June 30, 2026 • 59 mins
The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a relatively tiny, remote place -- it's about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, with nothing but ocean on the horizon. And, for decades, this nation has been home to a terrifying secret. As the world entered the atomic age, the United States realized it needed a place to test its new weaponry, and to store the waste these nuclear experiments left behind. Tune in to learn more about US nuclear experiments in the Marshall Islands, and how the consequences of this conspiracy remain in the modern day.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realists. We are returning with a classic episode.
This is a story a lot of people in the
United States haven't heard of, the story of the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's right. The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a
super small, remote island about halfway between Hawaii and Australia,
and there have been some nefarious goings on. Historically speaking,
it took place on that island.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, namely nukes, lots lots of nukes.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
As the world entered the atomic Age, Uncle Sam realized
it needed a place sort of away from the press
to test its new weaponry, and they needed a place
where they would not be beholden to or accountable for
the consequences of their actions. So way back in twenty
(00:57):
twenty one, we looked into something we like to call mystery,
Mayhem and Nuke's the story of the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Let's roll the.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Tape from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Hello and welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
My name is Matt my name is Nolan.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul.
Mission control decands, most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff. They don't want you to know.
Today's story is a tragic continuing saga and spoiler alert,
it is a story that does not at this point
(02:00):
have an ending. However, we feel it is important for
more people to be aware of this conspiracy, this cover up,
this semi apocalyptic series of very unfortunate events. This story
comes to us, folks, courtesy of one of your fellow
(02:22):
listeners who left us a message. Oh God, Matt, it
was a was it twenty nineteen?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Oh no, Ben, this actually came from twenty twenty this year,
and we just want to say thank you, Anonymous teacher.
We would mean playing your voicemail right now, but you
asked us not to.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well we did.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
We did, of course play it for ourselves as a group,
but as we always say, you know, we we want
to respect people's wishes for privacy.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
We didn't think you sounded scatter rained at all.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
For the record, an Anonymous teacher, you raised a very
interesting point. You also did something that I love to
hear which is you. You mentioned some of your own
research in this matter in the story of the Marshall Islands. Now,
a lot of people have probably heard of the Bikini
(03:12):
A Toll, especially if you're if you're interested in the
history of nuclear testing, nuclear revolution. But there's a larger,
much larger story at play here, And to explore this story,
we have to first explore the Marshall Islands themselves, which
are going to be unfamiliar with a lot of people
(03:34):
in the US, especially if you have you don't have
any relatives in the military, or you haven't yourself been
a part of the military. So here are the facts.
The Marshall Islands are remote. Oh man, you thought driving
driving for a long weekend at a cabin in the
(03:54):
mountains was a hassle. Just look at all the stuff
you have to do to get from where you are
now wherever you're listening to this, all the way out
to the Marshall Islands. They are about halfway between Hawaii
and Australia, like right near the equator. And although it's
one sovereign country now as of nineteen seventy nine, it's
(04:19):
really two kind of parallel chains of a lot of
very small very small plots of land. Is considered what's
called an associated state of the US. That means that
since its constitution and independence in nineteen seventy nine, it's
(04:40):
a sovereign country, but as a formal, very distinct, unique
relationship with the United States. And we're going to find
out exactly why in this episode. I don't know why
I'm laughing. This is a terrible thing. And even though
it's a pretty big area of ocean and island population wise,
(05:02):
it's a very small place, that's right.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
An estimated fifty eight thousand, four hundred and thirteen human
souls live in this region, spread out across twenty nine
coral atolls, and they're called that because they're they're almost
like mini islands, like I mean, when you look at
them on an aerial view, they really just look like
tiny little specks. And these atolls are composed of one thousand,
(05:28):
one hundred and fifty six individual islands or islets. Most
live in the capital called Majuro. And it's beautiful, you know,
we're talking about crystal blue waters, you know, island paradise
type getaways. It's incredibly remote, very low crime rate, and
(05:49):
for many many years, thousands of years was the kind
of place where you could kind of go and live
a life off the grid, like Robinson Caruso style. Unfortunately,
due to a series of unfortunate events Lemony Snaket style,
this is no longer the case.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Right, Yeah, this place has a long history of human
occupation dating back to at least the second millennium BCE,
and as the world and the countries in the world
became increasingly connected in the modern era, more and more
governments either half a world away or you know, closer
(06:31):
to that Pacific region, they became interested, intensely interested in
controlling the territory we know as the Republic of the
Marshall Islands today. As far back as nineteen fourteen, Japan
was interested. They were building bases, military bases on the islands.
And then if you fast forward through the bloody events
of World War Two in the Pacific theater there, you'll
(06:55):
see that after the United States defeated Japanese troops in
the area, they turned two a tolls of the Marshall
Islands into military bases themselves. So it's kind of like
there are two there are two things fighting, but neither
of them have the concerns of the native people at
(07:17):
the front of their mind.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
No, it's a strategic place to be. If you've got
naval forces, it's a strategic place to be. And it's
also strategic if you need to be isolated for some
reason away from larger populations.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Ding ding Ding. Yeah, and consider just the resupply value
it offers too. So in nineteen forty seven the Islands,
due to action by the UN, the islands become part
of something called the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.
There's still not a country. This was like the UN's
idea officially, but this Trust territory is administered kauf Cough,
(07:58):
controlled kauf Cough by the United States. This is Uncle
Sam's new Island paradise, if you will. These kind of
territory graphs, we should know, super common in any post
war era, go back to the first battles humans fought.
(08:18):
There was usually a territory grap afterwards, and it was
often about territory, no matter what kind of ideology they
put over it. This happens for a number of reasons. One,
as you pointed out, Matt to gain control of a
strategic point, either for shipping purposes, economic purposes, you could say,
or to plan for future wars, future areas that we
(08:43):
could wage a good offense up from, or areas that
we could easily defend.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
And then of.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Course, the big badger in the bag of every war
ever claims the local resources. Every war you have seen,
fought or read about is is about getting stuff from
other people, no matter how it's phrased. This makes the
Marshall Islands Trust Territory very strange in human history because
(09:13):
the US did have a plan for this region, but
they didn't want to take anything. Instead, they wanted to
leave something, something terrible behind. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, what they wanted to leave behind was indeed something terrible.
It is a byproduct of nuclear testing. As described by
Tony de Broome, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Health.
In nineteen forty six, the US Navy pulled into the
lagoon of the Bikini Atoll and told the one hundred
(09:50):
and sixty seven people that were living there at the
time that they were going to use this land as
a testing site for nuclear weaponry. They were direct and
how they approached these individuals, but at the same time
it was it was like a stick almost like they
like they'd done it before. The group phrased their conversation
(10:11):
in such a way, almost like you would with something
like eminent domain, where it's like, let us buy you out,
let us help you, help us, et cetera. They phrased
it in terms of quote seeking permission, but they couched
the mission as something that was the will of God
himself and would ultimately benefit all mankind. You can't argue
(10:33):
with God and the benefit of all mankind. I would
say it was a sacrifice. They were asking these people
to make for the future safety of the entire world.
And so these a small number of people admittedly took off.
They evacuated, they did.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
And now remember here we're talking about a series of
islands that make up this thing that we call all
the Marshall Islands or the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
And they went to one one little atoll and kicked
people off to do nuclear testing, which, as we all know,
has a bit of an area of effect.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
It's for the greater good though, yeah, forum forum, the
greater good. Well. As an end result of this pretty
disingenuous approach, we learn that between nineteen forty six, all
the way up to nineteen fifty eight. The United States
ended up conducting no less than sixty seven documented nuclear
(11:38):
test in the Marshall Islands. It's just the nuclear test.
The US conducted about twenty three of these tests at
Bikini a toll, and then forty four near another atoll, Enawatak.
But the fallout, to your point about the area of effect,
the fallout spread everywhere. It spread throughout the Marshall Islands.
(12:00):
And when we say we say test, we're not talking
about the nuclear equivalent of popping an M eight or
a flash bang. The overall yield of these tests, due
to one curve busting monstrous bomb, The overall yield of
these nuclear tests has been estimated to be to work
(12:20):
out to an average of one point seven Hiroshima level
detonations every day for twelve years.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
So this is serious.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
This is unending Hiroshima if you look at the way
this can be averaged across the span of testing. And
now with the benefit of retrospect, we know much more
about the test than people did during the time, even
the people living there by the way, who in some
(12:53):
cases were not evacuated when the testing began. So we're
going to pause for a word from our sponsors, and
then will return. We're going to dive deep into the
timeline and the specifics of these tests and why they
matter today.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Okay, and we're back. We are still in the Republic
of the Marshall Islands, at least in the present day.
That's what it's known as. And we're going to talk
about something called Operation Crossroads. And that's what we've been
discussing here. The nuclear tests at the Bikini A Toll
and the Enawak Atoll. So why would you do nuclear
(13:37):
testing there? We know that the United States had, like
around that time in the forties, had been testing nuclear
weapons on American soil out there near Nevada in the
testing grounds there, and perhaps in a couple other places.
But you know, why would you go out to a
remote island to do this testing? Well, one of the
main reasons was because the military machine wanted to know
(14:00):
what happens to a naval vessel when a nuclear explosion occurs,
How far away does it have to be to have
any kind of effect, what are the effects in general?
And all these other questions that I'm sure some general
had in their mind or some admiral who wanted to
know what was going to happen in the future when
a nuke went off near his vessel.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
And now I'd imagine at a base level, secrecy was
very important here too, right.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Sure, yeah, you don't want the American public, and to
a degree, the Marshal Eese public, to be able to
raise a hand and say, hey, this is crazy. We
live in this area. There are a couple other advantages
that were nearby military bases. This area is also you know,
(14:47):
this is pre satellite surveillance nets, so this area is
also more difficult for enemy forces to observe. Right, everybody's
going to sense or figure out a nuclear detonation of
this size. It's kind of a disturbance in the force
vibe at this level of energy. But they also they
(15:09):
also were doing a NIMBI thing that everybody knows that abbreviation.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Not in my backyard.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
The Trinity test did take place in the heartland of
America or the North American continent. But now that we
have discovered the process to make a nuclear bomb and
we want to build better ones, we have to realize
that post nineteen forty five, people are in post World
(15:37):
War two. Really, the US public is going to start
asking increasingly difficult questions about why we're blowing up stuff
in our own country. So not just the generals, but
the policy wonks and Congress wanted to get in front
of this thing. And that's when they said, you know,
(15:57):
we've got this place. We can go nuts here. This
is the nuclear testing equivalent of vegas. Baby, roll the dice,
drop the bombs, and that's exactly what they did.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Ben. I asked you off, Mike. You know, if we
talked about this place being like an island paradise, et cetera,
with such a low population, and my question was, were
these are these transplants from other South Pacific nations or
are they would you consider these indigenous people? And I
think the answer is a bit of both, but largely
it is they are indigenous people.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Correct, Yeah, yeah, So the Marshalley's culture is part of
the wider culture of Micronesia, and if you look at
the history of marsh Lee's culture. I don't know, we're
kind of this is a little off topic, but I'm
going somewhere with this. We all have friends in New York,
(16:50):
and if you're not from New York, or even if
you are from the Big Apple You're well aware that
New York has this weird thing about when one can
be called a local, right and not just a tourist.
What's the threshold? Is it like eight years or so.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Of gosh, I don't know the actual official number, but
it's certainly more than a couple Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, And so there's it seems like that's a microcosmic
equivalent of the larger question, which is when do people
become considered indigenous people?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
We know that with most continents and land masses in
the world, there was a migration at some point in
ancient history. So as far as the question of indigenous,
you know, the people who live in the Marshall Islands
have a very close relationship with the land and the sea.
It forms part of the community and part of the culture.
(17:43):
And it looks like they were part of, I said,
the second millennium BC. It looks like they were part
of that larger wave of human migration three thousand years
ago that spread across the western Pacific Ocean. Say, I
would say, you know, I'm not doing New York rules here,
(18:05):
far be it, But I feel like if you've lived
in an area for that long, you can be considered native.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Right, Oh, totally. We're talking generations. And I didn't know
this going in, but you know, when you say that
we refer to them as the marshal eSEE people, they
also have the marshal Eese language. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
That's correct. And so there. This is what we're establishing here,
is that the Marshall Islands were by no means some
kind of empty room or some kind of barren, uninhabited
place where these tests could occur without consequence. The first
testing and the Marshall Islands occurred during something called Operation Crossroads.
(18:48):
And that's what Matt was just talking about, folks, the
idea that we need to investigate the effects of nuclear
weapons on naval warships because of course the US is
not well, it's many things, but it's not foolish. It's
not naive enough to think that nuclear weapons will stay
(19:08):
a US joint for a long time. Other people want
the new toy, right, and when they get the new toy,
they're going to use it to break the toys of
their rivals, like battleships, carriers, et cetera. So we have
to find out what happens before we see it in
the field.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
So well, in some of the stuff surrounding the early
Operation Crossroads, the actual testing that they did, there's some
weird stuff and it's hard to imagine. This was a spectacle,
you know, you think of nuclear testing. At least in
the beginning there it was a very secretive thing. We
talked about that you can't let anyone know that we're
testing this weapon. You don't want your arrivals to know.
(19:46):
But as we got into really the thick of Operation Crossroads,
the US has already dropped a nuclear weapon too, nuclear
weapons on another country. And at at this point it's
almost as if the US is wants to publicly show
the might again. But you have not hurt anybody just
(20:08):
to show that mite off. So it's in this one
of the testing. I believe it's called able shot or
I think it shot able. They invited a ton of
people out to watch this thing. They invited the press
to come out. Hey film this thing, take pictures, Hey
check this out. Let's talk about this, let's get it
(20:29):
in the news, so that, in my opinion, so our
allies and our enemies will notice.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Similar to a military demonstration, well, I mean it is
basically a military demonstration, yep, with a little bit with
with a lab coat on and to a big bang,
and a big big bang, so shot Able occurs on
July first, nineteen forty six. This allowed various US authorities
to confirm the power of these weapons, and they determined
(20:57):
some scary stuff. They said, Wow, if there were any
soldiers on any ships up to a mile away from
this explosion, they would be killed instantly, no takebacks, no
worries about the lingering effects of radiation. It's just flipping
off like a very violent light switch. And then they
followed up with the shot Baker test later that month,
(21:21):
on July twenty fifth. These tests were the first time
the US had tested nuclear weapons since the days of
Trinity in nineteen forty five, and they were also the
first nuclear detonations since those days in August nineteen forty five,
when Little Boy and Fat Man were dropped over Nagasaki
(21:41):
and Hiroshima, and when Operations Crossroads ended, it was on
August tenth, nineteen forty six. And get this, they ended
it because of very valid, pressing, terrifying concerns over radiation
and the effects radiation could have on the human body.
But they were worried about the human bodies of soldiers.
(22:04):
There weren't a lot of people on Uncle Sam's side
saying ah, yeah, what about the people who live here
for longer than a.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Tour of duty. They also didn't worry about all the
live animals that they loaded onto the ships when they
detonated the nukes, either to see what would happen.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Well Noah's ark style, like why would they, oh, is
this to see the effects of the radiation on the animals.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
The blast and the radiation. I mean, how do you
think they figured out that the soldiers would be killed instantly?
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Pigs, goats, and mice, I think specifically.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Okay, so the opposite of Noah's Ark style basically, yeah,
load onto a boat and kill them.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
All and see, well, well, see what will happen. Yeah,
that's the phrase they let's see what will happen, which is,
you know, it's it's a lot like if you went
to if you went to court for murder because you're
shot someone point blank and you said your honor. I
wasn't trying to hurt anybody. I wanted to see what
(23:05):
would happen For science dudes, yikes, I know, I know.
So this is a huge deal though, and a lot
of people in the US may be aware of the testing,
but there's not much attention being paid to the people
who are living in the Marshall Islands. And they kept going.
(23:30):
They kept going because this was a perfect storm of opportunity.
Right there's a post World War lull. There's a huge
boom industry and technology in the US because it's one
of the few Western places that was able to preserve
its infrastructure. You know, large parts of Europe were destroyed,
like not decades and decades of productivity were gone in
(23:53):
an instant. So they also didn't have a lot of
people who could stop them. That was key.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Heard that they evacuated or that these people, I guess
willingly evacuated like one hundred and sixty seven something people.
And we're talking about a collection of islands, you know,
in the thousand or not in the thousands, but over
a thousand. So how far would this site have been
from like whatever the metro center I believe MAJORA. How
far would this have been geographically from there?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
So the distance from Bikini to Majuro is eight hundred
and twenty seven kilometers because as the crow flies, that
works out to five hundred and fourteen miles got it.
And this is still by the way that that might
sound like it's a long way away, but we have
(24:43):
to remember these are nuclear weapons, and there are multiple tests,
so there is an aggregate cumulative effect here. After Operations
Crossroads ends due to those concerns about radiation for the soldiers.
Only let's fast forward. There's still tests going on nineteen fifty.
(25:03):
Then President Truman decides that we're going to increase research
into thermonuclear weapons because of our new frenemy, the USSR,
and that the conflict, the Cold War conflict was already
kind of brewing toward the end of World War two,
of course, so to do this, to increase this amount
(25:27):
of research, we necessarily increase the amount of nuclear testing.
And it turns out we have one place, one place
where we love to test all these world ending toys.
It's still the Marshall Islands. So something called Operation Greenhouse
begins in nineteen fifty one, and then it goes to
(25:50):
Operation Ivy in November of nineteen fifty two. I don't
know whether the band is named after that, folks, but
I had the same question yep.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Thinking about I bet you, I bet you they named
it after the operation, I would guess, but who knows.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Who knows, who knows, But you know, some of their
songs still hold up. So Shot Mike, you know, we had,
we had those other things we mentioned earlier. Shot Able.
For instance, there's another one called Shot Mike. It is
the world's first known successful test of a hydrogen bomb.
And then just a little bit later, on November sixteenth,
(26:27):
Uncle Sam conducted what it called the King Shot, which
sounds like a really a really heavy tourist drink you
would get in a New Orleans bar or something.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
It also sounds like like vaguely Hamiltonian. I don't know why,
just because of the King and not gonna not gonna
throw away my shot, you know, and all that.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yeah, oh yeah, for sure, man. And I don't mean
to pull away from that stuff. I just want to
remind everybody the difference between an atomic weapon like the
ones that were dropped on versus what we're just now
introducing here a hydrogen bomb. Really the best way to
think about it is the scale of destruction and the
(27:11):
radius at which leave that like instant lethality occurs. So
if you can imagine that when a nuclear weapon was
dropped on Japan, around. I think it's a radius of
about a mile. People were killed fairly instantly or instantly
when it was dropped with a hydrogen bomb. You could
(27:32):
increase that by about five times or ten times, so
like five miles maybe ten miles in a radius where
people would just be instantly killed. Just so everyone's aware,
especially when we're talking about proximity to the other people
who lived on the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Which is huge. Yeah, it's very good point. It's very
important distinction too. So we're going to pause for a
brief word from our sponsors, and then we'll return with
the story of the largest test, the one that is
the reason we're looking at an average of one point
five hiroshimas every day for twelve years.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And the inevitable fallout.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
And the inevitable fallout. We've returned not to twenty twenty one,
but to March first, nineteen fifty four, the debut of
something called code name Bravo, which is objectively a really
(28:35):
cool name for a terrible thing. I think it's cool name.
So the US conducted the largest nuclear detonation that country
has ever conducted even now in the modern day, largest
ever full stop on uncle Sam's part. It was called
Castle Bravo. This took place at the Bikini A toll
(28:56):
on March. First. In Bravo was a fifteen megaton hydrogen
bomb that is alone the equivalent of Hiroshima one thousand times.
This was only one of a series of thermonuclear tests,
(29:17):
but it's the big one and it wasn't supposed to be.
We talked about remember earlier in Open Skies, we talked
about how many close calls the human species has had,
especially with nuclear weapons, and we were talking specifically about
breakdowns and communication or interpretation of what other countries are
(29:40):
saying or signaling. In this case, we screwed it up
entirely on our own. This was the first device of
its kind. We had the calculations, We thought our math
was solid, but we were so very wrong, and we,
meaning the scientists conducting this test, got the math so
(30:01):
screwed up that when the bomb was detonated, its nuclear
yield was more than double what they had planned for
or expected as consequences.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Whoof That's all I got to say about that. How
do you how do you miscalculate that that much?
Speaker 3 (30:22):
It's a new technology and you know they're they're testing, right,
that's what this thing is for, and they just didn't
realize what it was going to do, how big it
was going to be. And and like you said, there
were consequences been The fallout did drift over into two
inhabited areas. They're in the islands, and around two hundred
(30:44):
men and women and children were living in the places
where that fallout kind of just spread right on top
of And you know, it's one of those things we've
kind of been setting up this the whole episode, right
of the dangers here for the inhabitants of these islands,
and it happened.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
One at all wrong.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Lap.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
The people there found themselves instantly heavily affected by the fallout,
and there of course their ecosystem is affected too.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
And just just to clarify, these are initial physical effects,
not like long term stuff like we hear about with
other you know, like the big picture of radiation. These
are direct burns, you know, on people's bodies and very
quick onset of radiation diseases.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah, exactly. So when you're talking about widespread, heavy contamination
like this, you think of it in terms of either
two clocks, or maybe it's better to think of it
in terms of the hour hand and the minute hand.
So the stuff that happens first, those consequences, the burns,
(31:57):
the sickness, the radiation poisoning, it's the minute hand and
it's going tick tick and you're seeing the results. But
the bill really comes to with what we would call
the hour hand, which is the long tail effects of
these things, which are very serious and can take decades
(32:17):
to manifest. And that's a problem for the victims in
these situations because then it makes it a little more
difficult to prove that someone is suffering from a medical
condition because of something that happened twenty years ago, you
know what I mean, a lot of room for unethical
defense lawyers to play ball on that field. So add
(32:41):
to this the military, the US military did evacuate these
residents as well, about two days after the test, is
when they got around to it. And the people of
the Marshall Islands, the marshal Lees, were not informed of
the potential dangers. It was all very much, you know,
glory to the greater good. We're making the world a
(33:03):
better place, you're sacrificing. But they were under they were
under the impression that the sacrifice they were making was
moving for a little while. It was a very different
sacrifice involved a senator of the Marshall Islands named Jetton,
and Jane explained the effects of Castle Bravo in a
(33:24):
powerful and powerful and disturbing way. He says, five hours
after the detonation of this device, it began to rain
radioactive fallout. That wrong lap. The atoll was covered with
a fine white powder like substance. And listened to this part.
No one knew it was radioactive fallout. The children played
(33:47):
in the snow, they ate it.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
How would you know, how would you know? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Oh that is rough man.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, it just gets rougher. Nineteen fifty seven, the people
of Ronglop came back, but officials and scientists that were
working for the AEC decided that radiation was still at
play and still very much a problem.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Well, yeah, as we said, I mean, that's not enough time.
Three years as we said this, and we're gonna talk
about later. This stuff comes in twenty years later as
cancer and in birth effects and all of the terrible things. Yeah,
so there's this. There's a later report that comes out
in two thousand and four, and it found between the
years of nineteen forty six and nineteen fifty eight, the
(34:37):
full amount of contamination that would have been generated there
was in an excess of five hundred and thirty cancers.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, so what that means is in that estimate, in
that analysis, they said, Okay, what are the average incidents
of cancer in the population if all things are the
same and this test never happened, and we tell whether
this radiation increased cancer And the answer is yes, five
(35:07):
hundred and thirty times. People are just people are more
and more likely to get cancer that we can trace back.
In two thousand and four, and again it's a little
difficult as time passes, so that number is probably it's
probably lower. That estimate is probably lower than the actual number,
I mean to say. And two thousand and five, the
(35:29):
National Cancer Institute said, the risk of contracting cancer for
people exposed to this fallout like your chance of getting
cancer after this one out of three. That means that
if the three of us on stuff that wants you
to know today were in the Marshall Islands at that time,
one of us would get cancer. And those are terrible,
(35:51):
terrible odds. Two or three decades after the testing ended,
this is where the hour hand begins to tick. Multiple
many many adult citizens of the Marshall Islands developed cancerous
thyroid nodules, an associated health risk increase as well. I mean,
your community is shattered. You have to leave the home
(36:14):
where you know generations before you lived, and that gives
you stress. People have PTSD. That also, coupled with some
other social factors like the importation of Western diet with
the military, leads to diabetes, obesity, things that do not
help you. If you are contracting cancer and living in
(36:36):
an I radiated area, it's it's rough because later the
National Cancer Institute comes back in twenty ten and they say,
we looked at all the cancer between nineteen forty eight
and nineteen seventy the Marshall Islands and we the Cancer
Institute reports found one point six of all cancers least
(37:00):
during this time period in the Marshall Islands are directly
attributable to radiation from nuclear testing. What this means is
that the US, now I won't say on purpose, but
the US, through negligence, gave these innocent people cancer. There's
no way around it. They would not have had cancer
(37:21):
if there had not been nuclear weapons exploding so often
for so long.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
So we're saying one point six percent of all cancers
that were developed on all of the islands.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
That's what we're saying, Yes, gotcha, because some places got hit,
hit much harder, right, the Northern Atolls. In the same
study found that in the Northern Atolls, fifty five percent
of all cancers are the result of this fallout, more
than half.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Dang.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
And that one was specifically just for the Castle Bravo
test alone.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
The giant one.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Right. Wow. And then you know, moving on into the seventies,
the US does you know, agree that mistakes were made?
I don't know, maybe maybe the implication. They didn't directly
say it, but they did agree to clean up the
mess as much as possible to clean up the islands.
(38:18):
They took the crater from a previous bomb test on
Runnet Island.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And this was the Defense Nuclear Agency, by the way,
and they built a dome to store nuclear waste. And
this is you know, we see this in other sites
around the United States. For example, the Savannah River site
in near Augusta, Georgia, where I grew up, is a
legacy containment site for spent nuclear weapons, and they would
(38:48):
store a lot of this material in pits that they
would dig in line and you know, bury this stuff.
And they realized over time that some of those liners
leaked and leached all all of that stuff into the soil.
They had a similar response here. The Defense Nuclear Agency
built this dome to store the nuclear waste, and they
(39:10):
built inside of it a free hundred and seventy seven
foot wide concrete enclosure that holds more than three point
one million cubic feet. So this is a pit that
is the equivalent of thirty five Olympic sized swimming pools
filled entirely with radioactive soil and debris that contained lethal
(39:32):
doses of plutonium, all directly as a result of the
US activities here. And it gets worse.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
This isn't this isn't just the nuclear trash from the
Marshall Islands test. The US took stuff from Nevada and
put it on a boat and brought it there and
buried it again, not in my backyard. They nimbied this.
This structure today is in danger of collapsing. It is
(40:04):
deteriorating over time, and the big concern is that it
could soon reach even more of a crisis level due
to the rising seas. It could you know this was
a problem with Fukushima as well. When the ocean gets involved.
Nuclear weapons are an unstoppable force, but so is the
(40:28):
ocean for.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
Now, and.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Shout out, as our anonymous teacher pointed out, shout out
to the excellent work of the La Times reporting on
this situation, because there were we'll look back at this
in a second, but there's a solid case that the
US engaged in a series of cover ups here. So
a lot of the stuff that they were doing was
(40:51):
classified at the time, and you could say, of course
it had to be because it was nuclear testing, but
they also found it was The LA Times found that
the US had taken one hundred and thirty tons of
a radiated soil from a Nevada testing site and dumped
it there into the dome, and they had also conducted
(41:12):
biological weapons test, so it wasn't just nuclear. They were like, hey,
well we've got this testing thing. Let's you know, let's
take the anthrax round around the block for a spin.
Let's just we want to hurt anybody, Let's just see
what happens.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Yeah, that's another thing that's generally a no no exploding Eventually,
it's not always, you know, against international law to do
that kind of thing. But it's never a good look
when you're seen testing biological.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Weapons and the bill comes due. You know, nowadays it
is nowadays there are computer models that have the They
are sophisticated enough to predict some of the stuff that
you could in the past only find out through actual
physical testing. But still there's there's not really an excuse
(42:01):
for it, because again, people live there and you can
still see the dome today. Locals call it the tomb.
It's been described as a nuclear coffin burying the secrets
of the US as well. Officials in the Marshall Islands
lobbied the US government multiple times for help. American officials
initially declined to help with this cleanup. They said, get this, Well,
(42:24):
the dome is on Marshal Easee Land, and you know,
post nineteen seventy nine, you're a sovereign country, so therefore
it's the responsibility of your sovereign government. Hashtag not it.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
That land is your land, That land's not my land,
just because we tested.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Sorry, that's perfect.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Wow that sucks.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Yeah, that song sucks. Oh god, no, it's true. I mean,
oh wow, wow. Talk about like a little red hand
type situation. You know, remember that where all the other
ant it's like a reverse Little Red Hen where all
the other animals wanted to eat the bread that the
little red hen spend all this time making, but at
(43:08):
the end she said, no, you can't have the bread
because I made it. This is literally the other way
around where it's like you can't have the bread that
we made that is going to kill you. Never mind,
it's bad. It's a bad analogy.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
No, No, I think it's it's good. I've got a bad
one too, or at the very least, it's crass. It's
disturbingly similar to someone like two people hooking up and
someone saying, hey, in addition to ruining my apartment when
we hooked up, I think I am pregnant, and then
(43:44):
the other person saying you will be a fantastic single mother,
and I wish you the best of luck with your apartment.
And in this case, obviously the child is nuclear waste.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
That's what happened.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
In trouble for that one.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Do we need to take that? No, No, I know
it's good. I don't. I think it's so it's better
than mine. It paints a good it paints a disturbing picture. Ben,
You're absolutely right. The child is nuclear waste. And yeah,
it's like we're not gonna give you anything, We're not
going to help you. In fact, they went even further.
The folks that were left to clean up our mess
(44:22):
weren't even helped in the in the most basic ways,
which you think they would at least provide them some
kind of protective equipment. You know, has matt suits or
what have you, rad suits if you're a Fallout fan.
But no, not even that.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
So there is there is an argument to be made
where you could say, well, maybe this was just a
matter of not knowing the full extent or the full
potential danger of this kind of exposure, because again this
was early in the days of nuclear testing. But how
(44:57):
much water does that hold? How much nucle waste fits
in that rationalization, dome I would say not a ton,
especially when we consider that the journalists at the Times
dove deep into this. They interviewed every Marshal Ease US
official who would talk to them about this. They went
through thousands and thousands and thousands of declassified documents, and
(45:19):
they found that the US did know some key pieces
of information here, and they purposely withheld it from the
government of the Marshall Islands. So they didn't tell them
about the weapon testing program. They didn't tell them about
the stuff that was actually inside this dome. And the
reason they didn't tell them, the reason they covered it up,
(45:41):
is because they were pushing to sign a deal in
nineteen eighty six that would release the US government from
any further liability regarding these tests. And this deal is important,
it's still ongoing. But under this deal, they were supposed
to pay settlements, right, pay fines and also help the
(46:05):
population of the country while also cleaning up and paying
for that cleanup.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
So there's another study that was published by Columbia University
scientists and they found that levels of radiation in certain
parts of the Marshall Islands even today rival the radiation
levels found at Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I would also argue that the the siloing and withholding
of information rivals Chernobyl.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Yeah, information control sometimes it's a necessary thing, but it's
always it's always just so gross. It's usually not necessary.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
It's a really tough thing. We've got a story like
this that is based on you know, historical misdeeds or wrongdoing,
like outright wrongdoing by some country, and then you can
clearly trade the effects and the problems to present day
and the future where it's such a long lasting issue.
(47:07):
It's it isn't very often that we hit on one
of those topics, and this is certainly one. And I'm
just so grateful to our listener who put us onto this,
and my goodness, maybe we can find a way to
help in some way. I don't know how, but I
don't know what we do. We don't have the resources.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Well, yeah, we don't have much experience cleaning up nuclear waste,
which I've always thought is a weak point of our podcast.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
I would agree with you there, Ben.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Yeah, but we do know that there is an official
holiday coming up, the Remembrance Day on March second every year,
which honors the victims and the survivors of nuclear testing.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Throw a holiday at it, right, Well.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
It raises visibility, at least you can say that, you know,
if you if you are a resident of the US
and you want to see further US action in this area,
you can always write to your local representatives. Your individual
results may vary in that regard, unfortunately. Uh, but the facts,
(48:20):
the facts are the same areas of the Marshall Islands
have radiation levels that are almost double of what is
safe for human human habitation overall. As time passes, the
islands are slowly becoming less radioactive as long as that
dome doesn't crack. Right. But we if you ask somebody,
(48:42):
when will the Marshall Islands be free of radiation? When
can people return to Bikinia Toll, the answer is really
I don't know, no one, No one is sure. The
capital city we mentioned is overcrowded doing to rising and
sea levels and dozens of other things. It's becoming increasingly polluted.
(49:04):
Their cleanup efforts that continue as we're recording the show today,
and the Marshal Lease government continues to rightly, I would say,
advocate for compensation. Why is this important now? Why are
the events of more than half a century ago still
relevant today? Well aside from the radiation, that nineteen eighty
(49:25):
six deal comes up for renegotiation in twenty twenty three,
So there is a goal or milestone to push or
representatives for if you think the US should be doing
more in regards to this. And again, look we're just
being honest here, We're not doing a hit piece on
the United States. These are just facts. This was a
(49:46):
real conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Where do these territories fall in terms of, you know,
legislative representation.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
It's a good question. So again, since nineteen seventy nine,
the Republic of the Marshall Islands has been a sovereign country. However,
due to the nature of the relationship between the US
and the Marshall Islands, if you're from the Marshall Islands,
you can travel to the US very easily. In theory
or legally, it's very easy, and the same if you
(50:15):
are a US citizen who decides to go to the
Marshall Islands.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
So it's kind of in a gray area then almost right.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Well, it's part of it is that thing we mentioned
at the top, the fact that it's what's called an
associated state, so they have kind of a special unilateral.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Deal, so we can do what we will with them,
but don't really give them any protection or representation.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Yeah, it's similar to I mean, it's not the same
thing as a territory like Puerto Rico right now is
a territory, meaning that it does not have the representation
in the government that a state would have. Right, and
the Marshall Islands doesn't have that either. They do have
embassies and of course a big US military presence, but
(51:03):
it's still kind of it's still kind of World War
two era United States keeping that Pacific foothold, you know,
for the next war.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
And I'm sorry to harp on this, but I mean,
so doesn't that make our actions almost like a form
of like occupation, like to go in there and tell
people to leave and just do these tests? Like what's
the legal framework that makes that not a complete like
active war or you know, I mean maybe that's overstating
(51:34):
the case a little bit, but I'm confused in terms
of diplomacy, how we can justify what we did even
if it didn't cause all the problems that it caused.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Well, the art of diplomacy is the art of finding
a way to justify anything you please. Unfortunately, there's a
big business. But at the time these tests occurred, remember
the Marshall Islands were not yet a sovereign country.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
That's right, got it? So mine it gets a little fuzzy.
There's a lot a lot of moving parts in this one.
That fascinating and heartbreaking story.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Yeah, and this is where we're at. So there's a
tribunal that is a established that was established in nineteen
eighty eight, two years after that eighty six agreement, has
been to keep an eye on the payments and the
compensation the US is supposed to offer. They concluded that
the US needs to pay two point three billion dollars
(52:27):
in claims. Congress and the US courts have refused, and
documents show the US has paid a grand total of
mission control. Can we get a drum roll? Four million dollars?
Speaker 3 (52:43):
But you guys, it's okay, it's all, It's all okay.
None of that matters because in twenty twenty, the United
States government concluded that all this stuff that leaking nuclear
waste from the tombs aka the dome, all that stuff
is safe. You don't even have to worry about it anymore. Oh,
because yeah, don't even worry about it.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Who thanks, Uncle Sam. I feel great now.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
You know what, anyone out there listening, I hope one
of you is like an associate producer at John Oliver's show.
I need you to get John Oliver to do an
episode on this, because if we do want to do
something good for this, to raise some awareness or to
start some surreptitious campaign to raise money without people realizing
(53:30):
they're raising money for the Marshal Lease people.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
He could do it. No one can shame the US
government into action like John Oliver.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
Yeah, yeah, big fans here, John, if you're listening. And
it always I don't know, you guys, it always makes
my day over the time we've been doing this show
where we end up doing an episode and then later
the rest of the world decides that we're not crazy
and it did matter. Like it doesn't happen all the time,
(54:02):
but it's a beautiful moment. Give us a beautiful moment, John,
if you feel so inclined and and help these help
the folks in the Marshall Islands out your right. Met
That official report did conclude that the nuclear dome is
not in danger of imminent collapse. But we have to
remember island nations are fighting rising sea levels and within
(54:25):
our lifetime, so it is quite possible that we may
see a country like the Maldives become entirely underwater and
have to relocate the entire concept of its country to
another safer land mass.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Well, and not not to you know, have two rose
colored glasses about it, but at least we are transitioning
into an administration that acknowledges the science of climate change
and rising sea levels and things like that at least may.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
But still denies that the nuclear waste.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
No, I'm just joking.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
I don't know what the administration thinks about the dome.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Well, okay, here's the thing, and this is going to
make me sound very cynical and maybe a little bit
too real politic. A change in administration or a change
in domestic business can make an enormous difference. So if
you hate, you know, we always say in the US,
(55:25):
if you hate what's happening during one term, just wait
four years, you know, and it'll change, often in a
way that reverses other stuff. But we have to understand
outside of the bubble of the United States, the faces changed,
but a lot of the interventionist policies remain the same.
It's not as if these international initiatives that have been
(55:50):
in play for decades and yes, including conflicts and wars
and disputed territories. It's not as if they all of
a sudden get a ping on their on their beeper.
I don't know why, I picture whomever is here having
a beeper. They get a beeper ping, and it says
like a new president three three three or whatever, and
they say, oh, okay, stop, we'll stop now, We'll stop
(56:13):
making so much money.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
And then the nuclear way says, oh, we'll stop degrading
right now.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
We're done, right right, But yeah, hopefully, hopefully the world
can cooperate on this. One other thing that came out
of this, by the way, is that the Marshall Islands
are on the forefront of pushing against pushing for nuclear disarmament.
They say, you know, we don't want anything like this
(56:40):
to happen to anyone. And that's where we leave it today.
We we also have to we have to ask you
some questions, folks. What should the US government do? What
should the international community to do in this regard? Is
the US really doing all it can? Are these good
faith efforts now decades later, If you have visited the
(57:03):
Marshall Islands or if you live there now, we'd also
love to hear your perspective, what is life like there?
Is are the effects of this still readily apparent in
your neck of the global woods.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
Let us know.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 3 (57:20):
You can find us on Twitter and Facebook, where we
are conspiracy stuff on Instagram. We are a conspiracy stuff show.
If you want to check out one of the coolest
Facebook groups, check out Here's Where It Gets Crazy or
is it a page, whatever it is, it's called Here's
Where It Gets Crazy and it's on Facebook and you
can find a lot of your conspiracy realists there and
(57:40):
you can have cool conversations with some of the best
mods in the business running the show.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
I think it's a group for sure.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
Okay, it's a group.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
You don't want to do that, you can give us
a call. We've got a hotline toll free like the
old days, remember that one eight three three STDWYTK. As
Matt mentioned on our last episode, we have been getting
a flurry of fabulous voicemails from you. Yes, Hugh, so
if you would please limit it to one three minute message,
let us now what to call you and make sure
(58:09):
you let us know if it's okay to use your voice,
because we prefer to do that if possible, or if
you'd like to be anonymous, let us know that too,
and you might hear yourself in one of our weekly
listener mail episodes.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
You can also leave us a review on your podscraper
of choice. It does make a difference. We are as
ever grateful for your input. This show does not occur
without you. You can pop over to YouTube dot com
slash conspiracy Stuff to see our weird weird library of
(58:39):
conspiracies that you may have thought of in the past,
and ones that I can with certitude guarantee that you
have not heard of. If you don't care for social media,
if phones are not quite your thing, there is one
other way. You can always contact us, regardless of time
(59:00):
I'm space, regardless of topic as well send us an email.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they don't
(59:28):
want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realists. We are returning with a classic episode.
This is a story a lot of people in the
United States haven't heard of, the story of the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's right. The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a
super small, remote island about halfway between Hawaii and Australia,
and there have been some nefarious goings on. Historically speaking,
it took place on that island.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, namely nukes, lots lots of nukes.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
As the world entered the atomic Age, Uncle Sam realized
it needed a place sort of away from the press
to test its new weaponry, and they needed a place
where they would not be beholden to or accountable for
the consequences of their actions. So way back in twenty
(00:57):
twenty one, we looked into something we like to call mystery,
Mayhem and Nuke's the story of the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Let's roll the.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Tape from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Hello and welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
My name is Matt my name is Nolan.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul.
Mission control decands, most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff. They don't want you to know.
Today's story is a tragic continuing saga and spoiler alert,
it is a story that does not at this point
(02:00):
have an ending. However, we feel it is important for
more people to be aware of this conspiracy, this cover up,
this semi apocalyptic series of very unfortunate events. This story
comes to us, folks, courtesy of one of your fellow
(02:22):
listeners who left us a message. Oh God, Matt, it
was a was it twenty nineteen?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Oh no, Ben, this actually came from twenty twenty this year,
and we just want to say thank you, Anonymous teacher.
We would mean playing your voicemail right now, but you
asked us not to.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well we did.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
We did, of course play it for ourselves as a group,
but as we always say, you know, we we want
to respect people's wishes for privacy.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
We didn't think you sounded scatter rained at all.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
For the record, an Anonymous teacher, you raised a very
interesting point. You also did something that I love to
hear which is you. You mentioned some of your own
research in this matter in the story of the Marshall Islands. Now,
a lot of people have probably heard of the Bikini
(03:12):
A Toll, especially if you're if you're interested in the
history of nuclear testing, nuclear revolution. But there's a larger,
much larger story at play here, And to explore this story,
we have to first explore the Marshall Islands themselves, which
are going to be unfamiliar with a lot of people
(03:34):
in the US, especially if you have you don't have
any relatives in the military, or you haven't yourself been
a part of the military. So here are the facts.
The Marshall Islands are remote. Oh man, you thought driving
driving for a long weekend at a cabin in the
(03:54):
mountains was a hassle. Just look at all the stuff
you have to do to get from where you are
now wherever you're listening to this, all the way out
to the Marshall Islands. They are about halfway between Hawaii
and Australia, like right near the equator. And although it's
one sovereign country now as of nineteen seventy nine, it's
(04:19):
really two kind of parallel chains of a lot of
very small very small plots of land. Is considered what's
called an associated state of the US. That means that
since its constitution and independence in nineteen seventy nine, it's
(04:40):
a sovereign country, but as a formal, very distinct, unique
relationship with the United States. And we're going to find
out exactly why in this episode. I don't know why
I'm laughing. This is a terrible thing. And even though
it's a pretty big area of ocean and island population wise,
(05:02):
it's a very small place, that's right.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
An estimated fifty eight thousand, four hundred and thirteen human
souls live in this region, spread out across twenty nine
coral atolls, and they're called that because they're they're almost
like mini islands, like I mean, when you look at
them on an aerial view, they really just look like
tiny little specks. And these atolls are composed of one thousand,
(05:28):
one hundred and fifty six individual islands or islets. Most
live in the capital called Majuro. And it's beautiful, you know,
we're talking about crystal blue waters, you know, island paradise
type getaways. It's incredibly remote, very low crime rate, and
(05:49):
for many many years, thousands of years was the kind
of place where you could kind of go and live
a life off the grid, like Robinson Caruso style. Unfortunately,
due to a series of unfortunate events Lemony Snaket style,
this is no longer the case.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Right, Yeah, this place has a long history of human
occupation dating back to at least the second millennium BCE,
and as the world and the countries in the world
became increasingly connected in the modern era, more and more
governments either half a world away or you know, closer
(06:31):
to that Pacific region, they became interested, intensely interested in
controlling the territory we know as the Republic of the
Marshall Islands today. As far back as nineteen fourteen, Japan
was interested. They were building bases, military bases on the islands.
And then if you fast forward through the bloody events
of World War Two in the Pacific theater there, you'll
(06:55):
see that after the United States defeated Japanese troops in
the area, they turned two a tolls of the Marshall
Islands into military bases themselves. So it's kind of like
there are two there are two things fighting, but neither
of them have the concerns of the native people at
(07:17):
the front of their mind.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
No, it's a strategic place to be. If you've got
naval forces, it's a strategic place to be. And it's
also strategic if you need to be isolated for some
reason away from larger populations.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Ding ding Ding. Yeah, and consider just the resupply value
it offers too. So in nineteen forty seven the Islands,
due to action by the UN, the islands become part
of something called the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.
There's still not a country. This was like the UN's
idea officially, but this Trust territory is administered kauf Cough,
(07:58):
controlled kauf Cough by the United States. This is Uncle
Sam's new Island paradise, if you will. These kind of
territory graphs, we should know, super common in any post
war era, go back to the first battles humans fought.
(08:18):
There was usually a territory grap afterwards, and it was
often about territory, no matter what kind of ideology they
put over it. This happens for a number of reasons. One,
as you pointed out, Matt to gain control of a
strategic point, either for shipping purposes, economic purposes, you could say,
or to plan for future wars, future areas that we
(08:43):
could wage a good offense up from, or areas that
we could easily defend.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
And then of.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Course, the big badger in the bag of every war
ever claims the local resources. Every war you have seen,
fought or read about is is about getting stuff from
other people, no matter how it's phrased. This makes the
Marshall Islands Trust Territory very strange in human history because
(09:13):
the US did have a plan for this region, but
they didn't want to take anything. Instead, they wanted to
leave something, something terrible behind. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, what they wanted to leave behind was indeed something terrible.
It is a byproduct of nuclear testing. As described by
Tony de Broome, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Health.
In nineteen forty six, the US Navy pulled into the
lagoon of the Bikini Atoll and told the one hundred
(09:50):
and sixty seven people that were living there at the
time that they were going to use this land as
a testing site for nuclear weaponry. They were direct and
how they approached these individuals, but at the same time
it was it was like a stick almost like they
like they'd done it before. The group phrased their conversation
(10:11):
in such a way, almost like you would with something
like eminent domain, where it's like, let us buy you out,
let us help you, help us, et cetera. They phrased
it in terms of quote seeking permission, but they couched
the mission as something that was the will of God
himself and would ultimately benefit all mankind. You can't argue
(10:33):
with God and the benefit of all mankind. I would
say it was a sacrifice. They were asking these people
to make for the future safety of the entire world.
And so these a small number of people admittedly took off.
They evacuated, they did.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
And now remember here we're talking about a series of
islands that make up this thing that we call all
the Marshall Islands or the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
And they went to one one little atoll and kicked
people off to do nuclear testing, which, as we all know,
has a bit of an area of effect.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
It's for the greater good though, yeah, forum forum, the
greater good. Well. As an end result of this pretty
disingenuous approach, we learn that between nineteen forty six, all
the way up to nineteen fifty eight. The United States
ended up conducting no less than sixty seven documented nuclear
(11:38):
test in the Marshall Islands. It's just the nuclear test.
The US conducted about twenty three of these tests at
Bikini a toll, and then forty four near another atoll, Enawatak.
But the fallout, to your point about the area of effect,
the fallout spread everywhere. It spread throughout the Marshall Islands.
(12:00):
And when we say we say test, we're not talking
about the nuclear equivalent of popping an M eight or
a flash bang. The overall yield of these tests, due
to one curve busting monstrous bomb, The overall yield of
these nuclear tests has been estimated to be to work
(12:20):
out to an average of one point seven Hiroshima level
detonations every day for twelve years.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
So this is serious.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
This is unending Hiroshima if you look at the way
this can be averaged across the span of testing. And
now with the benefit of retrospect, we know much more
about the test than people did during the time, even
the people living there by the way, who in some
(12:53):
cases were not evacuated when the testing began. So we're
going to pause for a word from our sponsors, and
then will return. We're going to dive deep into the
timeline and the specifics of these tests and why they
matter today.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Okay, and we're back. We are still in the Republic
of the Marshall Islands, at least in the present day.
That's what it's known as. And we're going to talk
about something called Operation Crossroads. And that's what we've been
discussing here. The nuclear tests at the Bikini A Toll
and the Enawak Atoll. So why would you do nuclear
(13:37):
testing there? We know that the United States had, like
around that time in the forties, had been testing nuclear
weapons on American soil out there near Nevada in the
testing grounds there, and perhaps in a couple other places.
But you know, why would you go out to a
remote island to do this testing? Well, one of the
main reasons was because the military machine wanted to know
(14:00):
what happens to a naval vessel when a nuclear explosion occurs,
How far away does it have to be to have
any kind of effect, what are the effects in general?
And all these other questions that I'm sure some general
had in their mind or some admiral who wanted to
know what was going to happen in the future when
a nuke went off near his vessel.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
And now I'd imagine at a base level, secrecy was
very important here too, right.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Sure, yeah, you don't want the American public, and to
a degree, the Marshal Eese public, to be able to
raise a hand and say, hey, this is crazy. We
live in this area. There are a couple other advantages
that were nearby military bases. This area is also you know,
(14:47):
this is pre satellite surveillance nets, so this area is
also more difficult for enemy forces to observe. Right, everybody's
going to sense or figure out a nuclear detonation of
this size. It's kind of a disturbance in the force
vibe at this level of energy. But they also they
(15:09):
also were doing a NIMBI thing that everybody knows that abbreviation.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Not in my backyard.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
The Trinity test did take place in the heartland of
America or the North American continent. But now that we
have discovered the process to make a nuclear bomb and
we want to build better ones, we have to realize
that post nineteen forty five, people are in post World
(15:37):
War two. Really, the US public is going to start
asking increasingly difficult questions about why we're blowing up stuff
in our own country. So not just the generals, but
the policy wonks and Congress wanted to get in front
of this thing. And that's when they said, you know,
(15:57):
we've got this place. We can go nuts here. This
is the nuclear testing equivalent of vegas. Baby, roll the dice,
drop the bombs, and that's exactly what they did.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Ben. I asked you off, Mike. You know, if we
talked about this place being like an island paradise, et cetera,
with such a low population, and my question was, were
these are these transplants from other South Pacific nations or
are they would you consider these indigenous people? And I
think the answer is a bit of both, but largely
it is they are indigenous people.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Correct, Yeah, yeah, So the Marshalley's culture is part of
the wider culture of Micronesia, and if you look at
the history of marsh Lee's culture. I don't know, we're
kind of this is a little off topic, but I'm
going somewhere with this. We all have friends in New York,
(16:50):
and if you're not from New York, or even if
you are from the Big Apple You're well aware that
New York has this weird thing about when one can
be called a local, right and not just a tourist.
What's the threshold? Is it like eight years or so.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Of gosh, I don't know the actual official number, but
it's certainly more than a couple Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, And so there's it seems like that's a microcosmic
equivalent of the larger question, which is when do people
become considered indigenous people?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
We know that with most continents and land masses in
the world, there was a migration at some point in
ancient history. So as far as the question of indigenous,
you know, the people who live in the Marshall Islands
have a very close relationship with the land and the sea.
It forms part of the community and part of the culture.
(17:43):
And it looks like they were part of, I said,
the second millennium BC. It looks like they were part
of that larger wave of human migration three thousand years
ago that spread across the western Pacific Ocean. Say, I
would say, you know, I'm not doing New York rules here,
(18:05):
far be it, But I feel like if you've lived
in an area for that long, you can be considered native.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Right, Oh, totally. We're talking generations. And I didn't know
this going in, but you know, when you say that
we refer to them as the marshal eSEE people, they
also have the marshal Eese language. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
That's correct. And so there. This is what we're establishing here,
is that the Marshall Islands were by no means some
kind of empty room or some kind of barren, uninhabited
place where these tests could occur without consequence. The first
testing and the Marshall Islands occurred during something called Operation Crossroads.
(18:48):
And that's what Matt was just talking about, folks, the
idea that we need to investigate the effects of nuclear
weapons on naval warships because of course the US is
not well, it's many things, but it's not foolish. It's
not naive enough to think that nuclear weapons will stay
(19:08):
a US joint for a long time. Other people want
the new toy, right, and when they get the new toy,
they're going to use it to break the toys of
their rivals, like battleships, carriers, et cetera. So we have
to find out what happens before we see it in
the field.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
So well, in some of the stuff surrounding the early
Operation Crossroads, the actual testing that they did, there's some
weird stuff and it's hard to imagine. This was a spectacle,
you know, you think of nuclear testing. At least in
the beginning there it was a very secretive thing. We
talked about that you can't let anyone know that we're
testing this weapon. You don't want your arrivals to know.
(19:46):
But as we got into really the thick of Operation Crossroads,
the US has already dropped a nuclear weapon too, nuclear
weapons on another country. And at at this point it's
almost as if the US is wants to publicly show
the might again. But you have not hurt anybody just
(20:08):
to show that mite off. So it's in this one
of the testing. I believe it's called able shot or
I think it shot able. They invited a ton of
people out to watch this thing. They invited the press
to come out. Hey film this thing, take pictures, Hey
check this out. Let's talk about this, let's get it
(20:29):
in the news, so that, in my opinion, so our
allies and our enemies will notice.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Similar to a military demonstration, well, I mean it is
basically a military demonstration, yep, with a little bit with
with a lab coat on and to a big bang,
and a big big bang, so shot Able occurs on
July first, nineteen forty six. This allowed various US authorities
to confirm the power of these weapons, and they determined
(20:57):
some scary stuff. They said, Wow, if there were any
soldiers on any ships up to a mile away from
this explosion, they would be killed instantly, no takebacks, no
worries about the lingering effects of radiation. It's just flipping
off like a very violent light switch. And then they
followed up with the shot Baker test later that month,
(21:21):
on July twenty fifth. These tests were the first time
the US had tested nuclear weapons since the days of
Trinity in nineteen forty five, and they were also the
first nuclear detonations since those days in August nineteen forty five,
when Little Boy and Fat Man were dropped over Nagasaki
(21:41):
and Hiroshima, and when Operations Crossroads ended, it was on
August tenth, nineteen forty six. And get this, they ended
it because of very valid, pressing, terrifying concerns over radiation
and the effects radiation could have on the human body.
But they were worried about the human bodies of soldiers.
(22:04):
There weren't a lot of people on Uncle Sam's side
saying ah, yeah, what about the people who live here
for longer than a.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Tour of duty. They also didn't worry about all the
live animals that they loaded onto the ships when they
detonated the nukes, either to see what would happen.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Well Noah's ark style, like why would they, oh, is
this to see the effects of the radiation on the animals.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
The blast and the radiation. I mean, how do you
think they figured out that the soldiers would be killed instantly?
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Pigs, goats, and mice, I think specifically.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Okay, so the opposite of Noah's Ark style basically, yeah,
load onto a boat and kill them.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
All and see, well, well, see what will happen. Yeah,
that's the phrase they let's see what will happen, which is,
you know, it's it's a lot like if you went
to if you went to court for murder because you're
shot someone point blank and you said your honor. I
wasn't trying to hurt anybody. I wanted to see what
(23:05):
would happen For science dudes, yikes, I know, I know.
So this is a huge deal though, and a lot
of people in the US may be aware of the testing,
but there's not much attention being paid to the people
who are living in the Marshall Islands. And they kept going.
(23:30):
They kept going because this was a perfect storm of opportunity.
Right there's a post World War lull. There's a huge
boom industry and technology in the US because it's one
of the few Western places that was able to preserve
its infrastructure. You know, large parts of Europe were destroyed,
like not decades and decades of productivity were gone in
(23:53):
an instant. So they also didn't have a lot of
people who could stop them. That was key.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Heard that they evacuated or that these people, I guess
willingly evacuated like one hundred and sixty seven something people.
And we're talking about a collection of islands, you know,
in the thousand or not in the thousands, but over
a thousand. So how far would this site have been
from like whatever the metro center I believe MAJORA. How
far would this have been geographically from there?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
So the distance from Bikini to Majuro is eight hundred
and twenty seven kilometers because as the crow flies, that
works out to five hundred and fourteen miles got it.
And this is still by the way that that might
sound like it's a long way away, but we have
(24:43):
to remember these are nuclear weapons, and there are multiple tests,
so there is an aggregate cumulative effect here. After Operations
Crossroads ends due to those concerns about radiation for the soldiers.
Only let's fast forward. There's still tests going on nineteen fifty.
(25:03):
Then President Truman decides that we're going to increase research
into thermonuclear weapons because of our new frenemy, the USSR,
and that the conflict, the Cold War conflict was already
kind of brewing toward the end of World War two,
of course, so to do this, to increase this amount
(25:27):
of research, we necessarily increase the amount of nuclear testing.
And it turns out we have one place, one place
where we love to test all these world ending toys.
It's still the Marshall Islands. So something called Operation Greenhouse
begins in nineteen fifty one, and then it goes to
(25:50):
Operation Ivy in November of nineteen fifty two. I don't
know whether the band is named after that, folks, but
I had the same question yep.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Thinking about I bet you, I bet you they named
it after the operation, I would guess, but who knows.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Who knows, who knows, But you know, some of their
songs still hold up. So Shot Mike, you know, we had,
we had those other things we mentioned earlier. Shot Able.
For instance, there's another one called Shot Mike. It is
the world's first known successful test of a hydrogen bomb.
And then just a little bit later, on November sixteenth,
(26:27):
Uncle Sam conducted what it called the King Shot, which
sounds like a really a really heavy tourist drink you
would get in a New Orleans bar or something.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
It also sounds like like vaguely Hamiltonian. I don't know why,
just because of the King and not gonna not gonna
throw away my shot, you know, and all that.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yeah, oh yeah, for sure, man. And I don't mean
to pull away from that stuff. I just want to
remind everybody the difference between an atomic weapon like the
ones that were dropped on versus what we're just now
introducing here a hydrogen bomb. Really the best way to
think about it is the scale of destruction and the
(27:11):
radius at which leave that like instant lethality occurs. So
if you can imagine that when a nuclear weapon was
dropped on Japan, around. I think it's a radius of
about a mile. People were killed fairly instantly or instantly
when it was dropped with a hydrogen bomb. You could
(27:32):
increase that by about five times or ten times, so
like five miles maybe ten miles in a radius where
people would just be instantly killed. Just so everyone's aware,
especially when we're talking about proximity to the other people
who lived on the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Which is huge. Yeah, it's very good point. It's very
important distinction too. So we're going to pause for a
brief word from our sponsors, and then we'll return with
the story of the largest test, the one that is
the reason we're looking at an average of one point
five hiroshimas every day for twelve years.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And the inevitable fallout.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
And the inevitable fallout. We've returned not to twenty twenty one,
but to March first, nineteen fifty four, the debut of
something called code name Bravo, which is objectively a really
(28:35):
cool name for a terrible thing. I think it's cool name.
So the US conducted the largest nuclear detonation that country
has ever conducted even now in the modern day, largest
ever full stop on uncle Sam's part. It was called
Castle Bravo. This took place at the Bikini A toll
(28:56):
on March. First. In Bravo was a fifteen megaton hydrogen
bomb that is alone the equivalent of Hiroshima one thousand times.
This was only one of a series of thermonuclear tests,
(29:17):
but it's the big one and it wasn't supposed to be.
We talked about remember earlier in Open Skies, we talked
about how many close calls the human species has had,
especially with nuclear weapons, and we were talking specifically about
breakdowns and communication or interpretation of what other countries are
(29:40):
saying or signaling. In this case, we screwed it up
entirely on our own. This was the first device of
its kind. We had the calculations, We thought our math
was solid, but we were so very wrong, and we,
meaning the scientists conducting this test, got the math so
(30:01):
screwed up that when the bomb was detonated, its nuclear
yield was more than double what they had planned for
or expected as consequences.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Whoof That's all I got to say about that. How
do you how do you miscalculate that that much?
Speaker 3 (30:22):
It's a new technology and you know they're they're testing, right,
that's what this thing is for, and they just didn't
realize what it was going to do, how big it
was going to be. And and like you said, there
were consequences been The fallout did drift over into two
inhabited areas. They're in the islands, and around two hundred
(30:44):
men and women and children were living in the places
where that fallout kind of just spread right on top
of And you know, it's one of those things we've
kind of been setting up this the whole episode, right
of the dangers here for the inhabitants of these islands,
and it happened.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
One at all wrong.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Lap.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
The people there found themselves instantly heavily affected by the fallout,
and there of course their ecosystem is affected too.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
And just just to clarify, these are initial physical effects,
not like long term stuff like we hear about with
other you know, like the big picture of radiation. These
are direct burns, you know, on people's bodies and very
quick onset of radiation diseases.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah, exactly. So when you're talking about widespread, heavy contamination
like this, you think of it in terms of either
two clocks, or maybe it's better to think of it
in terms of the hour hand and the minute hand.
So the stuff that happens first, those consequences, the burns,
(31:57):
the sickness, the radiation poisoning, it's the minute hand and
it's going tick tick and you're seeing the results. But
the bill really comes to with what we would call
the hour hand, which is the long tail effects of
these things, which are very serious and can take decades
(32:17):
to manifest. And that's a problem for the victims in
these situations because then it makes it a little more
difficult to prove that someone is suffering from a medical
condition because of something that happened twenty years ago, you
know what I mean, a lot of room for unethical
defense lawyers to play ball on that field. So add
(32:41):
to this the military, the US military did evacuate these
residents as well, about two days after the test, is
when they got around to it. And the people of
the Marshall Islands, the marshal Lees, were not informed of
the potential dangers. It was all very much, you know,
glory to the greater good. We're making the world a
(33:03):
better place, you're sacrificing. But they were under they were
under the impression that the sacrifice they were making was
moving for a little while. It was a very different
sacrifice involved a senator of the Marshall Islands named Jetton,
and Jane explained the effects of Castle Bravo in a
(33:24):
powerful and powerful and disturbing way. He says, five hours
after the detonation of this device, it began to rain
radioactive fallout. That wrong lap. The atoll was covered with
a fine white powder like substance. And listened to this part.
No one knew it was radioactive fallout. The children played
(33:47):
in the snow, they ate it.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
How would you know, how would you know? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Oh that is rough man.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, it just gets rougher. Nineteen fifty seven, the people
of Ronglop came back, but officials and scientists that were
working for the AEC decided that radiation was still at
play and still very much a problem.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Well, yeah, as we said, I mean, that's not enough time.
Three years as we said this, and we're gonna talk
about later. This stuff comes in twenty years later as
cancer and in birth effects and all of the terrible things. Yeah,
so there's this. There's a later report that comes out
in two thousand and four, and it found between the
years of nineteen forty six and nineteen fifty eight, the
(34:37):
full amount of contamination that would have been generated there
was in an excess of five hundred and thirty cancers.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, so what that means is in that estimate, in
that analysis, they said, Okay, what are the average incidents
of cancer in the population if all things are the
same and this test never happened, and we tell whether
this radiation increased cancer And the answer is yes, five
(35:07):
hundred and thirty times. People are just people are more
and more likely to get cancer that we can trace back.
In two thousand and four, and again it's a little
difficult as time passes, so that number is probably it's
probably lower. That estimate is probably lower than the actual number,
I mean to say. And two thousand and five, the
(35:29):
National Cancer Institute said, the risk of contracting cancer for
people exposed to this fallout like your chance of getting
cancer after this one out of three. That means that
if the three of us on stuff that wants you
to know today were in the Marshall Islands at that time,
one of us would get cancer. And those are terrible,
(35:51):
terrible odds. Two or three decades after the testing ended,
this is where the hour hand begins to tick. Multiple
many many adult citizens of the Marshall Islands developed cancerous
thyroid nodules, an associated health risk increase as well. I mean,
your community is shattered. You have to leave the home
(36:14):
where you know generations before you lived, and that gives
you stress. People have PTSD. That also, coupled with some
other social factors like the importation of Western diet with
the military, leads to diabetes, obesity, things that do not
help you. If you are contracting cancer and living in
(36:36):
an I radiated area, it's it's rough because later the
National Cancer Institute comes back in twenty ten and they say,
we looked at all the cancer between nineteen forty eight
and nineteen seventy the Marshall Islands and we the Cancer
Institute reports found one point six of all cancers least
(37:00):
during this time period in the Marshall Islands are directly
attributable to radiation from nuclear testing. What this means is
that the US, now I won't say on purpose, but
the US, through negligence, gave these innocent people cancer. There's
no way around it. They would not have had cancer
(37:21):
if there had not been nuclear weapons exploding so often
for so long.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
So we're saying one point six percent of all cancers
that were developed on all of the islands.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
That's what we're saying, Yes, gotcha, because some places got hit,
hit much harder, right, the Northern Atolls. In the same
study found that in the Northern Atolls, fifty five percent
of all cancers are the result of this fallout, more
than half.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Dang.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
And that one was specifically just for the Castle Bravo
test alone.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
The giant one.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Right. Wow. And then you know, moving on into the seventies,
the US does you know, agree that mistakes were made?
I don't know, maybe maybe the implication. They didn't directly
say it, but they did agree to clean up the
mess as much as possible to clean up the islands.
(38:18):
They took the crater from a previous bomb test on
Runnet Island.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And this was the Defense Nuclear Agency, by the way,
and they built a dome to store nuclear waste. And
this is you know, we see this in other sites
around the United States. For example, the Savannah River site
in near Augusta, Georgia, where I grew up, is a
legacy containment site for spent nuclear weapons, and they would
(38:48):
store a lot of this material in pits that they
would dig in line and you know, bury this stuff.
And they realized over time that some of those liners
leaked and leached all all of that stuff into the soil.
They had a similar response here. The Defense Nuclear Agency
built this dome to store the nuclear waste, and they
(39:10):
built inside of it a free hundred and seventy seven
foot wide concrete enclosure that holds more than three point
one million cubic feet. So this is a pit that
is the equivalent of thirty five Olympic sized swimming pools
filled entirely with radioactive soil and debris that contained lethal
(39:32):
doses of plutonium, all directly as a result of the
US activities here. And it gets worse.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
This isn't this isn't just the nuclear trash from the
Marshall Islands test. The US took stuff from Nevada and
put it on a boat and brought it there and
buried it again, not in my backyard. They nimbied this.
This structure today is in danger of collapsing. It is
(40:04):
deteriorating over time, and the big concern is that it
could soon reach even more of a crisis level due
to the rising seas. It could you know this was
a problem with Fukushima as well. When the ocean gets involved.
Nuclear weapons are an unstoppable force, but so is the
(40:28):
ocean for.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
Now, and.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Shout out, as our anonymous teacher pointed out, shout out
to the excellent work of the La Times reporting on
this situation, because there were we'll look back at this
in a second, but there's a solid case that the
US engaged in a series of cover ups here. So
a lot of the stuff that they were doing was
(40:51):
classified at the time, and you could say, of course
it had to be because it was nuclear testing, but
they also found it was The LA Times found that
the US had taken one hundred and thirty tons of
a radiated soil from a Nevada testing site and dumped
it there into the dome, and they had also conducted
(41:12):
biological weapons test, so it wasn't just nuclear. They were like, hey,
well we've got this testing thing. Let's you know, let's
take the anthrax round around the block for a spin.
Let's just we want to hurt anybody, Let's just see
what happens.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Yeah, that's another thing that's generally a no no exploding Eventually,
it's not always, you know, against international law to do
that kind of thing. But it's never a good look
when you're seen testing biological.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Weapons and the bill comes due. You know, nowadays it
is nowadays there are computer models that have the They
are sophisticated enough to predict some of the stuff that
you could in the past only find out through actual
physical testing. But still there's there's not really an excuse
(42:01):
for it, because again, people live there and you can
still see the dome today. Locals call it the tomb.
It's been described as a nuclear coffin burying the secrets
of the US as well. Officials in the Marshall Islands
lobbied the US government multiple times for help. American officials
initially declined to help with this cleanup. They said, get this, Well,
(42:24):
the dome is on Marshal Easee Land, and you know,
post nineteen seventy nine, you're a sovereign country, so therefore
it's the responsibility of your sovereign government. Hashtag not it.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
That land is your land, That land's not my land,
just because we tested.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Sorry, that's perfect.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Wow that sucks.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Yeah, that song sucks. Oh god, no, it's true. I mean,
oh wow, wow. Talk about like a little red hand
type situation. You know, remember that where all the other
ant it's like a reverse Little Red Hen where all
the other animals wanted to eat the bread that the
little red hen spend all this time making, but at
(43:08):
the end she said, no, you can't have the bread
because I made it. This is literally the other way
around where it's like you can't have the bread that
we made that is going to kill you. Never mind,
it's bad. It's a bad analogy.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
No, No, I think it's it's good. I've got a bad
one too, or at the very least, it's crass. It's
disturbingly similar to someone like two people hooking up and
someone saying, hey, in addition to ruining my apartment when
we hooked up, I think I am pregnant, and then
(43:44):
the other person saying you will be a fantastic single mother,
and I wish you the best of luck with your apartment.
And in this case, obviously the child is nuclear waste.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
That's what happened.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
In trouble for that one.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Do we need to take that? No, No, I know
it's good. I don't. I think it's so it's better
than mine. It paints a good it paints a disturbing picture. Ben,
You're absolutely right. The child is nuclear waste. And yeah,
it's like we're not gonna give you anything, We're not
going to help you. In fact, they went even further.
The folks that were left to clean up our mess
(44:22):
weren't even helped in the in the most basic ways,
which you think they would at least provide them some
kind of protective equipment. You know, has matt suits or
what have you, rad suits if you're a Fallout fan.
But no, not even that.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
So there is there is an argument to be made
where you could say, well, maybe this was just a
matter of not knowing the full extent or the full
potential danger of this kind of exposure, because again this
was early in the days of nuclear testing. But how
(44:57):
much water does that hold? How much nucle waste fits
in that rationalization, dome I would say not a ton,
especially when we consider that the journalists at the Times
dove deep into this. They interviewed every Marshal Ease US
official who would talk to them about this. They went
through thousands and thousands and thousands of declassified documents, and
(45:19):
they found that the US did know some key pieces
of information here, and they purposely withheld it from the
government of the Marshall Islands. So they didn't tell them
about the weapon testing program. They didn't tell them about
the stuff that was actually inside this dome. And the
reason they didn't tell them, the reason they covered it up,
(45:41):
is because they were pushing to sign a deal in
nineteen eighty six that would release the US government from
any further liability regarding these tests. And this deal is important,
it's still ongoing. But under this deal, they were supposed
to pay settlements, right, pay fines and also help the
(46:05):
population of the country while also cleaning up and paying
for that cleanup.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
So there's another study that was published by Columbia University
scientists and they found that levels of radiation in certain
parts of the Marshall Islands even today rival the radiation
levels found at Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
I would also argue that the the siloing and withholding
of information rivals Chernobyl.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Yeah, information control sometimes it's a necessary thing, but it's
always it's always just so gross. It's usually not necessary.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
It's a really tough thing. We've got a story like
this that is based on you know, historical misdeeds or wrongdoing,
like outright wrongdoing by some country, and then you can
clearly trade the effects and the problems to present day
and the future where it's such a long lasting issue.
(47:07):
It's it isn't very often that we hit on one
of those topics, and this is certainly one. And I'm
just so grateful to our listener who put us onto this,
and my goodness, maybe we can find a way to
help in some way. I don't know how, but I
don't know what we do. We don't have the resources.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Well, yeah, we don't have much experience cleaning up nuclear waste,
which I've always thought is a weak point of our podcast.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
I would agree with you there, Ben.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Yeah, but we do know that there is an official
holiday coming up, the Remembrance Day on March second every year,
which honors the victims and the survivors of nuclear testing.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Throw a holiday at it, right, Well.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
It raises visibility, at least you can say that, you know,
if you if you are a resident of the US
and you want to see further US action in this area,
you can always write to your local representatives. Your individual
results may vary in that regard, unfortunately. Uh, but the facts,
(48:20):
the facts are the same areas of the Marshall Islands
have radiation levels that are almost double of what is
safe for human human habitation overall. As time passes, the
islands are slowly becoming less radioactive as long as that
dome doesn't crack. Right. But we if you ask somebody,
(48:42):
when will the Marshall Islands be free of radiation? When
can people return to Bikinia Toll, the answer is really
I don't know, no one, No one is sure. The
capital city we mentioned is overcrowded doing to rising and
sea levels and dozens of other things. It's becoming increasingly polluted.
(49:04):
Their cleanup efforts that continue as we're recording the show today,
and the Marshal Lease government continues to rightly, I would say,
advocate for compensation. Why is this important now? Why are
the events of more than half a century ago still
relevant today? Well aside from the radiation, that nineteen eighty
(49:25):
six deal comes up for renegotiation in twenty twenty three,
So there is a goal or milestone to push or
representatives for if you think the US should be doing
more in regards to this. And again, look we're just
being honest here, We're not doing a hit piece on
the United States. These are just facts. This was a
(49:46):
real conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Where do these territories fall in terms of, you know,
legislative representation.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
It's a good question. So again, since nineteen seventy nine,
the Republic of the Marshall Islands has been a sovereign country. However,
due to the nature of the relationship between the US
and the Marshall Islands, if you're from the Marshall Islands,
you can travel to the US very easily. In theory
or legally, it's very easy, and the same if you
(50:15):
are a US citizen who decides to go to the
Marshall Islands.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
So it's kind of in a gray area then almost right.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Well, it's part of it is that thing we mentioned
at the top, the fact that it's what's called an
associated state, so they have kind of a special unilateral.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Deal, so we can do what we will with them,
but don't really give them any protection or representation.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Yeah, it's similar to I mean, it's not the same
thing as a territory like Puerto Rico right now is
a territory, meaning that it does not have the representation
in the government that a state would have. Right, and
the Marshall Islands doesn't have that either. They do have
embassies and of course a big US military presence, but
(51:03):
it's still kind of it's still kind of World War
two era United States keeping that Pacific foothold, you know,
for the next war.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
And I'm sorry to harp on this, but I mean,
so doesn't that make our actions almost like a form
of like occupation, like to go in there and tell
people to leave and just do these tests? Like what's
the legal framework that makes that not a complete like
active war or you know, I mean maybe that's overstating
(51:34):
the case a little bit, but I'm confused in terms
of diplomacy, how we can justify what we did even
if it didn't cause all the problems that it caused.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Well, the art of diplomacy is the art of finding
a way to justify anything you please. Unfortunately, there's a
big business. But at the time these tests occurred, remember
the Marshall Islands were not yet a sovereign country.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
That's right, got it? So mine it gets a little fuzzy.
There's a lot a lot of moving parts in this one.
That fascinating and heartbreaking story.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Yeah, and this is where we're at. So there's a
tribunal that is a established that was established in nineteen
eighty eight, two years after that eighty six agreement, has
been to keep an eye on the payments and the
compensation the US is supposed to offer. They concluded that
the US needs to pay two point three billion dollars
(52:27):
in claims. Congress and the US courts have refused, and
documents show the US has paid a grand total of
mission control. Can we get a drum roll? Four million dollars?
Speaker 3 (52:43):
But you guys, it's okay, it's all, It's all okay.
None of that matters because in twenty twenty, the United
States government concluded that all this stuff that leaking nuclear
waste from the tombs aka the dome, all that stuff
is safe. You don't even have to worry about it anymore. Oh,
because yeah, don't even worry about it.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Who thanks, Uncle Sam. I feel great now.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
You know what, anyone out there listening, I hope one
of you is like an associate producer at John Oliver's show.
I need you to get John Oliver to do an
episode on this, because if we do want to do
something good for this, to raise some awareness or to
start some surreptitious campaign to raise money without people realizing
(53:30):
they're raising money for the Marshal Lease people.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
He could do it. No one can shame the US
government into action like John Oliver.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
Yeah, yeah, big fans here, John, if you're listening. And
it always I don't know, you guys, it always makes
my day over the time we've been doing this show
where we end up doing an episode and then later
the rest of the world decides that we're not crazy
and it did matter. Like it doesn't happen all the time,
(54:02):
but it's a beautiful moment. Give us a beautiful moment, John,
if you feel so inclined and and help these help
the folks in the Marshall Islands out your right. Met
That official report did conclude that the nuclear dome is
not in danger of imminent collapse. But we have to
remember island nations are fighting rising sea levels and within
(54:25):
our lifetime, so it is quite possible that we may
see a country like the Maldives become entirely underwater and
have to relocate the entire concept of its country to
another safer land mass.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Well, and not not to you know, have two rose
colored glasses about it, but at least we are transitioning
into an administration that acknowledges the science of climate change
and rising sea levels and things like that at least may.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
But still denies that the nuclear waste.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
No, I'm just joking.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
I don't know what the administration thinks about the dome.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Well, okay, here's the thing, and this is going to
make me sound very cynical and maybe a little bit
too real politic. A change in administration or a change
in domestic business can make an enormous difference. So if
you hate, you know, we always say in the US,
(55:25):
if you hate what's happening during one term, just wait
four years, you know, and it'll change, often in a
way that reverses other stuff. But we have to understand
outside of the bubble of the United States, the faces changed,
but a lot of the interventionist policies remain the same.
It's not as if these international initiatives that have been
(55:50):
in play for decades and yes, including conflicts and wars
and disputed territories. It's not as if they all of
a sudden get a ping on their on their beeper.
I don't know why, I picture whomever is here having
a beeper. They get a beeper ping, and it says
like a new president three three three or whatever, and
they say, oh, okay, stop, we'll stop now, We'll stop
(56:13):
making so much money.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
And then the nuclear way says, oh, we'll stop degrading
right now.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
We're done, right right, But yeah, hopefully, hopefully the world
can cooperate on this. One other thing that came out
of this, by the way, is that the Marshall Islands
are on the forefront of pushing against pushing for nuclear disarmament.
They say, you know, we don't want anything like this
(56:40):
to happen to anyone. And that's where we leave it today.
We we also have to we have to ask you
some questions, folks. What should the US government do? What
should the international community to do in this regard? Is
the US really doing all it can? Are these good
faith efforts now decades later, If you have visited the
(57:03):
Marshall Islands or if you live there now, we'd also
love to hear your perspective, what is life like there?
Is are the effects of this still readily apparent in
your neck of the global woods.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
Let us know.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 3 (57:20):
You can find us on Twitter and Facebook, where we
are conspiracy stuff on Instagram. We are a conspiracy stuff show.
If you want to check out one of the coolest
Facebook groups, check out Here's Where It Gets Crazy or
is it a page, whatever it is, it's called Here's
Where It Gets Crazy and it's on Facebook and you
can find a lot of your conspiracy realists there and
(57:40):
you can have cool conversations with some of the best
mods in the business running the show.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
I think it's a group for sure.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
Okay, it's a group.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
You don't want to do that, you can give us
a call. We've got a hotline toll free like the
old days, remember that one eight three three STDWYTK. As
Matt mentioned on our last episode, we have been getting
a flurry of fabulous voicemails from you. Yes, Hugh, so
if you would please limit it to one three minute message,
let us now what to call you and make sure
(58:09):
you let us know if it's okay to use your voice,
because we prefer to do that if possible, or if
you'd like to be anonymous, let us know that too,
and you might hear yourself in one of our weekly
listener mail episodes.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
You can also leave us a review on your podscraper
of choice. It does make a difference. We are as
ever grateful for your input. This show does not occur
without you. You can pop over to YouTube dot com
slash conspiracy Stuff to see our weird weird library of
(58:39):
conspiracies that you may have thought of in the past,
and ones that I can with certitude guarantee that you
have not heard of. If you don't care for social media,
if phones are not quite your thing, there is one
other way. You can always contact us, regardless of time
(59:00):
I'm space, regardless of topic as well send us an email.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they don't
(59:28):
want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.