Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

August 27, 1958: over the South Atlantic Ocean, the United States secretly conducted the first of three high-altitude nuclear weapon tests in a series codenamed Operation Argus. These were the only clandestine US atmospheric nuclear weapon tests. Argus sought to determine if artificial radiation belts created a military advantage by degrading radio/radar transmissions, damaging satellites, and damaging or destroying ICBM arming and fuzing mechanisms. Argus II and Argus III took place on Aug. 30 and Sept. 6, respectively.



Coordinated by the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, modified Lockheed X-17A rockets launched from the USS Norton Sound (AVM-1) about 1,100 miles southwest of Cape Town, South Africa, carried 1.7-kiloton W25 warheads high into the upper atmosphere.


Operation ARGUS, Report of Chief, AFSWP, to ARPA (1 hr sanitized video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe4UZK3_FiU


Vid description:

DTRA's history begins with the Manhattan Project, which then split into the Atomic Energy Commission and the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project after WWII. The AFSWP became the Defense Atomic Support Agency in 1959; DASA became the Defense Nuclear Agency in 1971; DNA became the Defense Special Weapons Agency in 1996, and was one of the four agencies/programs that combined in 1998 to form the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. This film is about Operation Argus, a series of three high-altitude nuclear tests conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission in the South Atlantic Ocean in August and September 1958. The results of Operation Argus proved the validity of the Christofilos theory.

This theory proposed that a radiation belt is created in the upper regions of the Earth’s atmosphere by high-altitude detonations. The radiation belt affects radio and radar transmissions, damages or destroys the arming and fuzing mechanisms of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile warheads, and endangers crews of orbiting space vehicles that might enter the belt.

The tests, conducted in complete secrecy, were not announced until the following year. Low-yield devices were carried to an altitude of approximately 300 miles by rockets before being detonated.

More than 4,500 military personnel and civilian scientists participated in the test operation.

The tests comprising 1958 Operation Argus were as follows:

• ARGUS I, August 27, South 38.5 degrees, West 11.5 degrees, South Atlantic, rocket, weapons effects, 1-2 kt
  
• ARGUS II, August 30, South 49.5 degrees, West 8.2 degrees, South Atlantic, rocket, weapons effects, 1-2 kt
  
• ARGUS III, September 6, South 48.5 degrees, West 9.7 degrees, South Atlantic, rocket, weapons effects, 1-2 kt
  

Short clip (narrated by William Shatner) of declassified footage of Operation Argus aboard the guided-missile ship USS Norton Sound (AVM-1), one of nine ships carrying a total of about 4,500 personnel involved in Task Force 88:



Operation Argus was conceived and executed in just five months in order to complete it before a multilateral moratorium on atmospheric nuclear testing began on October 31, 1958 (so-called good-faith gesture accompanied by the start of US-UK-Soviet negotiations on a nuclear test ban).


For more on Operation Argus, which was spurred by fears raised by the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik the previous October, see Mark Wolverton’s 2018 book, "Burning the Sky: Operation Argus and the Untold Story of the Cold War Nuclear Tests in Outer Space."



Shorter version, this article excerpt adapted from his book about how the top secret experiment was finally revealed on March 19, 1959, by the New York Times (with the quiet assent of the Eisenhower administration)


How the World Learned About the Pentagon’s Sky-High Nuclear Testing

We didn't really begin to grasp the nature and problem of EMP until a series of high-altitude tests over the Pacific Ocean three years later, in 1962.


CIVIL DEFENSE - A GRIM FAIRY TALE (1961) from Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).



Yes, they're still quite active... Open Letter: WILPF Stands Against Radioactive Water Release from Fukushima Daiichi


August 27, 479 BCE: The Greek warriors annihilated and put an end to Persian ambitions at the Battle of Plataea. Greatly outnumbered, the Greek forces totaled 39,000 warriors while the Persian army under the command of King Xerxes I boasted 110,000. Despite being outnumbered the Greek hoplites' superior armor and tactics helped them withstand the Persian onslaught.

This ferocious battle was the final clash of the second Persian invasion of Greece with the victory of the allied Greek forces putting a final end to the Persian empire’s expansion.




August 27, 1883: Krakatoa in Indonesia erupted in four explosions, releasing energy comparable to 200 megatons of TNT. The sound traveled 3,100 miles, the pressure wave circled the earth 3 times and is considered the loudest sound in recorded history. It resulted in tsunamis and climate effects, including distinct sunsets, blue moons, and others that persisted for years.




August 27, 1896: Anglo-Zanzibar War, the Royal Navy bombarded Stone Town and sank the only ship in the Zanzibar Navy after Sultan Khalid bin Barghash rebelled against British rule. The Sultan surrendered 38 minutes after the conflict began, making the Anglo-Zanzibar War the shortest war in history. The sultan's forces sustained roughly 500 casualties, while only one British sailor was injured. Sultan Khalid received asylum in the German consulate before escaping to German East Africa (in the mainland part of present Tanzania). The British quickly placed Sultan Hamoud in power at the head of a puppet government. The war marked the end of the Zanzibar Sultanate as a sovereign state and the start of a period of heavy British influence.




The infamous Osprey claims more Marines...


Osprey Down






"When you are seventy years old and look back at what your life has meant, you will not focus on your solo activities. What you will remember are the incidents of touching, those times when your life was enriched by a moment of sharing with a friend or loved one. It is our mutual awareness of this miracle called life that allows us to accept our mortality."
— Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee, "Cradle," 1988