The world has made great progress in developing nuclear energy in recent decades. It all started with World War II, and since then the world has crossed many milestones, making nuclear weapons more powerful.
When nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world witnessed the beginning of the atomic age. Extensive research and development efforts have subsequently been devoted to advancing these formidable capabilities. To assess the impact of nuclear weapons on humans, the US undertook an exceptionally daring experiment.
According to NPROn July 19, 1957, five Air Force officers and a photographer stood together on a plot of land about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They had marked the spot “Ground Zero, Population 5” on a handwritten sign hammered into the soft ground next to them. In a video from the time, two F-89 jets roar into view, and one of them fires a nuclear missile with a nuclear warhead.
The soldiers are waiting. There is a countdown; At 18,000 feet above them, the rocket explodes and explodes. Which means these men deliberately stood right under an exploding 2-kiloton nuclear bomb. One of them looks up at the key moment (he is wearing sunglasses).
Watch the video here:
According to Smithsonian Magazine“Those five guys were Colonel Sidney Bruce, Lieutenant Colonel Frank P Ball, Major Norman ‘Bodie’ Bodinger, Major John Hughes, Don Lutrel and George Yoshitake (the cameraman, not seen).”
According to Vice NewsAfter World War II, Britain, the USSR and the US detonated more than 2,000 atomic bombs. In Britain, 20,000 soldiers witnessed atomic explosions carried out by their own government. Only a few of them are still alive, and the nuclear flare of the mushroom cloud they witnessed still haunts them. “Nuclear detonations were the defining point of my life,” Douglas Hern, a British soldier who witnessed five nuclear bomb tests, told Motherboard.
“When the flash hit you, you could see the X-rays of your hands through your closed eyes,” he said. “Then the heat hit you, and it was like someone my size caught fire and walked through me. It was an otherworldly experience. It was so strange. There were guys with bruises and broken legs. We couldn’t believe it. To say it was scary is an understatement. I think it silenced us all.”