This five-minute video showcases a handful of the 1,054 (official) United States nuclear tests that have taken place since 5:29 a.m. on July 16th, 1945. Much of the first half of this video is newly declassified material, recently released. The second half progresses toward lesser-known sequences, finishing off with footage that has been in the hands of the original videographer for decades. Many of these films were scratched, dusty, and exhibited significant color fading. Those have been restored to the best of my (admittedly novice) ability.
Enjoy the disturbingly lovely kilotonnage.
Something cool: If you pause the video at ~:26 and watch the first second or two of Tumbler-Snapper Able at 1/4 speed, you can actually see the air-dropped device falling before it detonates.
Thank you to Gregory Walker of the Trinity Atomic website for his assistance in identifying nuclear test shots and for his advice. If you are interested in information about nuclear weapons I highly recommend checking out his website, www.abomb1.org.
Music is by - and with thanks to - Steven O'Brien.
/ stevenobrien
Many of the nuclear test shots in the first half of this video were sourced (pre-restoration) from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, whose complete playlist of atmospheric nuclear test footage is available online at tiny.cc/nukefilms (case sensitive).
14 окт 2024
