So many different weird things are happening in the world that I’ve taken a break from writing a pile of magazine and newspaper stories to get something off my chest. First, if you aren’t reading Annie Jacobsen, get on it, because she has been out there killing it for the rest of us. A week ago I wrapped up Suprise, Kill, Vanish, her book on the CIA paramilitary capers, and recently dove into Area 51, her comprehensive history of that most famous of classified facilities.
There is a lot of information in the book that hasn’t been previously released—and if you are looking for alien bodies and crashed spacecraft, keep looking, although she posits the strongest theory yet—backed by solid evidence—about the Roswell incident. But what I’ve found most interesting so far has been Area 51’s relevance in the pursuit of a nuclear deterrent.
Something I did not know, until yesterday, was that the US detonated at least two high altitude nuclear bombs, and also exploded nukes just outside of the earth’s atmosphere, after launching them into space off of South Africa. The two high altitude bombs, known as Teak and Orange, were exploded over Johnston Atoll, 750 miles west of Hawaii.
Says Jacobsen: “Teak went off at 252,000 feet, or 50 miles, and Orange went off at 141,000 feet, 28 miles, which is exactly where the ozone layer lies…The fireballs produced by both Teak and Orange burned the retinas of any living thing that had been looking up at the sky without goggles within a 225 mile radius of the blast, including hundreds of monkeys and rabbits…The animals’ heads had been locked in gadgets that forced them to witness the megaton blast. From Guam to Wake Island to Maui, the natural blue sky changed to a red, white, and gray, creating an aurora 2100 miles along the geomagnetic meridian. Radio communication throughout a swath of the Pacific region went dead.”
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