Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Born Feb 28, 1921, Wayland Spencer Eberhardt, the NORAD teletype operator who mistakenly transmitted a *real* emergency EBS message in 1971. He was a World War II veteran who loved dogs. His 1996 death notice invited memorial contributions to Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, Colorado.






Would ANYONE survive? Asked the Daily Mirror in their November 1980 SHOCK Doctrine issue on nuclear war - complete with a mocked-up mushroom cloud over Central London, viewed from 12 miles away.



They’ve got a funny idea on location of Southampton. I guess that's where it would be after the Kaboom.


55 years ago tomorrow (sort of) February 29, 1968 at the Nevada Test Site, the US conducted DORSAL FIN, (part of "Operation Crosstie") its only Leap Day nuclear test. A joint Los Alamos-DOD underground tunnel weapons effects test, the yield was less than 20 kilotons. Below is a participation certificate:



In addition to its devastating real-world impacts, the calamitous 1954 Castle BRAVO test also quickly influenced popular culture in Japan and around the world by spawning one of the greatest (and certainly most durable) Atomic lizard movie monsters of all time: Gojira/Godzilla.




For more on the design, purpose, disastrous consequences for human health beyond imagination and the environment of the 'unexpectedly' massive Castle BRAVO test on March 1, 1954 (The detonation took place at 06:45 on March 1, 1954, local time (18:45 on February 28 GMT) of the first deliverable US thermonuclear bomb, read this 2014 post

In fact, the 6 large tests in the Castle series—BRAVO (15Mt), ROMEO (11Mt), KOON (110kt), UNION (6.9MT), YANKEE (13.5Mt), and NECTAR (1.69Mt) together created fallout hot spots not just in/around the Marshall Islands, but as far away as Mexico City and Sri Lanka!

For more on the literal fallout, the animation shows the radioactive cloud at 1 to 18 hours after the blast — see Castle Bravo revisited

Here is a short overview of the purpose, preparation for, and aftermath of the BRAVO thermonuclear bomb test (excerpted from AtomCentral’s 1995 documentary "Trinity & Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie":



^^^ You'll recognize the narrator and pinch yourself that this was not a movie.

BRAVO’s mushroom cloud rose to 50,000 ft within 1 minute and 100,000 ft after 3 minutes. By 6 minutes, the cloud top peaked at 130,000 ft (the bottom rose above 55,000 ft), and 8 minutes after detonation it had attained its max. diameter of 328,000 ft (62 miles/100 Km), with a stem 23,000 ft wide.

Here is footage of the rapidly expanding radioactive mushroom cloud taken from the air above Bikini Atoll that morning:



The device’s designers at Los Alamos had predicted a yield of 6 Megatons, 250% lower than the actual yield. Why? They assumed that only the lithium-6 isotope in the secondary stage would produce tritium and boost the yield. But 60% of the lithium was lithium-7, which also reacted beyond imagination.



William Stromberg's Masterpiece "Trinity and Beyond" soundtrack.



Angus Mckie cover art for Comic Tales 1988.


On the brighter side...



50 years ago today, February 28, 1973, Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow was published. Best obscure one-volume history of the 20th Century, but the most difficult to read.




C-ya on the outer side.