CLASSIC: Gabon's Ancient Nuclear Reactor(s)

File this under "stranger than fiction": In more than a dozen sites across Gabon, scientists have found evidence of ancient nuclear reactors. How ancient? Try two billion years. But how did this happen? Why? Find out in this classic episode.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nukes. Remember when when the only thing we really had
to make fun of the president for his when he
said nuclear Yeah, I remember that. I do remember that
golden time. Yeah, these are these are nukes without that
necessary process where you gotta spin them up, spin all
the stuff up really fast for a long time. These

(00:23):
are nukes that are just hanging out. It's not nukes.
These these are materials that that are functioning as a
nuclear reactor in the ground. Yeah. And also just like
out of nature. And they're two billion years old. Uh
and they are in Gabon, West Africa. And we'll tell
you all about it. Here is this classic episode from

(00:45):
UFOs two Ghosts and Government cover Ups. History is waled
with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn
the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello, welcome
back to the show. My name is Matt and Don
Ben And right off the bat, by the way, stuff
they don't want you to know. You know that you

(01:07):
clicked on the thing you're listening to it. Some people
have it on shuffle, you know what I mean. Yeah,
well guess what this is stuff they don't want you
to know. And right off the bat today we're going
to talk about the thing that I got wrong. Uh,
something that I don't know why I got it wrong,
but I was just thinking, I think I got it wrong.
Uh No, I don't. I don't know that you did.

(01:28):
I think it was me because I just started rambling
about it. Anyway, We're talking about A D and B C.
And I said, I did the old thing that I
guess I learned somehow in church. I don't know where
I learned it, but the whole before Christ after death thing,
and that's not at all what it is. Oh okay, yeah,

(01:48):
we we know this. We heard your emails and tweets
and responses, and a lot of people were really courteous
about this. Uh. I think we just misspoke because it's
something that we we both knew, and when we're doing
a casual conversation playing with live fire, uh, some things
can slip through. But Matt, go ahead and let us

(02:09):
know what it. What it stands for. Well, it means
Anno Domini, which is actually the year of our Lord
a D. When you when you use a D. So
my bad, you know, Matt. Honestly, I thought we would
get a lot more listener mail from people who are
angry at us because we were exploring the history of
the Bible. Yes, even for having that conversation, but it

(02:32):
didn't turn out that way, at least not yet. Maybe
in a year after it's been floating around, we'll get
some of that mail. Yeah, but thank you guys so
much for listening. And today we would like to start
the podcast with a story. In two, an employee at
a French nuclear fuel processing plant notice something weird about
the uranium or he was working on. All natural uranium

(02:55):
contains three forms with different atomic masses. There's you two
thirty eight, YouTube thirty four, and you two thirty five. Now,
the last one is the most desirable because this is
the one that you can use to sustain a nuclear reaction.
And typically you two thirty five makes up only about
point seven two percent of the ore. But the sample

(03:17):
of this guy is looking at it had point seven
one seven. Now it's a small amount, a small difference.
But this guy freaked out because there's only one way
that that can happen, and that's through a nuclear reaction. So, uh,
this poor guy, of course, he as you said, he
freaks out. He lets the scientists know, you know, hey,

(03:38):
where's this ore from? What's going on because I think
they have nuclear power somewhere. And the scientists trace this
sample back to a place called the Oaklow uranium deposit
in the highlands of Gabone or from part of the
mind was way way shorter of uranium two thirty five

(03:59):
than it should have been, As an article in Scientific
American pointed out, there were about two missing and that
is important because by way of measurement, that is enough
to make about a dozen nuclear bombs. Wow. Yeah, so
what the f is going on here? Been Yeah, that's
what the yeah, right right, Well, the answer comes from

(04:22):
much earlier prediction and they found as they were digging
around in this happened in nineteen seventy two, right, they
find the weird uranium. In nineteen fifty three, these two guys,
George weather Hill and the co author Mark Ingram, argued
that some uranium deposits might have once been natural versions
of nuclear reactors. That's crazy. So what they what they

(04:44):
postulated is that somehow a stray neutron caused this YouTube
thirty five to split, and then it gave off more
neutrons and it caused this chain reaction. Yeah. That last
part is from a scientists named Paul Kuroda at the
University of Arkansas. The are a couple of conditions, he said,
for this to occur, the deposit has to be at
least longer than two thirds of a meter, which would

(05:07):
be the length that the neutron would travel. The second
thing you need is enough you two thirty five. Today,
most of the concentrated deposits can't become reactors because the
U two thirty five is just too low, the concentrations
too low. And today it's less than one percent in
a deposit, but two billion years ago it could have
been around three percent, right. And next, you'll need a

(05:30):
neutron moderator of some sort, something that can slow the
neutrons given off when a nucleus splits and make them
more likely to hit and split other atoms. And the
last thing is you have to have no substantial amount
of boron, lithium or any other substances that would absorb
the atoms and halt the reaction. So this sounds like

(05:53):
a lot of stuff to have happened by chance, right, Yes,
it turns out this all I actually did just happen
as far as we can tell, in gabone about two
billion years ago. And not just once, but about sixteen times.
So physicists around the world studied this evidence. They looked
at these natural nuclear reactors, and they all came together

(06:15):
to share their work on this quote oaklow phenomenon at
a special nineteen seventy five conference in the capital of Kimbo.
And the fossil reactor wasn't just known for uranium that
I'd like to read quote from Scientific American. When they
were trying to figure out how this could happen, some
of the neutrons released during the fission of uranium two
thirty five were captured by the more abundant uranium two

(06:37):
thirty eight, which became uranium to thirty nine, and after
admitting two electrons, turned into plutonium to thirty nine. More
than two tons of this plutonium isotope were generated within
the oakload deposit UH. And the quote goes on, although
almost all of this material, which has a twenty four

(06:58):
thousand year half life, is since this appeared primarily they
think through natural decay. Some of the plutonium itself underwent
fission as it tested by the presence of its characteristic
vision products. The abundance of those lighter elements allowed scientists
to deduce that fission reactions must have gone on for
hundreds of thousands of years. So not only was this

(07:21):
a natural nuclear reactor that just sort of happened, but
it also just sort of happened for hundreds of thousands
of years. From the amount of uranium, they think that
it released about fifteen thousand megawatt years overall, So the
average power output was a little disappointing, a little less
than a hundred kats, but still that's enough to run

(07:46):
some toasters maybe, Yeah, and two billion years ago, toast
was like the main thing. Man, if you didn't have toast,
then who are you get out of here before anybody?
Before anybody finishes that email, we know that there weren't toasters, yeah,
or as far as we know, right, let's get it safe.
So they were able to do some forensic work on

(08:09):
this by analyzing zenon uh heavy inert gas, and this
gas can stay imprisoned in minerals for billions of years,
and because it's rare, scientists can use it to detect
and trace these nuclear reactions, even those that occur in
primitive meteorites before the Solar system happened. That's uh. Hold

(08:35):
on a second, calculating understanding dope. Okay, so Ben, let's
get to the met to this seriously, Yeah, how did
this happen? Why? Why didn't when when it became this
more volatile version of uranium, why didn't it just explode
or decay further? Yeah? Yeah, since we're a family, should

(08:56):
I guess the best way to say it is, why
didn't the sleeve hit the fan? Yeah? And then we
get all the rest of the uranium up into the
fan and then just got all the change. Yeah. Uh,
that's a great question. And from what we're seeing, at

(09:17):
least everything we found is that the oaklow reactors kind
of regulated themselves in a really neat way. The most
likely candidate for this regulation would be groundwater. So here's
what they think happened. They think that the nuclear chain
reaction was happening and it was water around to act.

(09:37):
Is that neutron moderator to slow the neutron so that
they can continue the reaction as the as the reactor
or in the reaction area maybe is a better way
to say. It reached the critical level or critical temperature,
the water boiled away, and then the chain reaction would
have ceased and cooled off. Uh, to the it where

(10:00):
water could come back and then it starts again. Oh
that's crazy. So it was functioning as a nuclear reactor
the way it the way we use them now, by
dipping the rods into the water and then taking the
rods out of the water and causing the reaction. This
is it's crazy. Whoa man. That's weird to think about
that a natural process could do the same thing that

(10:21):
we spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to produce. Yeah,
it just happened, and it but it did it over
a long period of time. And still that's that's mind boggling. Okay,
So when they're looking at the Oaklow reactor, they found
that it switched on for about thirty minutes then off

(10:42):
for at least two and a half hours. And they
see this in almost all the deposits. So not only
is the groundwater going over it and accounting for the
self regulation, it protected these reactors from destruction. And in
this way it was really effective. Not only was it
not allowing any kind of melt down or explosion during
these kinds of years, but it was just regulating the

(11:05):
thing to an extent where you have this beautiful chain
reaction that they can now see. And here's another weird
thing that just happened. It stored nuclear waste really well.
I mean, that's something that humans still haven't really cracked
the code on. There are some amazing ideas as a
matter of fact, about how to warn future civilizations, not

(11:30):
necessarily humans, to stay away from nuclear waste, trying to
come up with a universal sign that anyone from any
time would be able to go, Okay, I'm not going
near there. Yeah, it's crazy when you think about that.
If the human race were to just die, right, something
happens only only a few enclaves of people are a

(11:50):
lot alive for a while, and then by a few
under years they've dwindled and like the last person dies, uh,
and then buildings crumble, great stone, mon immense also crumble.
The season and the forest take over the cities, and
eventually the only thing that an alien civilization would see

(12:10):
there was a sign we were there would be nuclear waste,
which is totally like because it would be anomalous to
the natural settings, they would they would find the Oaklow.
It would it would be like stumbling upon that of
their own. Our version of the Oaklow reactors just now
they're in these weird deposits. Why is all this uranium
and plutonium over here? Yeah, and that's that's a that's

(12:34):
a weird thing because although we have not cracked the code,
we being the human species, not you and I'm at um,
we do know that this proves a tremendously efficient nuclear reactor,
if not a tremendously powerful one. And that's where we
go to the crazy stuff, because we have been saying

(12:56):
for the entirety of this podcast, and all of that
just happened or did it? Oh, don't don't doom. So
here's the deal. Uh. We talked about this in the
vlog when we were covering this, and in the vlog
we talked about how they buried the lead and one
of these scientific American articles and they said, um, well,

(13:18):
what maybe we should just do the quote. Okay, here's
the quote. The Oaklow reactors may teach scientists about possible
shifts in what was formerly thought to be a fundamental
physical constant, one called alpha, which controls such universal qualities
as the speed of light. Boom, I I can't think
of an appropriate sound effect. Maybe our superproducer Noel has one. Yeah,

(13:48):
that's it. That's the perfect one, because that is mind blowing,
the idea that all of these constants we perceive in
the universe may not be as constant as we think.
You know, they change if you're in another neighborhood of reality.
It's possible. But we have to remember this is one
one version, one one subject, one time that we're noticing

(14:11):
that this constant isn't the same, right right yep. So
any of you out there, you know, shrugging and going,
oh god, they don't understand the just note that we
we do understand that this is one instance of a
constant that seems to not be the same righte light?
It just sounds so emo. Now they just don't understand

(14:33):
the speed of light. Um, yeah, it's true, and it's
it's a really good observation because what we're finding is,
uh is bizarre because we know that now a reaction
like this probably wouldn't occur in the wild. There's simply
not enough uranium in those deposits. So how how did

(14:56):
it work? Deffinitely? Was there just more you two thirty
five in the deposits? Did it somehow take less of it?
Did nuclear reactions? I don't know. Worked differently. What we're
seeing is that the fundamental concepts of the glue binding
the spine of the universe into a book may just

(15:18):
be non existent or as you said, just in our neighborhood,
or Ben, here's the best theory. What if this is
a sign of ancient technology. What if this was made
this way? What if? What if aliens? Or what if
we're the aliens who found the nuclear waste? You know,

(15:40):
are we a butterfly having a dream, et cetera. Right, Yeah,
I can't remember. I'm kidding. We do remember the whole quote,
but but it is a nice way to flip the perspective. So, yeah,
what it was somehow made here's the deal. If it
was made by people, and if ancient his three is
remotely true, then uh, people would have to be around

(16:05):
the way longer than we thought. It's if this thing
really is two billion years old, then there's no one
we know of who would be capable of doing that.
People weren't around. We were just a twinkle in the
universe's eye. Unless it's been so long since the previous
iteration of intelligence on this planet, Ben, that we didn't

(16:27):
find anything. Like you said, but the uranium deposit, which
is weird because that from what we know about the
formation of the Earth. Yea, whomever was surviving, right, who
would be intelligent enough to create a nuclear reaction? Uh?
They had to be some hard cases because Earth was

(16:48):
a brutal place and billions of years ago. I just
I don't know. We we received some interesting letters from
people before about doing an ancient technology podcast, and we
know that a lot of the skeptical folks listening in
the audience will roll their eyes and say this is
not worth it. But newsflash, Uh, there there really has

(17:11):
been ancient lost technology that was rediscovered, right. No, yeah,
you can look at the antiquathere mechanism. We we talked
about that before in a video podcast a long time ago. Yeah,
I'd love to do an audio show about that. Then
you even got the Greek fire, right, Yeah, that is uh,
that was a weapon that the Greeks would use and

(17:32):
the secret of making this was lost for a very
long time. That's not the only example, of course. We
can have an entire other show about historical or archaeological anachronisms,
you know, things out of time batteries, right, yeah, Bagdad batteries,
which I think was used for silver plating, but I'm

(17:53):
not sure we'll wait for it. Ye, sorry, matt um.
So we want to know what you think. Now we've
gotten we've gotten some great letters about especially in uh
South Asia areas, Pakistan, uh Bangladesh, India. We've gotten letters
about various descriptions of what maybe ancient technology. And we

(18:17):
know that historically India is a powerhouse of um brilliant innovations.
You know a lot of If you're not familiar with
some of the history of inventions and concepts that come
from South Asia, then you know taken afternoon off, tell

(18:39):
your bossy and I'll learn about the world. Yeah, right,
doesn't everybody get a day off to learn about the world.
And we'd like to know your suggestions of what sort
of ancient technology we should look at and if you
think it is possibly tell us this. Uh. Do you
think it is possible that being that humanity we know

(19:00):
it has gotten the entire story of history? Wrong? Uh?
And when I when I say that, what I mean is,
do you think it's possible that there could have been
some other civilization that was responsible for um nuclear reactors?
Because it looks like everything we see it looks like

(19:20):
these just happened, as ridiculously weird as that sounds, and
if you have to be explained perfectly, but they've been
explained adequately, at least for me. Yeah. Yeah, it seems
like just the lottery of strange coincidences and just right moments,
unless that is somehow an intelligent force made them. But

(19:43):
then the question would be, why haven't we seen anything else?
Because you know, Ben, I hear that there are no
coincidences that I hear. I got a fortune cookie that
said that one time it was a weird moment in
my life, so I was like, oh, this is also
not a coincidence. Yeah, you ever have them in those
days where everything seems laden with meaning and symbolic and

(20:05):
stuff all the time. It happens to me when I
don't get enough sleep, which is all the time. Alright, guys,
so right to us. You can find us on Facebook,
you can find us on Twitter. We are at conspiracy
stuff on both of those And that's the end of
this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions
about this episode, you can get into contact with us

(20:26):
in a number of different ways. One of the best
is to give us a call. Our number is one
eight three three st d w y t K. If
you don't want to do that, you can send us
a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i
heeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to
know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

(20:48):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.