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40 Years Ago, the US Lost a Nuclear Bomb
Hugh Pickens writes "A BBC investigation has found that in 1968 the US abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland after a nuclear-armed B52 crashed on the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base. The Stratofortress disintegrated on impact with the sea ice and parts of it began to melt through to the fjord below. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated without setting off the nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been 'destroyed' and while technically true, investigators piecing together fragments from the crash could only account for three of the weapons. Investigators found that 'something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.' A subsequent search by a US submarine was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the search was abandoned. 'There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components,' said a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. 'It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them.'"
Operation Thunderball is a success.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
Just send in Christian Slater to recover it. It'll only take him a few hours, with the additional bonus that movie footage of the recovery mission will make for a great action movie once the evil John Travolta tries to steal it.
Wonder if Sarah Palin can see it from her house.
I think I meant precious. Previous bodily fluids are creepy.
From a unnamed news source:
Nonsense.
But, of course, this means that Greenland possesses WMDs and must be destroyed.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
This sort of national irresponsibility needs to stop, right now.
I realise these events happened a little while ago now but nonetheless just what the hell did the USA think it was doing flying nuclear bombs around outside their own borders in the first place, this was, it can now be seen, a completely indefensible and irrepsonsible course of action and one for which the USA should now make a full apology.
The best course of action now is for the USA to hand over full documentation of the accident to a responsible and trustworthy country, France for example, and let them conduct an investigation to first of all try and find this nuclear timebomb and second of all to assign blame and set up the process for trying those who are guilty and punishing them appropriately.
Now the USA is at least out of the hands of the mad cowboy and we've good reason to hope Obamas administration will behave far more honourably we can hope their will be no repeats of this disaster but nonetheless until we in the rest of the civilised world can be sure of that the EU should impose regular nuclear inspections on the USA just to double check the same terrible mistakes are not being made today.
And AGAIN the US knows this because they left them there themselves ;).
It's only a matter of time before Al-Qaida finds the lost bombs.
Only if Jack ties the suspect to a chair and forces him to watch Jack torture his wife and children.
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
Nobody wants Godzilla showing up in 50 years.
It's just too terrifying a possibility.
Especially if there's a commercial tie-in & jingle.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Rouge?
Yes, yes, I know I'm going to get -1 Redundant on this but...
There they stand, redfaced.
It's its. They're their, there. You're your. Who's whose? A looser loser, though those two too threw through the trough.
From Wikipedia:
The 12-foot (4 m) long Mark 15 bomb weighs 7,600 pounds (3,500 kg) and bears the serial number "No. 47782".
I thought I'd gotten lucky, but the one I found had the serial number "No. 47783". Damn.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room!
Of Code And Men
"It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them."
I'll take famous last words for $1000, Alex...
Also highly amused the quote at the bottom of the page is from Stanley Kubrick, director of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.
This sig is false.
...that the US is actually now a bleu nation not a rouge nation.
Gjordzilla??
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.
That's Fjordzilla, you insensitive clod!
And while we are at it, why not liberate democratically some oil ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I don't like how dark Jack has become. He shouldn't even by a U.S. employee anymore with the tactics he uses.
I prefer the early seasons when Jack was still a decent human being.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
> "Thule" is from the Latin word with the same spelling meaning "northernmost part of the inhabitable world."
"Thule?" More like Cthulu, I'd say.
If you didn't vote for him last Tuesday, Cthulu's going nuclear. Prepare to pay the price!
Don't forget to do the details.
- You'll probably need an inside man in the Air Force. Expect to surgically alter his cornea so that he will pass the retinal scan during the re-jiggering of the aircraft payload orders.
- A one-time payment of $500B is nice, but will only finance SPECTRE operations for a short while, even with proper investment. Consider using the weapon directly. Igniting the arabian oil fields would cause irreparable damage to any country not properly prepared. That would be worth well more than $500B, and would be considered continuous revenue. Consider a project code name invoking Allah, but don't be too obvious.
- Should you encounter a British or US secret agent, politely invite him to lunch on your yacht. He will undoubtedly express interest in a tour, which should culminate with a demo of the ship's control center. At that point, put a bullet in his head. None of your hand-picked crew will think any less of you.
the remains of the primary will turn up in 50 to 100 years, just sitting on top of the ground where the ice used to be... We'll pick it up then.
Kill everyone and just take the oil.
Well, at least that part is going to be easier in Greenland ...
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure.
My god... the terrorists could get it! They're already experts in sand!
Hey, if you had to work all those 24-hour shifts, you'd be pretty cranky too.