updated 11/6/2016
Apparently,
a few weeks ago a diver off the coast of British Columbia was diving
in a place he did not normally go and came across something really
weird. It was a big metal artifact with large hemispheres the size
of basketballs on it. It looked like a prop from a Science Fiction
movie from the 1950s or 1960s. What could it possibly be?
So when he got up to the surface he drew a picture and started asking around. No one had any idea until someone who had been around a long time suggested that he had found “the lost bomb”. You know, one of them nuclear things that the US lost off the coast of Canada when an early bomber crashed.
A Mark IV with all its pieces and covers on
So when he got up to the surface he drew a picture and started asking around. No one had any idea until someone who had been around a long time suggested that he had found “the lost bomb”. You know, one of them nuclear things that the US lost off the coast of Canada when an early bomber crashed.
Golly,
what could be more fun than a 60 or so year old nuclear bomb?
If this is the missing bomb, then it is indeed a bomb
but not a nuclear one exactly. It would be a dummy Mark IV, a very
early type of fission bomb, that did not have any plutonium, although
it did have conventional explosives. In fact it is not exactly clear
what was dropped, but it was a dummy they tell us.
So
the Canadian Navy was interested and said they would check it out and
we are waiting for their findings.
But
what is fun about the article, other than the discovery itself, is
the comments from the readers who are sure, totally certain,
absolutely KNOW that the US lied and this is a real live nuclear bomb
waiting to go off.
I
have no doubt that the finding, if it is indeed the lost dummy bomb,
should be treated with care and disposed of, as it is quite possibly
an environmental danger of some sort, leaking nasty stuff into the
water, such as a whole lot of decaying conventional explosives.
But
it is almost certainly not a live nuclear bomb. How do I know this?
Because
we (the USA) may not always be right, and we may lie about stuff from time to time, and, yes, we may do stupid things now and again, but, generally speaking, we do not leave unexploded nuclear bombs lying
off the coast of the Pacific Northwest in shallow waters.
Honest, we don't. If it had really been a nuclear bomb, we would have spared no expense to find and dispose of it. We may be stupid, but we are not that stupid.
Honest, we don't. If it had really been a nuclear bomb, we would have spared no expense to find and dispose of it. We may be stupid, but we are not that stupid.
See
the article at the Guardian website here.
_____________________________________
Updated 11/6/2016. OK, I have done a little more research. The released dummy bomb from the February 1950 event exploded on impact with the ocean. It contained the HE (high explosive) and uranium elements but not the plutonium core and thus had zero chance of causing a nuclear explosion. This explains why they did not search for and retrieve the dummy as whatever they dropped would have been destroyed in the HE explosion.
If we can believe what they tell us, and I think in this case that it is likely that we can, then whatever was found is unrelated to the B-36 crash and the dummy Mark IV.
_____________________________________
Wikipedia page on the Mark IV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_4_nuclear_bomb
Wikipedia page on the bomber that crashed, the B-36 which was a really weird airplane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_B-36_Peacemaker
_____________________________________
Updated 11/6/2016. OK, I have done a little more research. The released dummy bomb from the February 1950 event exploded on impact with the ocean. It contained the HE (high explosive) and uranium elements but not the plutonium core and thus had zero chance of causing a nuclear explosion. This explains why they did not search for and retrieve the dummy as whatever they dropped would have been destroyed in the HE explosion.
If we can believe what they tell us, and I think in this case that it is likely that we can, then whatever was found is unrelated to the B-36 crash and the dummy Mark IV.
_____________________________________
Wikipedia page on the Mark IV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_4_nuclear_bomb
Wikipedia page on the bomber that crashed, the B-36 which was a really weird airplane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_B-36_Peacemaker
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