorry, I mixed up "known lost bombs" and "US bombs" - the 92 includes (a lot of) sowjet ones:
http://www.genecurtis.com/LostNuclearBombs.htm [genecurtis.com]
It probably is more than 11 though, don't confuse "number of incidents" with "number of warheads",
one of the acronyms to look up here is MIRV [wikipedia.org].
it's ok (Score:4, Funny)
Still alive == not poisoned (Score:3, Insightful)
Another Lost Nuke (Score:3, Interesting)
We lost a family member in 1962 whose body, nor aircraft, nor the nuclear weapons on board were never recovered.
In the past few years there is some news that some pilots who went down in the Pacific were captured by Soviet patrols. That leaves it as an unknown whether our family member survived as well as unknown as to whether his plane or the weapons on board were recovered by the Soviets or other nations. Odds are that our family member perished immediately. We will never know for certain.
Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The US Military couldn't find that lost nuke because I already salvaged it and will use the components to build something far more dangerous than a conventional nuclear bomb.
With this device I will have leaders the world over cower in abject terror as I take command of the world throgh them.
Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?
Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Interesting)
Link [mentalfloss.com] The one under the wetlands in NC is probably the most recoverable. All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure. A separate article I can't dig up right now tells the story of the guy that found it (recently, within the last 10 years). He was able to deduce the location by taking and graphing hundreds (thousands?) of radiation measurements. He wrote the air force and they said "No, it's fine where it is."
Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Funny)
All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure.
My god... the terrorists could get it! They're already experts in sand!
Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Interesting)
All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure.
That would seem to be fairly simple to do now - modern mining techniques will freeze surrounding soft soil with liquid CO2 or N2, then they can dig a tunnel through the now solid soil.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So, where is it? (Score:5, Funny)
Nonsense.
But, of course, this means that Greenland possesses WMDs and must be destroyed.
Re:So, where is it? (Score:5, Funny)
And AGAIN the US knows this because they left them there themselves ;).
Yes ! Bring good old Democracy to them ! (Score:5, Funny)
And while we are at it, why not liberate democratically some oil [wikipedia.org] ?
Population density (Score:4, Funny)
Kill everyone and just take the oil.
Well, at least that part is going to be easier in Greenland [google.ch] ...
Re:Trailer to a movie? (Score:5, Informative)
The capital is "nuuk", which would be pretty fitting.
Re:Trailer to a movie? (Score:5, Funny)
Gjordzilla??
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's Fjordzilla, you insensitive clod!
Re:Rouge Nations (Score:4, Funny)
Rouge [wikipedia.org]?
Yes, yes, I know I'm going to get -1 Redundant on this but...
There they stand, redfaced.
I think you'll find... (Score:3, Funny)
...that the US is actually now a bleu nation not a rouge nation.