Intense Footage of Fake Towns Used for 1950s Nuclear Tests 

the mannequins must’ve been pissed when they found out they weren’t going to Macy’s

Just get in the fridge!

My grandpa was part of several shots. He likes how ppl are interested in the footage today, but he impressed on me how seriously they took it at the time. You had to figure out what might save lives.

My father told me he saw this footage in the late 1950's. To the best of my knowledge it has never been shown to the public since then. It is absolutely terrifying. This has been vastly shortened.

0:06 that car literally got deleted

Nuketown

Gary M. - I was born in 1951 and living with my parents in Glendale, CA. My earliest recollection of watching TV wasn't cartoons, but seeing the footage of the fake towns and manaquins used for the nuclear tests. During my elementary school years, we regularly practices bomb drills. It made quite an impression on me ...

It's just really scary that humans created something that could just destroy everything in a seconds.

Not fair! I wanna see what the manaquins look like after the blast!

So this was the first mannequin challenge?

No matter what happens, the camera always survives

Props to the camera guy for sacrificing his life to get these shots

Imagine one of the mannequins suddenly grab you as you placed it on the chair and yell "Nooo! Please!"

Less nuke town call of duty comments than I thought

Can we appreciate the strength of the camera which survived these explosions👏

I remember a handful of dreams I’ve had, some much more vivid than others. Something I will never forget and think about often was a dream I had in my early teens. I’m inside my childhood home, glass windows porch, loud noises, looking in the sky, plane flying over head, noticing something falling, immediately think bomb,(most vivid moments still gives me chills)- I curl up on the ground and close my eyes, one second, two seconds, almost three seconds. Simultaneously feel freezing and completely blinded by white light. Wake up and hyper ventilating for minutes on end.

Someone Got A 25 Killstreak

Those aren’t “doomtowns” those are nuketowns😏

*_"There were others before you Barbie. Just like them, you are made to be destroyed"_* -Oppenheimer

Don’t let this be you! Reserve a spot in your local vault today!

Think of the huge amounts of effort the photographers had to undergo to make this footage available, even today. The cameras had to be mounted on 16' steel poles, and pinned to the ground with guy wires. All the mounts had to be covered in lead shielding to prevent the footage from becoming 'foggy' from the radiation. The camera housings inside the homes weighted at least 500 lbs IIRC. THEN, all of the cameras had to be set to timers, to start recording moments before the bomb went off. Not to mention the lighting for the interiors (see 2:45, you can see the reflection of the lights). As well as the data retrieval, processing, storage, and restoration. The cameras shot on 16mm film, and if one of the cameras were destroyed, that was that. No 'redo'. Also, the mannequins were produced by JCPenney. After their microwave adventures, they went on to be showcased in the JCPenney windows in Las Vegas. Creepy as fuck, but I think the AEC just wanted to see how fucked up they'd get by the bomb. Huge props to Peter Kuran, BTW, who restored all the footage seen here. The quality used to be garbage before he treated them. Well done Smithsonian. Operation Teapot Apple II, May 5, 1955, 29kt.

Imagine falling asleep in one of the houses after a long day of work constructing the town

The delay between heat and blast is spooky! 😨

One of the stories seldom told during this time was how the Japanese use Chinese civilians to actually test their weapons in the same manor. So much surrounding this conflict was just horrible.

I guess you can call them... nuclear families

In Soviet Union they used real people for this test.

The university I went to (Washington State University) had a lecture auditorium that once doubled as a fallout shelter. So basically it was underground and the walls were incredibly thick. Unsurprisingly, the Wi-Fi reception was bad. Kind of interesting to see the remnants of this age in modern times!

One thing I wanna know how did they manage to keep the camera rolling, without them falling off , from a nuclear blast that took out an entire house .

I love how when they get nuked the Smithsonian’s “It’s brighter here” cahchfrase comes up.

2:10 The nuclear family.

How did the camera footage survive but not the houses/manaquinns?

Imagine being a member of a species that invests this amount of resources and effort into destruction instead of feeding its hungry and healing its sick. 🤦🏾‍♂️

This is genuinely terrifying

Damn not nature you scary

Shoutout to the brave 1950's cameraman who volunteered to capture this amazing footage

0:07 The initial blast was enough to INSTANTLY burn the paint from the walls before the shockwave then sends everything to splinters. It's almost unfathomable what could happen to a human being if one were standing there.

Still better than North Korea's towns

Indiana Jones survived this test by staying inside a fridge. And that will always be the first thing that comes to my mind in case a nuclear blast reaches my home

nice camera, even stronger than the house

“After all this time in the desert I’ve finally come across civilization!” “Wait what are these mannequins doing here?”

The hills have eyes

I wish I had the disposable income to satisfy my morbid curiosity like that...

How they able to do this with no affects on the surrounding towns, city’s? I thought the radiation spreads

The paint on the outside of the house was instantly burnt off.... I bet the heat inside the house was at least 10,000 degrees to instantly vaporize but not burn the wood. At 6000+ feet away. Just awful, it would be even more horrific to survive that.

Anyone remembers that scene form Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull? the one where he survived by getting into a lead covered fridge

If there was some way to travel back in time and warn thoes mannequins on the impending doom ....

2:35 1950’s Chad

Fun fact: You've seen most of these blast clips at some point in your life without meaning too.

Alot of technology came out of nuclear testing. House design amoung many other things

Those mannequins are rad!

Some cameras they had back then, didn't even budge

This reminds me of "The Hills Have Eyes." Great movie. Very interesting and educational. Love learning about this stuff. Thanks for sharing 👍

Warning: cod and indiana Jones references in the comments

2:51 the way the nuclear fireball and mushroom cloud are seen outside the home for a split second just as the walls are ripped away gave me a chill.

I want that camera which survived the Nuclear Test

The scary thing is… assuming these types of tests no longer exist

How did the cameras stay when getting exploded by a nuke

Call Of Duty's map Nuketown did it best.

2:23 he’s still one of the boyssssssss

There's an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Hal and the boys are lost in the desert. They get onto a military restricted area and eventually find a house. Thinking they are saved, they go to the house only to find no life, just mannequins. They relax, having found respite from the sun, and ponder the strange house. Suddenly they put it all together and panic ensures.

The way it turns day into night like that is terrifying.

I love the way they talk in the 50s

Much of the scenes were from 1953 Operation Upshot-Knothole’s Civil Defense (CD) portion, called Operation Doorstep, noted by the 3 cloned two-story homes. The remainder was from 1955 Operation Teapot’s CD component: Operation Cue. A greater variety of common home designs and materials, communications systems, and community power supply were tested.

Best CGI effects I have ever seen

Wtf are those cameras made of

Crazy how destructive these Nukes are. You’re basically dead to the heat and vaporized before the blast even hits you.

That house is the definition of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

Fallout players *Heavy breathing*

how was the footage from inside the homes not destroyed after the blast? tough cameras...

Camera never dies.

I’m literally watching this as Putin threatens to drop nuclear bombs lol

Something I learned from this. To survive a nuclear explosion, just be camera man

So this must of been the inspiration for nuketown

I love that voice from 1:15 nothing like good old historical videos

Reminds me of nuke town from black ops lol

"Wake up Jimmy.. time to evacuate the area" "..5 minutes"

*spots incoming nuke* Welp, ima hide in my state of the art nuclear bunker! *enters a 1997 fridge*

The stability feature on those cameras is the real technical achievement

Cameramans from that time had huge balls to cover and follow these events! Respect!

Me: Mom what are we having for Dinner tonight? Mom: About 500 IBS of good old Radiation poisoning as well as a side of sonic blast.

The music during footage: oooohh spooky Outro: yay happy

How did the camera survive?

2:37 "You bake your best with Pillsbury's Best" oh you'll be baking alright...

And that’s how the Call Of Duty map Nuketown was born.

How many people are thinking of nuke town when they watch this??

Gotta love it when u get drawn into a video and than it abruptly ends😂

Hope your close when it happens. I'd rather be vaporized than slowly die from radiation a month or 2 later.

2:53 When you feel confident about that test you took and see your grade the next day

Time to hiding in the refrigerator

This is amazing!

This house as we be discovered was the size of a table😂

3 words: hills have eyes

“Intense footage” *shows 5 seconds of actual blast*

The radiation blast melted the minds of most of the mannequins and turn them all into "Show room dummies!"🎶

How did they film the inside blast?

Indiana Jones anyone?

First millions of a second when the bomb goes off. The core of the fire ball gets hotter then 500 million degrees Celsius. When a hydrogen bomb aka( thermal nuclear) weapons go off the explosions heats the air at ground zero well over 500 million degrees Celsius. Vapourized everything including sky scrappers. Well damn EVERYTHING.

Having a horror movie about mutant manequins from those test sites would have been an amazing idea 😂 lol!!

Yes little timmy! This is like the town in that famous shooting game!

I think it's much more terrifying for the underground tests they did. The entire ground lifts up and moves violently. Fucking terrifying