Post by Stephen Schwartz / Redsky

Today in 1957 at the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducted Plumbbob SMOKY, a 44-kiloton thermonuclear test detonated atop a 700-foot steel tower. SMOKY created huge amounts of radioactive fallout, exposing 3,224 troops performing post-shot maneuvers near ground zero to high radiation levels.

aug 31, 2025, 3:00 pm • 15 1

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Congress once again voted against reparations to the “down winders” in NM exposed to radioactive material exposure that caused generational damage

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My father was one of those soldiers. He was an infantry platoon leader. He died on Christmas day 2004 while I was in Iraq. He died from pancreatic cancer and was the last of his unit to pass.

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Clockwise from top left: an early stage of the SMOKY fireball; the cloud’s estimated trajectory at several altitudes across the United States and Canada over the next several days; post-detonation iodine-131 deposition from the fallout; and estimated per capita thyroid doses from SMOKY by US county.

A black and white screenshot from a video showing a very early stage of the SMOKY fireball: a roughly spherical blob of plasma with

A color map of the continental United States showing the estimated trajectories, at several altitudes, of the SMOKY fallout cloud as it drifted across the country. Numbers (from 1 to 7) indicate the position of each trajectory at 0000 Greenwich Mean Time for several days following the test. The trajectories are: (A) 3 kilometers above mean sea level (which went over southern Nevada, southeastern California, northwestern Arizona, northwestern Utah, southeastern Idado, central Wyoming, southern South Dakota, western/southwestern Iowa, Missouri, far western Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, southern Virginia, and Chesapeake Bay. (B) 6.1 kilometers above mean sea level (which went over southern Nevada, southern and eastern Utah, northwestern Colorado, eastern Wyoming, South Dakota, southeastern North Dakota, northern Minnesota, Canada, and northern Maine. (C) 9.2 kilometers above mean sea level (which went over southern Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, southeastern Montana, northwestern North Dakota, Canada, northeastern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and southern Maine. (D) 11.8 kilometers above mean sea level (which went over southern Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, eastern Montana, Canada, northern Vermont, and New Hampshire.

A color map of the continental United States showing activities of iodine-131 deposited per unit area of ground by the SMOKY test. The highest readings (in nanocuries per square meter) are in southern California, southern Nevada, northwestern Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, New York, Florida, and southeastern Georgia.

A color map of the continental United States (from a 1997 report by the National Cancer Institute) showing per capita thyroid doses for the population of each county in the United States from the SMOKY test. The highest doses (in rads) of .1-10 rads are in southern Nevada, Utah, northern Arizona, Wyoming, eastern Colorado, eastern Montana, western Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, eastern New York, western Vermont, southern New Hampshire, western Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine.

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Here are three photographs of some of the troops who observed the SMOKY test. Intensive follow-up health assessments in 1979, 1980, and 1983. of the 3,224 military participants found a 150 percent increase in expected leukemia (10 excess cases) relative to a similar population of unexposed people.

A black and white photograph of the SMOKY test at the instant of detonation, at the test site but some distance from ground zero. In the foreground, nine soldiers in uniforms and helmets are kneeling on the ground, facing away from the explosion and shielding their eyes with their arms. In the background is the extremely bright fireball, illuminating the soldiers and desert scrub and telephone poles in the middleground.

A black and white photograph of the SMOKY test in the same location a few seconds after detonation. Now the nine soldiers are standing and have turned toward the glowing mushroom cloud, which is rising into the sky. They are brightly illuminated by the photographer's flash, while the background—except for the mushroom cloud—is black.

A black and white photograph of the same scene a few second later, now zoomed in on the mushroom cloud (whose top is still glowing from within) ascending into the sky, with the silhouetted helmeted heads of seven of the soldiers visible in the foreground.

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This is a slow-motion view of the early stages of the SMOKY fireball and mushroom cloud: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIji... The spikes emanating from the fireball are the guy wires securing the tower and the top part of the tower vaporizing and turning into superheated plasma—the “rope trick” effect.

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The two-stage SMOKY device evolved into the three-stage B41 bomb, the highest-yield thermonuclear weapon ever deployed by the United States (25 Megatons). The B41 weighed 10,500 pounds and had the highest yield-to-weight ratio of any US nuclear weapon. Five hundred were operational from 1960-76.

A color photograph of a B41 thermonuclear bomb casing on display in an Air Force museum. The casing is olive green with yellow stenciled lettering on the side indicating the type of weapon, its part number and serial number, and the various alts or alternations made to it since it was first manufactured.

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Let’s hope we never see that again.

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