Posted on 09/13/2018 6:23:50 AM PDT by C19fan
A mysterious event detected by U.S. satellites in 1979 was the detonation of an atomic bomb. The incident correlates with an equally mysterious rise in radioactivity in sheep in nearby Australia, confirming that a nuclear test took place. Experts believe that Israel and South Africa conducted a secret joint test of a tactical nuclear weapon in the Indian Ocean, hoping it would escape detection.
On September 22, 1979, a U.S. Vela satellite, part of the globe-scanning U.S. Nuclear Detonation Detection System (NDS), detected the characteristic “double flash” of a nuclear weapon. Nuclear bombs produce two distinct flashes: the superheating of air caused by the detonation and the shockwave itself, which emits light. The second flash is barely noticeable to human observers, but optical sensors known as bhangmeters can differentiate between single flash events, such as conventional explosions, and the double flash of a nuclear explosion.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Me too, Everybody figured it was South Africa’s Nuke test......................
I am surprised given the state of things in SA that info about this has not been leaked. Also, who is in control of these weapons today? The ANC?
Yep, or they were destroyed before the ANC took power................
Once SA was going the way of an ANC controlled govt, more than likely all of their program was transferred to the Israelis.
Once SA was going the way of an ANC controlled govt, more than likely all of their program was transferred to the Israelis.
I’m not surprised at all... I am sure when they gave up their nukes evidence of this sort of thing was buried deep... and once apartheid happened the current government could care less about things from the 70s.
Sorry Apartheid ended... not happened..
You’re almost certainly right. When the anti-Apartheid thing became all the rage, Israel quietly remained South Africa’s sole ally. And of course Israel has always been cagey about its nuclear capabilities.
The article shows an Israeli 175mm gun firing. I served in VietNam in a heavy, composite srtillery unit with two of these guns.
There never was a nuclear round made for these guns, so why in hell show one here?
The writer did not mention the South African-Isreali political connections at the time: BOTH were being attacked internally and through the UN by the Communist parties. (Both still are, though the communists won in Africa.) It is possible it was an Israeli nuke being tested off of Africa on a barge or ship towed from an SA port.
Or just a meteor impact-Tunguska style atmospheric flash. There is only the surveillance satellite “description” of a double flash. Is that description correct? At the time, meteor impacts were not thought to be very common - Now, we have seen worldwide video’s of impacts in the atmosphere every year. The nuke explosion theory is bolstered by this (now much older!) radiation story.
South Africa’s previous government give them up to Isreal.
How much less could they care? Did you read what you wrote?
I saw the headline and thought that we had regressed to Roman methods of divination.
It is just a fluff piece. The writer didn’t care abouot the accuracy of the actual shell, he/she/it just needed a visual of a “big cannon shooting.”
That there were nuke weapons small enough to fit in a cannonshell is all that was necessary. But the cover around the warhead on a SUBROC missile (US Navy) is no larger than 8-10 inches. A test weapon would be more likely the size of a 8 x 8 container box on a barge.
” Israel quietly remained South Africa’s sole ally.”
Because SA was Israel’s ally first and how it got oil.
I am deeply distressed at what-will-almost-certainly-be genocide coming in South Africa.
And no one will care.
Nominally all dismantled - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Dismantling
Right, not for the 175s - they were made for a 155mm, and a 280mm (only 20 280 mm artillery pieces were produced). Also, rounds were produced for US Navy 11-inch guns.
Not so sure either delivery system were rational. Nukes belong on the tip of a missile, or dead-dropped from a B-52/B2.
Uranium mining in Australia ? No?
I was active duty navy, it was quite certian in 1979 that it was a nuke.
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