June 17, 2020 • 58 mins
Most people have heard of Three Mile Island — but what about the multiple other nuclear events on US soil? Join Ben and Matt as they explore the strange, largely untold story of the Tatum Salt Dome.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 My Heart Brading. Welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt Noel is on Adventures and we'll
be returning soon. They call me Ben. We're joined as
always with our super producer Paul Mission Control decond. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. Uh, Matt, you know,
I was having a bit of a un characteristic wave
(00:49):
of nostalgia over this past weekend and before we went
on air. It's weird because it seems like once again
you were reading my mind when you talked about our
our YouTube channel. It's it's strange when you think that,
like we used to do so many videos. I know
that it consumed our lives for several years there, both
(01:14):
before and after we got our own channel, which by
the way is YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. If
you haven't checked it out recently, you should go check
it out. And we'd actually like for you to to
run a little test for us. Use your favorite Internet
search engine, perhaps the duck duck go perhaps Google, Yahoo, whatever,
(01:36):
and search for stuff they don't want you to know
YouTube and see what comes up. Because we we found,
at least on our end, that Google seems to have
forgotten about our channel, which is you know, it's kind
of flattering to imagine that, um, that channel, which has
been inactive for a while, at least up to now.
(02:00):
It's kind of flattering to imagine that entity as large
as Google would care about that. Uh. You know, to me,
that indicates that we we were doing something right. Now granted,
well we were either doing something right or you know,
they're they're categorizing us in the same way as some
of these other people who have been taken off of
(02:20):
YouTube and other platforms recently. Mm hmmm, yeah, you know.
I predict that as things become more unstable in the
near to mid future, we're going to see um, increasingly
heavy handed use of censorship and surveillance powers. But that
is uh to to tweak the old figure of speech.
(02:44):
That's a bridge will burn when we get there, you
know what I mean. Uh, For now, I UM, I've
got to say I'm tremendously grateful, uh for every one
of our fellow listeners who has been writing to us
and and telling us about all these straight change things
that aren't making it into the news. Uh. For years
(03:05):
and years, you and I have always wanted to cover
the things that are just off the edge of the
mainstream map, the things that the regions of the map
where cartographers of old would draw some serpents and say,
here be dragons, things that are just like outside the
pool of the street light. And we've only been able
(03:27):
to do it this long because we have help from
the best part of the show, which is specifically you. Uh. So,
So what better way to put our money where our
mouth is than to uh than to explore an episode
topic brought to us by one of our fellow listeners.
That is correct, one of you, who hopefully is listening
(03:52):
to this episode send us a little voice message and
it goes a little something like this, No, this is
weird West in Miami. Have a question. You don't think
the thought that me Google is a topa because it's
found its own tatience that it's there that is something
(04:12):
to it. Also, look at the tables fall done see
you Okay, first thing here weird wes uh And we
did not do this on purpose. Ben and I did
not discuss this prior to recording this episode. You just
asked if Google was a tulpa of some sort, some
(04:34):
kind of thought form that had sentience that could act
on its own. We did not. I didn't. I don't
know if Ben, if you listen to that voicemail right
before this or something. I didn't do this on purpose.
Now I'm thinking the tulpa that is Google is trying
to bring us down from from a YouTube standpoint. At least,
(04:54):
I'm fascinated by the idea. For anyone who is unfamiliar.
Tulpa is this concept that a a life form can
exist without a physical body, an a sentient thought or
collection of thoughts, or an algorithms. So you know, in
a way, a software program that reaches the level of
(05:17):
machine consciousness could be a talpa. Uh. And you know,
the aggregation of algorithms that are Google could in some
ways be considered a tolpa. I've got a really weird,
uh story. I'll have to I'll have to send you
off air. I've been writing a bunch of garbage, but
I've got really weird story about a world in which
(05:38):
emotions shared between two or more people can become sentient,
and it's it's totally it's a TOLPA situation. I started
off trying to write it as a rom com, but
I'm terrible at rom com, so it became yet another
horror story. But you're right, You're right, Matt. It's a
fascinating concept, and it's a concept that we have, I believe,
(05:58):
explored in in the past. The little bit. But there
was one thing West said, one thing you said weird
West in Wyoming that I think Matt and I really like,
really tuned into because it was something that we had
never heard of, which is admittedly, I don't want to
(06:19):
say rare, but it's admittedly uncommon for us. That is correct,
that little thing, a little throwaway you had at the
end of the message that just said, hey, looking look
into the Tatum salt mines. Bye uh yeah dude. But
Ben and I both and Nol actually we all just went, wait,
what is that? And we started using Google the TLPA
(06:42):
now that we've established that to your search to search
things about it, and my goodness, we found an entire
episode hidden deep within those salt mines, and I like,
I liked the waxing poetic there at the end that
it's true on multiple levels. Today's episode is inspired by
you Weird West in Wyoming. You contacted us about a strange,
(07:06):
largely unknown events that occurred right here in the good
old us of a. It's a bit of hidden history.
It's a story the Jedi won't tell you. It concerns
one of the most powerful, one of the most dangerous
forces ever wielded by human hands, nuclear power. Here are
(07:28):
the facts. Before we jump into this, I just want
to point out that Ben, you and Noel got to
do a bit of a nuclear story while I was
out recently, and now Nolah is out and you and
I get to do a nuclear story and I'm liking this.
That's true. That's true. Uh. And they're they're very they're
very different as well, um, but disturbing, absolutely so. One
(07:53):
of the major things here as we begin into the
facts is just to talk about nuclear hour within the
United States. And you know, I would I would wager
that there are several of you out there listening who
remember the protesting that occurred within this country when nuclear
power plants were beginning to be constructed across the states
(08:17):
in various places that were deemed to be you know,
good places for these things because they were safer there,
you know. But but like a lot of the other
protests that have occurred for various things in this country
across time, they you know, appear to have done very
little and actually preventing things from happening. And in this case,
(08:39):
nuclear power plants from being built and or nuclear tests
from being run. And a lot of this is because
there there are some tremendously beneficial things that can come
from something like nuclear power that you know, isn't just
your traditional burning of coal or other fossil fuels or
natural gases or something like that. Um. The and and
(09:02):
these benefits many times, let's say almost all the time,
are going to outweigh the dangers, at least if you're
looking at it from a monetary standpoint, from a clean
energy standpoint or a cleanish energy standpoint. Um. And you
know the dollar signs. Really that's what speaks to the
most benefits. Rights. Yes, make no mistake, Uh. The vast
(09:27):
majority of large scale actions that occur like this, especially
in the energy industry, are the results of a cost
benefit calculation. Uh, the same way that we all individually
use cost benefit logic in our own daily lives. UH.
This just affects people in many, many unforeseen ways. So
(09:49):
the protesters failed. Let's just be honest, the protesters failed.
According to the World Nuclear Association, as of now, the
United States is the world largest producer of nuclear power
a single country out of the one ninety three ish
countries in the world. UH. It produces more than thirty
(10:13):
percent of all of the nuclear generated electricity on the planet,
full stop. And this is the result of a concerted
effort that goes across both sides of the political divide
in the US. Multiple companies are on board with it,
even if they compete with each other. Government policy changes
(10:33):
since about the late ninety nineties paved the way for
a significant rise in nuclear capacity, and as of now,
Uncle Sam officially has ninety eight nuclear power centers there
across thirty states and they're operated by a group of
(10:53):
around thirty maybe more different power companies. And just like Ben,
you and all discovered when covering the Santa Susanna experiment
recently that occurred out in California where some of this
nuclear power was being generated and tested to see if
there are new ways to generate the power, and something
went wrong. We we we have to remember that these things,
(11:17):
if something does go wrong, the consequences are massive. Right.
So it's that's when you're getting back into that cost
benefit analysis. Uh, nuclear power can be terrifying. Uh, there's
We're gonna look right here at words from an author
Benjamin Ksva cool Uh. He wrote a critical evaluation of
(11:38):
nuclear power and renewable Electricity in Asia. It was written
in two thousand. Uh. This guy says that there have
been at least fifties six nuclear reactor accidents within the
United States. That seems like more than I've heard of, right,
So you know what he's saying is that there are
(11:59):
there's a large scale here in what could be called
a nuclear accident, right because the definition it covers a
wide range of things that could go wrong and that
have go wrong. But there are some commonalities here with
all fifty six of these that Benjamin is pointing to. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
(12:19):
the these fifty six accidents, again, that's a huge number,
by the way. Uh, these these fifty accidents, fifty six accidents,
all have two things in common. They either resulted in
an immediate loss of human life and immedia is important
there we'll see why or they cause more than fifty
(12:41):
thou dollars US worth of property damage. That last parts
very interesting to me because fifty thou dollars is far
more than the average US resident is going to have
on hands right, just to pull out and use. But
it's also a cartoonishly low thresh old when we consider
(13:01):
the overall cost of specialized nuclear equipment, particularly because that
specialized equipment is inevitably gonna be some of the first
stuff damaged when things go south. And you know, again
you you should be weirded out by that how high
(13:22):
that number is of proven nuclear incidents in the US
nuclear meltdown's disasters malfunctions. But there's one you're definitely familiar with.
It's one that Nolan I mentioned in our previous episode, uh,
and that is Three Mile Island. Three Mile Island, for
a quick recap, was a partial core meltdown at the
(13:45):
Three Mile Island Nuclear plant on March nine, and it,
you know, it's safe to say it exceeded that fifty
dollar threshold. Yeah, the cleanup costs alone ranged somewhere with
the billion dollars, like as in Dr Evil, one billion
dollars in an estimated total of two point four billion
(14:09):
dollars in property damage that was done because as as
a result of this accident, and you know, over the years,
in in various forms of reporting, you're gonna hear all
kinds of different claims about the health effects, both short
term and long term of this disaster. But officially, a
lot of experts note that the health effects are of
(14:30):
a very low level, like as in, you know, not
much bad really happened on a human level because of
Three Mile Island. Guys, we're going to reassure you, just
to let you know everything's okay. You're gonna be okay,
your family is going to be fine. Not everyone agrees,
of course, because you know, even as recently as nineteen
seventy nine, uh, there there was a lot of debate
(14:54):
about the possible long term ramifications of of these sorts
of disasters, you know, or the possible long term consequences
to the life forms in their vicinity. Again officially, right,
this is all officially, and that's that's the problem with
nuclear reporting in general. Right. We threw out a couple
(15:16):
numbers just a few minutes ago, but if you remember
only one of those numbers, remember this one fifty six
incidents more than fifty times in this country nuclear power
almost or did go disastrously wrong. And even today there's
stuff the US does not want you to know when
(15:38):
it comes to nuclear power, and there's certainly stuff they
don't want you to know when it's turned from generating
nuclear power to detonating nuclear weapons within the United States.
What could go wrong if we did that? We'll find
out after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it
(16:03):
gets crazy. So here's the issue with nuclear technology. One
of the many issues nuclear technology is dual use. We've
talked about this before. It's one of the great dilemmas
and geopolitics. Please don't fall asleep just because we said
geo politics. Essentially, the same stuff you have to do
(16:24):
to create nuclear power is the same stuff you have
to do to make nuclear weapons. It's not not very
many efficient ways to tell the difference between a country's
aim here, because there's not really a difference in what
you need to do and what you need to have.
It's just how long you keep those centrifuges running. Really
(16:45):
what it is, That's what it amounts to, right, It's
a matter of iteration. That's that's really the only difference.
Like imagine if you were This might be a little
bit too off the grid for some of us, but
imagine if you were churning butter and after you know,
x amount of churns or x amount of time spin churning,
you had butter. But if you kept going, you had
(17:06):
a bomb. That's basically the problem with nuclear energy and
nuclear enrichment. Uh. And so this left the US many
other countries in a pickle because this meant that in theory,
any country with the ability to domestically create nuclear energy
would also domestically have the ability to make nuclear weapons,
(17:29):
and no one could stop them short of trying, short
of trusting them or like you know, doing a Reagan trust,
but verify watching how many times the centerfuges spin. It's
a very messy situation. So they got into this idea
of monitoring testing. Testing nuclear weapons is one one great
(17:51):
way to tell right what a country's true aims are.
It's like building a battleship. You can't test a nuclear
weapon and say you're doing anything other than that. You
can't build a battleship and say you're doing anything other
than attempting to build a blue Force navy and dominate
part of the ocean. So so the US said, we
(18:12):
need to figure out how these other countries are testing,
and just for our own pr we're gonna say that
we're doing this. This is dual use. We're gonna say
we're doing this just to make sure we know what
other countries are up to. It's defensive other countries was
widely suspected we're testing nuclear weapons underground, so that you
(18:35):
wouldn't from a satellite, for instance, you wouldn't see a
lot of atmospheric um you know, atmospheric anomalies. You wouldn't
have people on the ground noting, you know, like a
mushroom cloud miles away or something. Uh So they said, okay,
we're gonna assume people are doing this underground because that's
what we would do well exactly. And just to jump
(18:58):
back in time slightly, we're talking in about the sixties
and seventies here, but let's just jump back in time
to nineteen fifty four in March to something called Castle Bravo.
And just the reason why the United States took on this,
We're going to police the nuclear testing or possible nuclear
(19:18):
testing across the globe because we conducted a test in
the United States in a place called the Bikini, a
toll in the Marshall Islands. And like I said in
March first, nineteen fifty four, it was a massive explosion.
I believe it was fifteen mega tons. Uh. That was
the yield essentially um. And there were there was a
(19:42):
lot of fallout because of this nuclear test, like literally
and I guess pr lee because it caused a lot
of damage um And there was a lot of radiation
that spread further and in ways that we perhaps didn't expect.
And it was the cited globally at least between the
(20:04):
powers of the United States and the Soviet Union and
several other places that we would no longer test nuclear weapons,
like we're gonna stop. That's why. That's why the US
took on this role, right right, they said, we are
the we are the perfect people, uh to you know,
keep everyone honest here. Uh n. Also the same year
(20:29):
that Edward Burnes helped persuade the US to invade invade
Guatemala and launch a coup on behalf of private agricultural
sector businesses. It was a business coup. So shout out
to Hubernese, you monster. Uh. I'm still so impressed with
(20:52):
the guy, though you have to be you gotta respect
the hustle. But anyhow, you're right, you're absolutely right back.
There's there's a lot of precedents going to this, but
unfortunately the US was maybe not the best police officer.
Maybe it was just the least worst, you know, like
that's what people say about democracy, it's the least worst
(21:13):
system humans have come up with. But but the US,
like many other countries, blurred the line between testing for
nuclear power peaceful pursuits and testing for nuclear weaponry. And
that's why you'll notice that we caveated some of our
earlier statements by adding the O word. Officially, it's because
(21:33):
we have to. You see, the US, aside from Bikinia
tool it turns out the US conducted multiple nuclear tests
back in the day, some of which are still probably secret.
But weird West of Wyoming hipped US to several tests
that occurred in good old Mississippi. And at the time,
(21:54):
what's weird about this? These tests were not even secret.
The New York Times ran announcement about it that that
kind of aged like milk, because it's very it's very
like whoa, hey, look at this, where you know, nuclear
power is not what could go wrong? Uh, and you
can you can read the article and full online. But
(22:15):
but this project, well, the first thing I noticed about
this project met was that it had just a terrible name.
Talking about Project Dribble. I'm just drooling a little bit
thinking about it. Um. But yeah, this was this was
(22:37):
one of several tests that fell under this thing called
the Vela Uniform. This was a mission that was essentially
attempting to detect nuclear blasts. It ran from nineteen sixty
three to nineteen seventy one, and it was Yeah, the
VELA uh mission really was to detect blasts that occurred
(23:01):
on in air, blast that occurred on land, like above
the ground, underwater, blast that occurred even under the land,
like in a cave or something. He was trying to
figure out any of the ways that the United States
Forces military in this case, could detect whether or not
a nuclear blast had gone off anywhere in the world
at any altitude. Yeah, and this is similar to weather
(23:25):
balloon detection programs, you know, where we could maybe put
something high enough in the atmosphere that it would detect
certain changes indicative of a nuclear explosion. But figuring out
what was going on under our feet was almost more
important because that's where the really sneaky stuff can occur.
(23:45):
VELA uniform was overall seven different tests that we know about,
and not all of those tests were nuclear, but not one,
but two of the nuclear debtonations occurred just north of
a very small town in Lamar County, Mississippi, called Baxterville.
(24:07):
Baxterville is tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny um you know it's
it's kind of like that. Around the time this occurred,
Baxterville is what Garth Brooks would have called, uh a
one one stoplight town or something like that. I'm forgetting
my Garth Brooks, but but you know what I'm referencing
right anyway, Anyway, friends and little places aside, Baxterville was
(24:33):
about twenty eight miles and is twenty eight miles southwest
of Hattiesburg, which is probably the most recognizable town uh
in in the area. So the Powers that be chose
to detonate nuclear weapons in nearby Baxterville, where again people
did live because there was a distinctive geological feature there
(24:56):
called the Tatum Salt Dome. Also have to have to
mention it. I don't know if it's because I was
hungry when I was listening to your voicemail initially, West,
but I could have sworn. I could have sworn you
said potato salt dome, and and I just like started
imagine all the cool things you can do with potatoes.
(25:18):
But no, this is way less cool. This nuclear energy.
No joke, man, I googled. The first thing I googled
was potato salt dome. And I didn't know. I'm not joking.
I thought that's what it was too. And that's nothing
against us, is I just I was maybe having a
hard time understanding when I was listening on my phone
or something. Um, and perhaps it was also a bit ravenous. Um.
(25:39):
We're very carbon oriented, uh podcasts just like as a crew,
you know for sure, I really quickly, I just want
to go back. So we're talking about the Tatum salt dome.
We're gonna get into that, but I want to backtrack
just for a moment to make sure people understand that
the seven tests that were talking about with Vela uniform
(26:02):
were to test the sensor equipment that the Velor project
essentially was going to use to detect explosions elsewhere. So
in order to know that you can successfully detect an
underground nuclear explosion, let's say somewhere in the USS are
you need to first manufacture your own explosion to see Hey,
(26:23):
if they do one like this, can we see it? Yep? Okay,
So that was the point of this. I am not
sure if I explained that well enough prior to saying
it here. I think he yelled it. I think it's
important to to like highlight that because it's another instance
of dual use, isn't it. It would be naive to
(26:46):
assume that there would not be other other data, right,
other results that were monitored and pulled from again, these
det nations of nuclear weapons, right, And they spent a
lot of time thinking about this, As a matter of fact,
they spent a lot of time thinking about how to
(27:06):
set it up. But they did not spend a lot
of time on three big things. And that's what this
episode is about. First, they obviously, uh didn't spend a
lot of time thinking through what would actually happen when
you detonated nuclear They call it a nuclear device, but
when you detonate a nuclear bomb underground in an occupied area. Second,
(27:31):
they didn't think about the long term consequences aftermath or effects.
And third, they really phoned in the names. I can't.
I can't emphasize that enough. Project Dribble. The first test
is called the Salmon Events, which sounds like something your
local park ranger gets excited about once a year, you
(27:54):
know what I mean. Yeah, I think they were hungry too. Man. Well,
if we we mentioned the Tatum Salt Dome, why it's important,
I just can put this out here quickly. One of
the major reasons when they're you know, they're imagining what
another country might do when they were going to try
and test underground, they thought, well, if there was some
(28:16):
kind of salt dome or a an underground salt deposit
essentially somewhere on land, the authorities could put a bunch
of water into that salt deposit essentially, you know, turn
that that solid sodium into salt water, and create a
cavity underground where they could then place a bomb, explode
(28:38):
it and do some testing. Right. That was one of
the major reasons they chose this Tatum Salt Mine or
Tatum Salt Dome, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't just
because it was cool, but it was because of the
the actual physical makeup of the dome. So they announced
(28:58):
this to their credit, unlike some other US tests on
domestic populations. And here's what they decided to do. On
October twenty two, after warning some residents in the area
about ten am nineteen sixty four, the authorities detonated a
five point three kilo ton device eight hundred and twenty
(29:21):
meters or two thousand, seven hundred feet underground. Real quick,
because I know we've thrown some words around here. Uh
kill A toon is one thousand tons, so this is
like five thousand, five thousand tons, and change a mega
ton like Matt you had mentioned with Bikini a toll
(29:41):
is one million tons, so this is smaller than Bikini
as toll. But again it is in a It's an
area where people were not expecting to encounter radiation and
nuclear disaster. So the first thing that goes wrong when
they detonate this at ton Am is that the explosion
(30:01):
is much much stronger than the residents had been told
it would be. The ground shook, a gigantic cloud of
dust rises. Uh, the thing you're hoping to avoid. Windows break,
walls crack fourteen miles away. Uh, wells go bad, run dry,
they clogged. This favorite story. I know you probably have
(30:24):
some too, Mat. One of my favorite stories is there's
a local fisherman who watches in amazement as all the
fish in this pond jump out of the water at once. Wow. Yeah,
I can't imagine seeing that. Uh wow. Well, you know
another thing that I can't imagine is the way a
lot of the local residents described what they saw, even
(30:46):
when they were miles away from ground zero. They this
is I'm just gonna paraphrase this, and there you can
go online and read a lot of firsthand accounts of
this test. Salmon. In particular, they noted that there were
ground ripples, like waves of the ground where it's estimates
(31:09):
now at this point, because a lot of this was
looking back, you know, fifty years after the incident, but
a lot of it they described as you know, maybe
three ft of ground let's say, now imagine five inches
of wave of that ground that you can see moving
essentially in a semicircular path towards you, um and actually
(31:34):
moving the ground and rippling it. There were some people
who said they were standing on concrete, and on the
concrete you could feel a wave of earth travel under
your feet, and then they would They described about ten
to fifteen seconds of of just quiet and nothing and
then another ripple, and then another eleven seconds or so,
(31:55):
and then a third ripple of the ground that you
could actually watch like that sounds otherworldly to me. M
Have you ever I remember we talked about this, man,
have you ever been in an earthquake or experienced one?
There have been several low, very very low level earthquakes
(32:17):
in Georgia that I have felt, And I didn't know
I was feeling until I woke up the next day
and read that there was a low level earthquake. But
you know, I've been to California a few times now
in my life, and I've never experienced anything big or
in any other place. Mm hmm. Yeah. It's it's a
it's an incredibly disorienting feeling, and it's one of those
(32:38):
things where all of a sudden you recognize how powerless
we as individuals can be. When I was when I
was living in Central America, I looked like honestly, man,
I looked like a wist. The first couple of times,
you know, I was at this family's uh, this family's
residents where you know, we're rinking instant coffee. It's like
(33:02):
eight thirty in the morning or something, and then all
of a sudden, the kitchen just moves and then it
moves back, and some stuff I'm trying not occurse here,
but some stuff just falls off the shelves, and and uh,
the the lady whose house it was, she is She's like,
(33:23):
I'm just gonna put up this spoon again, and blah
blah blah. And I think maybe I've done some sort
of drug that I can't remember, you know, and that
reality is just glitching. But I say that because you know,
it is difficult to explain what an earthquake feels like
unless you experience it. There is no anchor, there's nothing
(33:45):
that you can hold because the world is quaking, and
this is what these people experience, right, So of course
they're scared, especially because they thought they had done everything right.
They had complied with the orders of the federal government.
They had evacuated if they were told to evacuate, and
(34:07):
they still, as we would say today, got their stuff rocked,
you know. And and the thing is that, Okay, this
is crazy, right, No one dies immediately, and thank your
lucky stars for that, right, Uh, Federal agents, residents alike.
Several weeks after the blast, the government has hired workers
(34:32):
to drill back into the hole in the ground left
by this explosion in the Tatum saltum to release radioactive
gas that's trapped inside. Now, the officials were using what
we would describe as cutting edge technology for the time.
They had scrubbers that were set up and in a
scrubber basically would decontaminate the radioactive gas. But soon they
(34:58):
realized that wasn't the real problem. They would have to
do something about the radioactive liquid waste from all the
drilling operations. Just like in Lord of the Rings, they
delved too deep and their bal rog was very dangerous
waste radiation. So they said, okay, you know what we're
gonna do. We're gonna dig. We're gonna dig a hole.
(35:23):
We're just we're gonna dig some more holes, and we're
gonna dig one really deep hole, uh two thousand, four
hundred feet into the earth, right by the salt dome um.
And then someone in the room was like, hey, is
isn't there a groundwater aquifer there? And they're like, Craig
and EGb a team player. It's fine. It's also who
(35:47):
cares if it's an awkward for everything will be fine.
There's no problem with irradiating ground water. Yeah. So so
we're still remember and between March and July of that year,
there was a ton of radioactive liquid waste that was
(36:11):
disposed of into this well where an underground aquifer was.
We're talking about three hundred and thirty eight thousand gallons
of radioactive waste that was just see you later, down
into the well, into the water. And that wasn't it either.
That's not where the story stops. It wasn't just one
(36:32):
nuclear test underground at this location. The government went right
back through and dropped another bomb into that hole that
they created with the first test. And we'll tell you
all about that when we return from a word from
our sponsor. That's right. Uh, they must have had a
(36:57):
different person writing the names by this point. A few
years later, they conduct a second test, as you said, Matt,
during what was called the Sterling Events. This happened on
December third, nineteen sixty six. Basically, Uh, they said, Hey,
we got this great hole from earlier, let's keep using it.
(37:18):
This is a very like pro hole in the ground
kind of institution. Uh. And it made sense. I don't
mean to bust their chops too hard, it made sense.
So they dropped a three hundred and eighty ton device
into the cavity that was left behind by the previous explosion.
In the Salmon events, the Department of Defense and associated
(37:40):
agencies required residents for these tests within one and a
half miles of the explosion point to leave their homes
while the events were occurring. They also said, hey, you know,
these detonations may might mess up your house a little bit.
They might they might damage some buildings and stuff. And
(38:03):
it did, and it definitely did. Uh uh. They also
proactively said, you know, we are going to we're going
to get in front of this, as they say in
corporate America or in the realm of politics, and we're
going to go ahead and just let you know. Whatever happens,
We're going to give you a five grand. Just tell
(38:25):
us what happened. We'll give you five grand. Everybody's happy it.
It didn't stop there, uh. Later, they would go on
to conduct more experiments with non nuclear explosives during a
project called Miracle Play, which sounds like something for you know,
your Nintendo switch. Yeah, yeah, it does. Ben Really quickly,
(38:49):
let's get into the reason why they tested secondary much
much smaller device in that same place where they caused
the first explosion. Just quick, lee, just go over this. So,
the first time they detonated a nuke in the Tatum
Salt Dome, it essentially created a massive, so let's say,
(39:11):
spherical whole in the ground, not necessarily a hold you
can get into, like a cavern, like a cave, basically
underneath the ground. And when once they had created that
with the first explosion, the first test during Salmon, they
like I said, like we said, they drilled a hole
into this cavity. They dropped a much smaller bomb and
(39:35):
what do we say it was, yeah, ton device, much
smaller and they dropped that down there and it exploded. It. Uh,
to test whether or not there would be this dampening
effect that the you know, the scientists and personnel that
we're testing with the Vela Vela uniform. They wanted to
(39:56):
see if a country could do that could dampen the
essentially shock waves of a nuclear explosion by having a
hole in the ground, a large cavernous hole in the ground,
rather than just dipping it into the ground and exploding it.
Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean there's there is valuable science here,
you know what I mean that I think that's one
(40:19):
of the biggest points about this. But the problem is
everything we've described, even with the safety measures that they took, Uh,
it's still incredibly dangerous. People were living in the area, right,
and you'll be a happy slash roll your rise and
(40:40):
groaning to uh to learn that Uncle Sam did compensate
the residence of Baxterville and Hattiesburg even they gave adults
ten dollars and they gave children five bucks. The shock
wave of this explosion literally lifted the ground four inches UM.
(41:00):
A lot of buildings only have minimal damage. That's frankly amazing.
But what is not amazing and what is you know,
perhaps the most disappointing and strange part of this story
be the effects and the aftermath, which they clearly did
not plan for. Agreed, I would say we're talking dollars,
(41:23):
so ten bucks, five bucks not too shabby. It's very
fair of you, yes, of being facetious here. No, you're right, though,
been the aftermath and effects of these tests is not
something laugh at. I apologize again. We're in one of
those situations where you're trying to be a little light
just because this stuff is UH, it's tough on individual
(41:44):
people and families. So, you know, the big thing here
is that the United States government appears to not have
been fully aware of the risks that were posed by
contaminating with radiation things like groundwater and just you know,
a general area where flora and fauna are going to
be affected by this radiation. They were, however, fully aware
(42:08):
of the horrific consequences of dropping the bomb on let's
say a city and suburban area. Uh, when you're looking
at the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In this case,
the logic at least was that this would this would
not have much of an effect because you know, you're
exploding this thing underground, because the radioactive material is going
(42:31):
to be stuck under there. It's not going to be
able to escape and get into the air and affect
things in the way that we you know, generally had
been testing nukes in the past, and it would you know,
over time, if you didn't disturb the area, and especially
like essentially the cave that was created because of this explosion,
(42:52):
if you didn't disturb that, then the stuff would decay naturally, slowly,
but naturally, and you wouldn't have to worry too much. Right,
This was not the case. Follow up drilling operations that
allowed scientists to collect more information about this and to
dispose of the devices actually ended up contaminating the site.
(43:16):
So it wasn't so much the initial testing as it
was the UH. The later attempts to leverage info from
the testing or to get ahold of these devices created
hazardous radioactive waste. You know, all like imagine that green
gunk you see in episodes of The Simpsons or Captain Planet.
(43:37):
It made that stuff, and that stuff is very, very bad.
Humans are not built to be around it. Decades after
the first test, the Department of Energy is still picking
up radiation in the ground and surprised in the aquifers,
and that is due to the problem with the clean up.
Employees who worked on these cleanup missions said that it
(43:59):
was lax at best. UH. Some a couple of poison particular,
maintained that they were lied to when they asked medical
professionals UH to explain things like strange burns they found
or differing medical conditions. UH. The Department of Energy maintained
that the radiation levels they did find, even the ones
(44:21):
that persisted for decades, were no threat to the health
of residents and to be fair, we know that the
modern human being, especially in the West, is exposed to
low levels of radiation from every including everything from like
maybe an X ray scan too, I kid, do not bananas.
(44:44):
Bananas have low level radiation. Uh so they were flying
in a plane. Oh yeah, I'm flying in a plane.
Oh man, remember when I used to do that. I
would still trade it all. I was supposed to go
to Eastern Island this summer day. I tell you that. No,
it was a secret, and I didn't want to tell
you guys until I can texts you a picture. But
uh yeah, But being a US resident traveling internationally is
(45:08):
going to be harry for a while. Even if even
if you live in the US and you have the
ability to go somewhere, the other country might not necessarily
want to let you in now more than ever. But
we'll see anyway, that doesn't that doesn't matter. The point
the matter is here is that there are a lot
of things that expose you to low level radiation. You
run into it all the time, And the Department of
(45:31):
Energy was saying, well, this is kind of the same thing.
It's not going to be dangerous. But in the nineties nineties,
residents of the area Baxterville, Hattiesburg, and workers from Project
Project Dribble. Uh. They started to say, you know, a
lot of our friends, co workers and loft ones from
(45:54):
this time period are dying and they're dying of cancer. Yeah.
About thirty years later, that's when I guess you begin
to notice that that radiation those rats you took back
in the day are starting to show themselves because there
are long, long term effects there. And you know, the
(46:15):
local residents ended up creating a list of I believe
it was forty forty four people who had either died
of cancer or who had developed cancer. And you know
that's in the large scheme of things, that's a relatively
low number, but in a small town, forty four people
in an immediate area who had you know, gotten cancer
(46:38):
or died of cancer is a lot. And they demanded
that the state and federal government figure out if any
of these conditions were in any way linked to the
salt dome test that were done back in the sixties.
And you know, we're talking in it moved slowly trying
to get any kind of movement within the legal system,
(47:00):
within you know, the people who could actually run the testing,
because there was By the way, there was a lot
of long term testing of the flora and fauna in
the immediate area that was going on, but you know
who's too. I couldn't find much on the actual testing
of the residents that was going on up until they
(47:22):
started raising a flag and saying, hey, we're we're fauna too, right,
That's what I mean. That's a very very salient point.
By the way, I forgot to mention this, the a
lot of residents in this area used wells that they
had you know, doug or had been there existing on
(47:42):
their properties prior to these events. Almost all, if not everyone,
of the wells in the surrounding area we're producing undrinkable
water or no water at all, water that was not
portable for them to drink, so they had to find
alternative means to get water. There. You gonna read a
lot more about this in a couple of places online.
(48:03):
I would recommend the Atomic Heritage site atomic heritage dot org.
And there's also a bunch of local reporting that's happened
over the you know, let's say, from about two thousand
ten and onward. There have been several stories about this. Sorry,
I just want to put that out there. Oh yeah, yeah,
I would recommend I was reading into Work by Nola
(48:28):
dot com, by the Sun, Harold Um. There's actually there's
a really good Atlas Obscura article on this that gives
a nice overview, but right without admitting liability for some stuff.
Around two thousands, the government built a water pipeline to
(48:48):
help residents of the Tatum Salt Dome get drinking water
that came from an area other than the test site.
And their idea was, you know, we're not a fish
lee saying that we really screwed the pooch on this,
but we want you guys to feel better. So this
(49:08):
is sort of this is for you. Fast forward, the
Department of Labor has paid nearly five point five million
dollars US two people who are suffering medical problems after
working at the Salmon nuclear explosion site against southwest of Hattiesburg,
about twenty eight miles. So if you combine that with
(49:29):
the money that was paid to workers who lived in
Mississippi but didn't necessarily work on the site, the total
bill is sixteen point eight million dollars. Oddly enough, that's
the price tag for a total of fifty six claims.
Odd coincidence. There's that number again for the numerologists in
(49:50):
the crowd. Uh. Those fifty six claims came from the
Salmon site, which today we usually called the Tatum Salt Dome,
and today, as we record this officially, Tatum Salt Dome
is the location of the only known nuclear weapons test
a K detonation to ever be performed in the eastern
(50:11):
United States. That's right. A lot of it was done
out in Nevada, Nevada. However, you want to say it
at the test sites out there in a couple of
other places, or just you know, outside of the United States,
on atolls and other places underneath the water and in
the air, in various places. It's pretty weird to think about.
(50:32):
And it's so odd again that Ben and I were
unaware of this until Weird West came along and was like, hey, guys,
look at this and then left. Uh. It's it's really
it's really frustrating to know that the government did pay
out that money to fifty six people when into my
(50:55):
mind you think about the residents that have been living there,
are the families that have been growing up there near
this place. Uh, it feels like there's been a larger
effect maybe than just the workers who were there on
site who got dosed radiation, because you know, it's highly
likely that they did, and that's probably one of the
major reasons that the money was actually paid out. But
(51:16):
just thinking about the number of people that ended up
drinking water and children that ended up drinking water around there, um,
it feels like it feels like there there would be
more casualties. But maybe I'm wrong. I would say there
are a couple of places online where you can read
firsthand accounts of people who were there, and there's one
(51:37):
gentleman who refers a couple of times to the number
of people with cancer, and he says, I believe the
quote is something along the lines of if you look
north essentially of the Tatum Salt Dome, that's where there
are a ton of people getting cancer. And that was
a I believe it was a two thousand fourteen interview
(51:59):
with this gentleman, but he was specifically saying, look to
the north of where these explosions occurred, and that's where
you'll find the people who were really affected. And this
situation has not been solved, you know more than what, uh,
you know, decades and decades later, this situation remains unsolved.
(52:20):
The The one important thing to note here is we
are harping a lot on the activities of the US government,
but made no mistake, Uh. The U. S. SR was
conducting similarly dangerous and devious nuclear experiments. H and many
(52:41):
other modern nuclear powers have done the same thing. This
was how the radioactive sausage was made. Today, most of
the residents of Lamar County have, you know, maybe a
passing understanding of these two new clear explosions, right at
(53:02):
least from what we understand, and younger citizens in Mississippi
typically like if you drove there today and you asked someone, say,
I don't know under eighteen about this stuff, they probably
haven't heard of Project Dribble. Uh. To your point, Matt,
about the distribution of cancer cancer rates, statistics now show
(53:27):
that cancer and heart disease the rates and Baxterville are
comparable to the rest of the state of Mississippi, which
sadly means that they are noticeably higher than the national average.
Some residents who are familiar with the story maintain that
the U. S. Government is still hiding some part of
(53:48):
the truth, whether that's the full extent of the radiation
the consequences of the test or the distribution of UM
contamination associated medical conditions. I don't know. You can't blame
people for being distrustful in these situations in general. Uh,
but you know, thank you to weird West Wyoming. Wish
(54:11):
we had more of a happy ending to this story.
But the best thing we can say is the story
is not over yet. That's right, the story is not over.
Thank us. I will give you just a quick thing
from the Sun Herald. So back about ten years ago,
a little little lesson ten years ago. Back in two
thousand ten, the good old us of A government declared
(54:35):
that this site, that Tatum Salt Dome in this area
was safe, and they transferred I believe it was about
fift hundred, yeah, one tho acres to the state, back
to Mississippi. And they were talking about, how, you know,
the wood out here, the trees, the timber, this is
all really good stuff we can use. It's about two
(54:58):
million dollars worth of two thousand and ten dollars of
this stuff um. And also we could build recreational sites here.
Let's do it. Hey, we got all this land, let's
make it happen. Everything is safe and uh, the State
Health Department in Mississippi. In they were still, you know,
up until they were still monitoring the whole site, looking
(55:21):
at the water, specifically for triteum, which is, according to
the sun herold, which is also according to science, a
radioactive isotope of hydrogen. And you know, they were saying,
you know what, We're okay, We're still gonna monitor the groundwater.
We're gonna look at the surface water. But everything seems fine.
Let's get back to it out here in the old
(55:42):
Tatum salt dome. Here's here's another thing, just a quick
note that they make at the end of this article,
which by the way, is called nuclear tests in South
Mississippi cost government millions and claims. They note that several
times the cons sept of using a salt mine or
(56:03):
a salt dome in this way as a safe place
to store nuclear waste, even though we learned from this
test that is not necessarily a safe place to store
nuclear waste because of the aquifers. That is I think
one of the big takeaways um nuclear waste and ground
(56:23):
aquifers are it's a very dangerous combination. Yeah, it's true.
And at this point we passed the torch to you.
What do you think about this? Do you think that
people are maybe being alarmist about the connection between these
older nuclear debtonations and rates of cancer or certain medical
(56:44):
conditions in the area? Now, do you think that there's
not enough attention put on this? What do you think
about other similar tests in the world, and are there
any that you're aware of in your neck of the
global woods. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know.
You can find us on the Internet. We're all over it. Uh,
the Internet is just like lousy with our presence, despite
(57:08):
the fact that we have seemingly angered the Tulpa god
of Internet search. You can find us on Facebook, you
can find us on Twitter, you can find us on Instagram.
We especially like to recommend our Facebook community page. Here's
where it gets crazy. Yes, you can hang out there
(57:28):
with your fellow conspiracy realist talking about this episode, suggests, others,
post memes, whatever you want to do. You can hang
out with some of the awesomest mods that exist on
that old Facebook platform. If you don't want to do
that stuff, you can always pick up your phone and
give us a call. Our number is one eight three
three std w y T k. If you leave a message,
(57:52):
you can be certain that Ben and I will both
hear it, and Noel will will hear of it if
we deem it to be good enough for in melicit it.
I'm just choking. No's gonna listen to UM. If you
don't want to do that stuff, but you still want
to reach out, you can always reach us in our
good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heeart
(58:12):
radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know
(58:33):
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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 My Heart Brading. Welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt Noel is on Adventures and we'll
be returning soon. They call me Ben. We're joined as
always with our super producer Paul Mission Control decond. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. Uh, Matt, you know,
I was having a bit of a un characteristic wave
(00:49):
of nostalgia over this past weekend and before we went
on air. It's weird because it seems like once again
you were reading my mind when you talked about our
our YouTube channel. It's it's strange when you think that,
like we used to do so many videos. I know
that it consumed our lives for several years there, both
(01:14):
before and after we got our own channel, which by
the way is YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. If
you haven't checked it out recently, you should go check
it out. And we'd actually like for you to to
run a little test for us. Use your favorite Internet
search engine, perhaps the duck duck go perhaps Google, Yahoo, whatever,
(01:36):
and search for stuff they don't want you to know
YouTube and see what comes up. Because we we found,
at least on our end, that Google seems to have
forgotten about our channel, which is you know, it's kind
of flattering to imagine that, um, that channel, which has
been inactive for a while, at least up to now.
(02:00):
It's kind of flattering to imagine that entity as large
as Google would care about that. Uh. You know, to me,
that indicates that we we were doing something right. Now granted,
well we were either doing something right or you know,
they're they're categorizing us in the same way as some
of these other people who have been taken off of
(02:20):
YouTube and other platforms recently. Mm hmmm, yeah, you know.
I predict that as things become more unstable in the
near to mid future, we're going to see um, increasingly
heavy handed use of censorship and surveillance powers. But that
is uh to to tweak the old figure of speech.
(02:44):
That's a bridge will burn when we get there, you
know what I mean. Uh, For now, I UM, I've
got to say I'm tremendously grateful, uh for every one
of our fellow listeners who has been writing to us
and and telling us about all these straight change things
that aren't making it into the news. Uh. For years
(03:05):
and years, you and I have always wanted to cover
the things that are just off the edge of the
mainstream map, the things that the regions of the map
where cartographers of old would draw some serpents and say,
here be dragons, things that are just like outside the
pool of the street light. And we've only been able
(03:27):
to do it this long because we have help from
the best part of the show, which is specifically you. Uh. So,
So what better way to put our money where our
mouth is than to uh than to explore an episode
topic brought to us by one of our fellow listeners.
That is correct, one of you, who hopefully is listening
(03:52):
to this episode send us a little voice message and
it goes a little something like this, No, this is
weird West in Miami. Have a question. You don't think
the thought that me Google is a topa because it's
found its own tatience that it's there that is something
(04:12):
to it. Also, look at the tables fall done see
you Okay, first thing here weird wes uh And we
did not do this on purpose. Ben and I did
not discuss this prior to recording this episode. You just
asked if Google was a tulpa of some sort, some
(04:34):
kind of thought form that had sentience that could act
on its own. We did not. I didn't. I don't
know if Ben, if you listen to that voicemail right
before this or something. I didn't do this on purpose.
Now I'm thinking the tulpa that is Google is trying
to bring us down from from a YouTube standpoint. At least,
(04:54):
I'm fascinated by the idea. For anyone who is unfamiliar.
Tulpa is this concept that a a life form can
exist without a physical body, an a sentient thought or
collection of thoughts, or an algorithms. So you know, in
a way, a software program that reaches the level of
(05:17):
machine consciousness could be a talpa. Uh. And you know,
the aggregation of algorithms that are Google could in some
ways be considered a tolpa. I've got a really weird,
uh story. I'll have to I'll have to send you
off air. I've been writing a bunch of garbage, but
I've got really weird story about a world in which
(05:38):
emotions shared between two or more people can become sentient,
and it's it's totally it's a TOLPA situation. I started
off trying to write it as a rom com, but
I'm terrible at rom com, so it became yet another
horror story. But you're right, You're right, Matt. It's a
fascinating concept, and it's a concept that we have, I believe,
(05:58):
explored in in the past. The little bit. But there
was one thing West said, one thing you said weird
West in Wyoming that I think Matt and I really like,
really tuned into because it was something that we had
never heard of, which is admittedly, I don't want to
(06:19):
say rare, but it's admittedly uncommon for us. That is correct,
that little thing, a little throwaway you had at the
end of the message that just said, hey, looking look
into the Tatum salt mines. Bye uh yeah dude. But
Ben and I both and Nol actually we all just went, wait,
what is that? And we started using Google the TLPA
(06:42):
now that we've established that to your search to search
things about it, and my goodness, we found an entire
episode hidden deep within those salt mines, and I like,
I liked the waxing poetic there at the end that
it's true on multiple levels. Today's episode is inspired by
you Weird West in Wyoming. You contacted us about a strange,
(07:06):
largely unknown events that occurred right here in the good
old us of a. It's a bit of hidden history.
It's a story the Jedi won't tell you. It concerns
one of the most powerful, one of the most dangerous
forces ever wielded by human hands, nuclear power. Here are
(07:28):
the facts. Before we jump into this, I just want
to point out that Ben, you and Noel got to
do a bit of a nuclear story while I was
out recently, and now Nolah is out and you and
I get to do a nuclear story and I'm liking this.
That's true. That's true. Uh. And they're they're very they're
very different as well, um, but disturbing, absolutely so. One
(07:53):
of the major things here as we begin into the
facts is just to talk about nuclear hour within the
United States. And you know, I would I would wager
that there are several of you out there listening who
remember the protesting that occurred within this country when nuclear
power plants were beginning to be constructed across the states
(08:17):
in various places that were deemed to be you know,
good places for these things because they were safer there,
you know. But but like a lot of the other
protests that have occurred for various things in this country
across time, they you know, appear to have done very
little and actually preventing things from happening. And in this case,
(08:39):
nuclear power plants from being built and or nuclear tests
from being run. And a lot of this is because
there there are some tremendously beneficial things that can come
from something like nuclear power that you know, isn't just
your traditional burning of coal or other fossil fuels or
natural gases or something like that. Um. The and and
(09:02):
these benefits many times, let's say almost all the time,
are going to outweigh the dangers, at least if you're
looking at it from a monetary standpoint, from a clean
energy standpoint or a cleanish energy standpoint. Um. And you
know the dollar signs. Really that's what speaks to the
most benefits. Rights. Yes, make no mistake, Uh. The vast
(09:27):
majority of large scale actions that occur like this, especially
in the energy industry, are the results of a cost
benefit calculation. Uh, the same way that we all individually
use cost benefit logic in our own daily lives. UH.
This just affects people in many, many unforeseen ways. So
(09:49):
the protesters failed. Let's just be honest, the protesters failed.
According to the World Nuclear Association, as of now, the
United States is the world largest producer of nuclear power
a single country out of the one ninety three ish
countries in the world. UH. It produces more than thirty
(10:13):
percent of all of the nuclear generated electricity on the planet,
full stop. And this is the result of a concerted
effort that goes across both sides of the political divide
in the US. Multiple companies are on board with it,
even if they compete with each other. Government policy changes
(10:33):
since about the late ninety nineties paved the way for
a significant rise in nuclear capacity, and as of now,
Uncle Sam officially has ninety eight nuclear power centers there
across thirty states and they're operated by a group of
(10:53):
around thirty maybe more different power companies. And just like Ben,
you and all discovered when covering the Santa Susanna experiment
recently that occurred out in California where some of this
nuclear power was being generated and tested to see if
there are new ways to generate the power, and something
went wrong. We we we have to remember that these things,
(11:17):
if something does go wrong, the consequences are massive. Right.
So it's that's when you're getting back into that cost
benefit analysis. Uh, nuclear power can be terrifying. Uh, there's
We're gonna look right here at words from an author
Benjamin Ksva cool Uh. He wrote a critical evaluation of
(11:38):
nuclear power and renewable Electricity in Asia. It was written
in two thousand. Uh. This guy says that there have
been at least fifties six nuclear reactor accidents within the
United States. That seems like more than I've heard of, right,
So you know what he's saying is that there are
(11:59):
there's a large scale here in what could be called
a nuclear accident, right because the definition it covers a
wide range of things that could go wrong and that
have go wrong. But there are some commonalities here with
all fifty six of these that Benjamin is pointing to. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
(12:19):
the these fifty six accidents, again, that's a huge number,
by the way. Uh, these these fifty accidents, fifty six accidents,
all have two things in common. They either resulted in
an immediate loss of human life and immedia is important
there we'll see why or they cause more than fifty
(12:41):
thou dollars US worth of property damage. That last parts
very interesting to me because fifty thou dollars is far
more than the average US resident is going to have
on hands right, just to pull out and use. But
it's also a cartoonishly low thresh old when we consider
(13:01):
the overall cost of specialized nuclear equipment, particularly because that
specialized equipment is inevitably gonna be some of the first
stuff damaged when things go south. And you know, again
you you should be weirded out by that how high
(13:22):
that number is of proven nuclear incidents in the US
nuclear meltdown's disasters malfunctions. But there's one you're definitely familiar with.
It's one that Nolan I mentioned in our previous episode, uh,
and that is Three Mile Island. Three Mile Island, for
a quick recap, was a partial core meltdown at the
(13:45):
Three Mile Island Nuclear plant on March nine, and it,
you know, it's safe to say it exceeded that fifty
dollar threshold. Yeah, the cleanup costs alone ranged somewhere with
the billion dollars, like as in Dr Evil, one billion
dollars in an estimated total of two point four billion
(14:09):
dollars in property damage that was done because as as
a result of this accident, and you know, over the years,
in in various forms of reporting, you're gonna hear all
kinds of different claims about the health effects, both short
term and long term of this disaster. But officially, a
lot of experts note that the health effects are of
(14:30):
a very low level, like as in, you know, not
much bad really happened on a human level because of
Three Mile Island. Guys, we're going to reassure you, just
to let you know everything's okay. You're gonna be okay,
your family is going to be fine. Not everyone agrees,
of course, because you know, even as recently as nineteen
seventy nine, uh, there there was a lot of debate
(14:54):
about the possible long term ramifications of of these sorts
of disasters, you know, or the possible long term consequences
to the life forms in their vicinity. Again officially, right,
this is all officially, and that's that's the problem with
nuclear reporting in general. Right. We threw out a couple
(15:16):
numbers just a few minutes ago, but if you remember
only one of those numbers, remember this one fifty six
incidents more than fifty times in this country nuclear power
almost or did go disastrously wrong. And even today there's
stuff the US does not want you to know when
(15:38):
it comes to nuclear power, and there's certainly stuff they
don't want you to know when it's turned from generating
nuclear power to detonating nuclear weapons within the United States.
What could go wrong if we did that? We'll find
out after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it
(16:03):
gets crazy. So here's the issue with nuclear technology. One
of the many issues nuclear technology is dual use. We've
talked about this before. It's one of the great dilemmas
and geopolitics. Please don't fall asleep just because we said
geo politics. Essentially, the same stuff you have to do
(16:24):
to create nuclear power is the same stuff you have
to do to make nuclear weapons. It's not not very
many efficient ways to tell the difference between a country's
aim here, because there's not really a difference in what
you need to do and what you need to have.
It's just how long you keep those centrifuges running. Really
(16:45):
what it is, That's what it amounts to, right, It's
a matter of iteration. That's that's really the only difference.
Like imagine if you were This might be a little
bit too off the grid for some of us, but
imagine if you were churning butter and after you know,
x amount of churns or x amount of time spin churning,
you had butter. But if you kept going, you had
(17:06):
a bomb. That's basically the problem with nuclear energy and
nuclear enrichment. Uh. And so this left the US many
other countries in a pickle because this meant that in theory,
any country with the ability to domestically create nuclear energy
would also domestically have the ability to make nuclear weapons,
(17:29):
and no one could stop them short of trying, short
of trusting them or like you know, doing a Reagan trust,
but verify watching how many times the centerfuges spin. It's
a very messy situation. So they got into this idea
of monitoring testing. Testing nuclear weapons is one one great
(17:51):
way to tell right what a country's true aims are.
It's like building a battleship. You can't test a nuclear
weapon and say you're doing anything other than that. You
can't build a battleship and say you're doing anything other
than attempting to build a blue Force navy and dominate
part of the ocean. So so the US said, we
(18:12):
need to figure out how these other countries are testing,
and just for our own pr we're gonna say that
we're doing this. This is dual use. We're gonna say
we're doing this just to make sure we know what
other countries are up to. It's defensive other countries was
widely suspected we're testing nuclear weapons underground, so that you
(18:35):
wouldn't from a satellite, for instance, you wouldn't see a
lot of atmospheric um you know, atmospheric anomalies. You wouldn't
have people on the ground noting, you know, like a
mushroom cloud miles away or something. Uh So they said, okay,
we're gonna assume people are doing this underground because that's
what we would do well exactly. And just to jump
(18:58):
back in time slightly, we're talking in about the sixties
and seventies here, but let's just jump back in time
to nineteen fifty four in March to something called Castle Bravo.
And just the reason why the United States took on this,
We're going to police the nuclear testing or possible nuclear
(19:18):
testing across the globe because we conducted a test in
the United States in a place called the Bikini, a
toll in the Marshall Islands. And like I said in
March first, nineteen fifty four, it was a massive explosion.
I believe it was fifteen mega tons. Uh. That was
the yield essentially um. And there were there was a
(19:42):
lot of fallout because of this nuclear test, like literally
and I guess pr lee because it caused a lot
of damage um And there was a lot of radiation
that spread further and in ways that we perhaps didn't expect.
And it was the cited globally at least between the
(20:04):
powers of the United States and the Soviet Union and
several other places that we would no longer test nuclear weapons,
like we're gonna stop. That's why. That's why the US
took on this role, right right, they said, we are
the we are the perfect people, uh to you know,
keep everyone honest here. Uh n. Also the same year
(20:29):
that Edward Burnes helped persuade the US to invade invade
Guatemala and launch a coup on behalf of private agricultural
sector businesses. It was a business coup. So shout out
to Hubernese, you monster. Uh. I'm still so impressed with
(20:52):
the guy, though you have to be you gotta respect
the hustle. But anyhow, you're right, you're absolutely right back.
There's there's a lot of precedents going to this, but
unfortunately the US was maybe not the best police officer.
Maybe it was just the least worst, you know, like
that's what people say about democracy, it's the least worst
(21:13):
system humans have come up with. But but the US,
like many other countries, blurred the line between testing for
nuclear power peaceful pursuits and testing for nuclear weaponry. And
that's why you'll notice that we caveated some of our
earlier statements by adding the O word. Officially, it's because
(21:33):
we have to. You see, the US, aside from Bikinia
tool it turns out the US conducted multiple nuclear tests
back in the day, some of which are still probably secret.
But weird West of Wyoming hipped US to several tests
that occurred in good old Mississippi. And at the time,
(21:54):
what's weird about this? These tests were not even secret.
The New York Times ran announcement about it that that
kind of aged like milk, because it's very it's very
like whoa, hey, look at this, where you know, nuclear
power is not what could go wrong? Uh, and you
can you can read the article and full online. But
(22:15):
but this project, well, the first thing I noticed about
this project met was that it had just a terrible name.
Talking about Project Dribble. I'm just drooling a little bit
thinking about it. Um. But yeah, this was this was
(22:37):
one of several tests that fell under this thing called
the Vela Uniform. This was a mission that was essentially
attempting to detect nuclear blasts. It ran from nineteen sixty
three to nineteen seventy one, and it was Yeah, the
VELA uh mission really was to detect blasts that occurred
(23:01):
on in air, blast that occurred on land, like above
the ground, underwater, blast that occurred even under the land,
like in a cave or something. He was trying to
figure out any of the ways that the United States
Forces military in this case, could detect whether or not
a nuclear blast had gone off anywhere in the world
at any altitude. Yeah, and this is similar to weather
(23:25):
balloon detection programs, you know, where we could maybe put
something high enough in the atmosphere that it would detect
certain changes indicative of a nuclear explosion. But figuring out
what was going on under our feet was almost more
important because that's where the really sneaky stuff can occur.
(23:45):
VELA uniform was overall seven different tests that we know about,
and not all of those tests were nuclear, but not one,
but two of the nuclear debtonations occurred just north of
a very small town in Lamar County, Mississippi, called Baxterville.
(24:07):
Baxterville is tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny um you know it's
it's kind of like that. Around the time this occurred,
Baxterville is what Garth Brooks would have called, uh a
one one stoplight town or something like that. I'm forgetting
my Garth Brooks, but but you know what I'm referencing
right anyway, Anyway, friends and little places aside, Baxterville was
(24:33):
about twenty eight miles and is twenty eight miles southwest
of Hattiesburg, which is probably the most recognizable town uh
in in the area. So the Powers that be chose
to detonate nuclear weapons in nearby Baxterville, where again people
did live because there was a distinctive geological feature there
(24:56):
called the Tatum Salt Dome. Also have to have to
mention it. I don't know if it's because I was
hungry when I was listening to your voicemail initially, West,
but I could have sworn. I could have sworn you
said potato salt dome, and and I just like started
imagine all the cool things you can do with potatoes.
(25:18):
But no, this is way less cool. This nuclear energy.
No joke, man, I googled. The first thing I googled
was potato salt dome. And I didn't know. I'm not joking.
I thought that's what it was too. And that's nothing
against us, is I just I was maybe having a
hard time understanding when I was listening on my phone
or something. Um, and perhaps it was also a bit ravenous. Um.
(25:39):
We're very carbon oriented, uh podcasts just like as a crew,
you know for sure, I really quickly, I just want
to go back. So we're talking about the Tatum salt dome.
We're gonna get into that, but I want to backtrack
just for a moment to make sure people understand that
the seven tests that were talking about with Vela uniform
(26:02):
were to test the sensor equipment that the Velor project
essentially was going to use to detect explosions elsewhere. So
in order to know that you can successfully detect an
underground nuclear explosion, let's say somewhere in the USS are
you need to first manufacture your own explosion to see Hey,
(26:23):
if they do one like this, can we see it? Yep? Okay,
So that was the point of this. I am not
sure if I explained that well enough prior to saying
it here. I think he yelled it. I think it's
important to to like highlight that because it's another instance
of dual use, isn't it. It would be naive to
(26:46):
assume that there would not be other other data, right,
other results that were monitored and pulled from again, these
det nations of nuclear weapons, right, And they spent a
lot of time thinking about this, As a matter of fact,
they spent a lot of time thinking about how to
(27:06):
set it up. But they did not spend a lot
of time on three big things. And that's what this
episode is about. First, they obviously, uh didn't spend a
lot of time thinking through what would actually happen when
you detonated nuclear They call it a nuclear device, but
when you detonate a nuclear bomb underground in an occupied area. Second,
(27:31):
they didn't think about the long term consequences aftermath or effects.
And third, they really phoned in the names. I can't.
I can't emphasize that enough. Project Dribble. The first test
is called the Salmon Events, which sounds like something your
local park ranger gets excited about once a year, you
(27:54):
know what I mean. Yeah, I think they were hungry too. Man. Well,
if we we mentioned the Tatum Salt Dome, why it's important,
I just can put this out here quickly. One of
the major reasons when they're you know, they're imagining what
another country might do when they were going to try
and test underground, they thought, well, if there was some
(28:16):
kind of salt dome or a an underground salt deposit
essentially somewhere on land, the authorities could put a bunch
of water into that salt deposit essentially, you know, turn
that that solid sodium into salt water, and create a
cavity underground where they could then place a bomb, explode
(28:38):
it and do some testing. Right. That was one of
the major reasons they chose this Tatum Salt Mine or
Tatum Salt Dome, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't just
because it was cool, but it was because of the
the actual physical makeup of the dome. So they announced
(28:58):
this to their credit, unlike some other US tests on
domestic populations. And here's what they decided to do. On
October twenty two, after warning some residents in the area
about ten am nineteen sixty four, the authorities detonated a
five point three kilo ton device eight hundred and twenty
(29:21):
meters or two thousand, seven hundred feet underground. Real quick,
because I know we've thrown some words around here. Uh
kill A toon is one thousand tons, so this is
like five thousand, five thousand tons, and change a mega
ton like Matt you had mentioned with Bikini a toll
(29:41):
is one million tons, so this is smaller than Bikini
as toll. But again it is in a It's an
area where people were not expecting to encounter radiation and
nuclear disaster. So the first thing that goes wrong when
they detonate this at ton Am is that the explosion
(30:01):
is much much stronger than the residents had been told
it would be. The ground shook, a gigantic cloud of
dust rises. Uh, the thing you're hoping to avoid. Windows break,
walls crack fourteen miles away. Uh, wells go bad, run dry,
they clogged. This favorite story. I know you probably have
(30:24):
some too, Mat. One of my favorite stories is there's
a local fisherman who watches in amazement as all the
fish in this pond jump out of the water at once. Wow. Yeah,
I can't imagine seeing that. Uh wow. Well, you know
another thing that I can't imagine is the way a
lot of the local residents described what they saw, even
(30:46):
when they were miles away from ground zero. They this
is I'm just gonna paraphrase this, and there you can
go online and read a lot of firsthand accounts of
this test. Salmon. In particular, they noted that there were
ground ripples, like waves of the ground where it's estimates
(31:09):
now at this point, because a lot of this was
looking back, you know, fifty years after the incident, but
a lot of it they described as you know, maybe
three ft of ground let's say, now imagine five inches
of wave of that ground that you can see moving
essentially in a semicircular path towards you, um and actually
(31:34):
moving the ground and rippling it. There were some people
who said they were standing on concrete, and on the
concrete you could feel a wave of earth travel under
your feet, and then they would They described about ten
to fifteen seconds of of just quiet and nothing and
then another ripple, and then another eleven seconds or so,
(31:55):
and then a third ripple of the ground that you
could actually watch like that sounds otherworldly to me. M
Have you ever I remember we talked about this, man,
have you ever been in an earthquake or experienced one?
There have been several low, very very low level earthquakes
(32:17):
in Georgia that I have felt, And I didn't know
I was feeling until I woke up the next day
and read that there was a low level earthquake. But
you know, I've been to California a few times now
in my life, and I've never experienced anything big or
in any other place. Mm hmm. Yeah. It's it's a
it's an incredibly disorienting feeling, and it's one of those
(32:38):
things where all of a sudden you recognize how powerless
we as individuals can be. When I was when I
was living in Central America, I looked like honestly, man,
I looked like a wist. The first couple of times,
you know, I was at this family's uh, this family's
residents where you know, we're rinking instant coffee. It's like
(33:02):
eight thirty in the morning or something, and then all
of a sudden, the kitchen just moves and then it
moves back, and some stuff I'm trying not occurse here,
but some stuff just falls off the shelves, and and uh,
the the lady whose house it was, she is She's like,
(33:23):
I'm just gonna put up this spoon again, and blah
blah blah. And I think maybe I've done some sort
of drug that I can't remember, you know, and that
reality is just glitching. But I say that because you know,
it is difficult to explain what an earthquake feels like
unless you experience it. There is no anchor, there's nothing
(33:45):
that you can hold because the world is quaking, and
this is what these people experience, right, So of course
they're scared, especially because they thought they had done everything right.
They had complied with the orders of the federal government.
They had evacuated if they were told to evacuate, and
(34:07):
they still, as we would say today, got their stuff rocked,
you know. And and the thing is that, Okay, this
is crazy, right, No one dies immediately, and thank your
lucky stars for that, right, Uh, Federal agents, residents alike.
Several weeks after the blast, the government has hired workers
(34:32):
to drill back into the hole in the ground left
by this explosion in the Tatum saltum to release radioactive
gas that's trapped inside. Now, the officials were using what
we would describe as cutting edge technology for the time.
They had scrubbers that were set up and in a
scrubber basically would decontaminate the radioactive gas. But soon they
(34:58):
realized that wasn't the real problem. They would have to
do something about the radioactive liquid waste from all the
drilling operations. Just like in Lord of the Rings, they
delved too deep and their bal rog was very dangerous
waste radiation. So they said, okay, you know what we're
gonna do. We're gonna dig. We're gonna dig a hole.
(35:23):
We're just we're gonna dig some more holes, and we're
gonna dig one really deep hole, uh two thousand, four
hundred feet into the earth, right by the salt dome um.
And then someone in the room was like, hey, is
isn't there a groundwater aquifer there? And they're like, Craig
and EGb a team player. It's fine. It's also who
(35:47):
cares if it's an awkward for everything will be fine.
There's no problem with irradiating ground water. Yeah. So so
we're still remember and between March and July of that year,
there was a ton of radioactive liquid waste that was
(36:11):
disposed of into this well where an underground aquifer was.
We're talking about three hundred and thirty eight thousand gallons
of radioactive waste that was just see you later, down
into the well, into the water. And that wasn't it either.
That's not where the story stops. It wasn't just one
(36:32):
nuclear test underground at this location. The government went right
back through and dropped another bomb into that hole that
they created with the first test. And we'll tell you
all about that when we return from a word from
our sponsor. That's right. Uh, they must have had a
(36:57):
different person writing the names by this point. A few
years later, they conduct a second test, as you said, Matt,
during what was called the Sterling Events. This happened on
December third, nineteen sixty six. Basically, Uh, they said, Hey,
we got this great hole from earlier, let's keep using it.
(37:18):
This is a very like pro hole in the ground
kind of institution. Uh. And it made sense. I don't
mean to bust their chops too hard, it made sense.
So they dropped a three hundred and eighty ton device
into the cavity that was left behind by the previous explosion.
In the Salmon events, the Department of Defense and associated
(37:40):
agencies required residents for these tests within one and a
half miles of the explosion point to leave their homes
while the events were occurring. They also said, hey, you know,
these detonations may might mess up your house a little bit.
They might they might damage some buildings and stuff. And
(38:03):
it did, and it definitely did. Uh uh. They also
proactively said, you know, we are going to we're going
to get in front of this, as they say in
corporate America or in the realm of politics, and we're
going to go ahead and just let you know. Whatever happens,
We're going to give you a five grand. Just tell
(38:25):
us what happened. We'll give you five grand. Everybody's happy it.
It didn't stop there, uh. Later, they would go on
to conduct more experiments with non nuclear explosives during a
project called Miracle Play, which sounds like something for you know,
your Nintendo switch. Yeah, yeah, it does. Ben Really quickly,
(38:49):
let's get into the reason why they tested secondary much
much smaller device in that same place where they caused
the first explosion. Just quick, lee, just go over this. So,
the first time they detonated a nuke in the Tatum
Salt Dome, it essentially created a massive, so let's say,
(39:11):
spherical whole in the ground, not necessarily a hold you
can get into, like a cavern, like a cave, basically
underneath the ground. And when once they had created that
with the first explosion, the first test during Salmon, they
like I said, like we said, they drilled a hole
into this cavity. They dropped a much smaller bomb and
(39:35):
what do we say it was, yeah, ton device, much
smaller and they dropped that down there and it exploded. It. Uh,
to test whether or not there would be this dampening
effect that the you know, the scientists and personnel that
we're testing with the Vela Vela uniform. They wanted to
(39:56):
see if a country could do that could dampen the
essentially shock waves of a nuclear explosion by having a
hole in the ground, a large cavernous hole in the ground,
rather than just dipping it into the ground and exploding it.
Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean there's there is valuable science here,
you know what I mean that I think that's one
(40:19):
of the biggest points about this. But the problem is
everything we've described, even with the safety measures that they took, Uh,
it's still incredibly dangerous. People were living in the area, right,
and you'll be a happy slash roll your rise and
(40:40):
groaning to uh to learn that Uncle Sam did compensate
the residence of Baxterville and Hattiesburg even they gave adults
ten dollars and they gave children five bucks. The shock
wave of this explosion literally lifted the ground four inches UM.
(41:00):
A lot of buildings only have minimal damage. That's frankly amazing.
But what is not amazing and what is you know,
perhaps the most disappointing and strange part of this story
be the effects and the aftermath, which they clearly did
not plan for. Agreed, I would say we're talking dollars,
(41:23):
so ten bucks, five bucks not too shabby. It's very
fair of you, yes, of being facetious here. No, you're right, though,
been the aftermath and effects of these tests is not
something laugh at. I apologize again. We're in one of
those situations where you're trying to be a little light
just because this stuff is UH, it's tough on individual
(41:44):
people and families. So, you know, the big thing here
is that the United States government appears to not have
been fully aware of the risks that were posed by
contaminating with radiation things like groundwater and just you know,
a general area where flora and fauna are going to
be affected by this radiation. They were, however, fully aware
(42:08):
of the horrific consequences of dropping the bomb on let's
say a city and suburban area. Uh, when you're looking
at the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In this case,
the logic at least was that this would this would
not have much of an effect because you know, you're
exploding this thing underground, because the radioactive material is going
(42:31):
to be stuck under there. It's not going to be
able to escape and get into the air and affect
things in the way that we you know, generally had
been testing nukes in the past, and it would you know,
over time, if you didn't disturb the area, and especially
like essentially the cave that was created because of this explosion,
(42:52):
if you didn't disturb that, then the stuff would decay naturally, slowly,
but naturally, and you wouldn't have to worry too much. Right,
This was not the case. Follow up drilling operations that
allowed scientists to collect more information about this and to
dispose of the devices actually ended up contaminating the site.
(43:16):
So it wasn't so much the initial testing as it
was the UH. The later attempts to leverage info from
the testing or to get ahold of these devices created
hazardous radioactive waste. You know, all like imagine that green
gunk you see in episodes of The Simpsons or Captain Planet.
(43:37):
It made that stuff, and that stuff is very, very bad.
Humans are not built to be around it. Decades after
the first test, the Department of Energy is still picking
up radiation in the ground and surprised in the aquifers,
and that is due to the problem with the clean up.
Employees who worked on these cleanup missions said that it
(43:59):
was lax at best. UH. Some a couple of poison particular,
maintained that they were lied to when they asked medical
professionals UH to explain things like strange burns they found
or differing medical conditions. UH. The Department of Energy maintained
that the radiation levels they did find, even the ones
(44:21):
that persisted for decades, were no threat to the health
of residents and to be fair, we know that the
modern human being, especially in the West, is exposed to
low levels of radiation from every including everything from like
maybe an X ray scan too, I kid, do not bananas.
(44:44):
Bananas have low level radiation. Uh so they were flying
in a plane. Oh yeah, I'm flying in a plane.
Oh man, remember when I used to do that. I
would still trade it all. I was supposed to go
to Eastern Island this summer day. I tell you that. No,
it was a secret, and I didn't want to tell
you guys until I can texts you a picture. But
uh yeah, But being a US resident traveling internationally is
(45:08):
going to be harry for a while. Even if even
if you live in the US and you have the
ability to go somewhere, the other country might not necessarily
want to let you in now more than ever. But
we'll see anyway, that doesn't that doesn't matter. The point
the matter is here is that there are a lot
of things that expose you to low level radiation. You
run into it all the time, And the Department of
(45:31):
Energy was saying, well, this is kind of the same thing.
It's not going to be dangerous. But in the nineties nineties,
residents of the area Baxterville, Hattiesburg, and workers from Project
Project Dribble. Uh. They started to say, you know, a
lot of our friends, co workers and loft ones from
(45:54):
this time period are dying and they're dying of cancer. Yeah.
About thirty years later, that's when I guess you begin
to notice that that radiation those rats you took back
in the day are starting to show themselves because there
are long, long term effects there. And you know, the
(46:15):
local residents ended up creating a list of I believe
it was forty forty four people who had either died
of cancer or who had developed cancer. And you know
that's in the large scheme of things, that's a relatively
low number, but in a small town, forty four people
in an immediate area who had you know, gotten cancer
(46:38):
or died of cancer is a lot. And they demanded
that the state and federal government figure out if any
of these conditions were in any way linked to the
salt dome test that were done back in the sixties.
And you know, we're talking in it moved slowly trying
to get any kind of movement within the legal system,
(47:00):
within you know, the people who could actually run the testing,
because there was By the way, there was a lot
of long term testing of the flora and fauna in
the immediate area that was going on, but you know
who's too. I couldn't find much on the actual testing
of the residents that was going on up until they
(47:22):
started raising a flag and saying, hey, we're we're fauna too, right,
That's what I mean. That's a very very salient point.
By the way, I forgot to mention this, the a
lot of residents in this area used wells that they
had you know, doug or had been there existing on
(47:42):
their properties prior to these events. Almost all, if not everyone,
of the wells in the surrounding area we're producing undrinkable
water or no water at all, water that was not
portable for them to drink, so they had to find
alternative means to get water. There. You gonna read a
lot more about this in a couple of places online.
(48:03):
I would recommend the Atomic Heritage site atomic heritage dot org.
And there's also a bunch of local reporting that's happened
over the you know, let's say, from about two thousand
ten and onward. There have been several stories about this. Sorry,
I just want to put that out there. Oh yeah, yeah,
I would recommend I was reading into Work by Nola
(48:28):
dot com, by the Sun, Harold Um. There's actually there's
a really good Atlas Obscura article on this that gives
a nice overview, but right without admitting liability for some stuff.
Around two thousands, the government built a water pipeline to
(48:48):
help residents of the Tatum Salt Dome get drinking water
that came from an area other than the test site.
And their idea was, you know, we're not a fish
lee saying that we really screwed the pooch on this,
but we want you guys to feel better. So this
(49:08):
is sort of this is for you. Fast forward, the
Department of Labor has paid nearly five point five million
dollars US two people who are suffering medical problems after
working at the Salmon nuclear explosion site against southwest of Hattiesburg,
about twenty eight miles. So if you combine that with
(49:29):
the money that was paid to workers who lived in
Mississippi but didn't necessarily work on the site, the total
bill is sixteen point eight million dollars. Oddly enough, that's
the price tag for a total of fifty six claims.
Odd coincidence. There's that number again for the numerologists in
(49:50):
the crowd. Uh. Those fifty six claims came from the
Salmon site, which today we usually called the Tatum Salt Dome,
and today, as we record this officially, Tatum Salt Dome
is the location of the only known nuclear weapons test
a K detonation to ever be performed in the eastern
(50:11):
United States. That's right. A lot of it was done
out in Nevada, Nevada. However, you want to say it
at the test sites out there in a couple of
other places, or just you know, outside of the United States,
on atolls and other places underneath the water and in
the air, in various places. It's pretty weird to think about.
(50:32):
And it's so odd again that Ben and I were
unaware of this until Weird West came along and was like, hey, guys,
look at this and then left. Uh. It's it's really
it's really frustrating to know that the government did pay
out that money to fifty six people when into my
(50:55):
mind you think about the residents that have been living there,
are the families that have been growing up there near
this place. Uh, it feels like there's been a larger
effect maybe than just the workers who were there on
site who got dosed radiation, because you know, it's highly
likely that they did, and that's probably one of the
major reasons that the money was actually paid out. But
(51:16):
just thinking about the number of people that ended up
drinking water and children that ended up drinking water around there, um,
it feels like it feels like there there would be
more casualties. But maybe I'm wrong. I would say there
are a couple of places online where you can read
firsthand accounts of people who were there, and there's one
(51:37):
gentleman who refers a couple of times to the number
of people with cancer, and he says, I believe the
quote is something along the lines of if you look
north essentially of the Tatum Salt Dome, that's where there
are a ton of people getting cancer. And that was
a I believe it was a two thousand fourteen interview
(51:59):
with this gentleman, but he was specifically saying, look to
the north of where these explosions occurred, and that's where
you'll find the people who were really affected. And this
situation has not been solved, you know more than what, uh,
you know, decades and decades later, this situation remains unsolved.
(52:20):
The The one important thing to note here is we
are harping a lot on the activities of the US government,
but made no mistake, Uh. The U. S. SR was
conducting similarly dangerous and devious nuclear experiments. H and many
(52:41):
other modern nuclear powers have done the same thing. This
was how the radioactive sausage was made. Today, most of
the residents of Lamar County have, you know, maybe a
passing understanding of these two new clear explosions, right at
(53:02):
least from what we understand, and younger citizens in Mississippi
typically like if you drove there today and you asked someone, say,
I don't know under eighteen about this stuff, they probably
haven't heard of Project Dribble. Uh. To your point, Matt,
about the distribution of cancer cancer rates, statistics now show
(53:27):
that cancer and heart disease the rates and Baxterville are
comparable to the rest of the state of Mississippi, which
sadly means that they are noticeably higher than the national average.
Some residents who are familiar with the story maintain that
the U. S. Government is still hiding some part of
(53:48):
the truth, whether that's the full extent of the radiation
the consequences of the test or the distribution of UM
contamination associated medical conditions. I don't know. You can't blame
people for being distrustful in these situations in general. Uh,
but you know, thank you to weird West Wyoming. Wish
(54:11):
we had more of a happy ending to this story.
But the best thing we can say is the story
is not over yet. That's right, the story is not over.
Thank us. I will give you just a quick thing
from the Sun Herald. So back about ten years ago,
a little little lesson ten years ago. Back in two
thousand ten, the good old us of A government declared
(54:35):
that this site, that Tatum Salt Dome in this area
was safe, and they transferred I believe it was about
fift hundred, yeah, one tho acres to the state, back
to Mississippi. And they were talking about, how, you know,
the wood out here, the trees, the timber, this is
all really good stuff we can use. It's about two
(54:58):
million dollars worth of two thousand and ten dollars of
this stuff um. And also we could build recreational sites here.
Let's do it. Hey, we got all this land, let's
make it happen. Everything is safe and uh, the State
Health Department in Mississippi. In they were still, you know,
up until they were still monitoring the whole site, looking
(55:21):
at the water, specifically for triteum, which is, according to
the sun herold, which is also according to science, a
radioactive isotope of hydrogen. And you know, they were saying,
you know what, We're okay, We're still gonna monitor the groundwater.
We're gonna look at the surface water. But everything seems fine.
Let's get back to it out here in the old
(55:42):
Tatum salt dome. Here's here's another thing, just a quick
note that they make at the end of this article,
which by the way, is called nuclear tests in South
Mississippi cost government millions and claims. They note that several
times the cons sept of using a salt mine or
(56:03):
a salt dome in this way as a safe place
to store nuclear waste, even though we learned from this
test that is not necessarily a safe place to store
nuclear waste because of the aquifers. That is I think
one of the big takeaways um nuclear waste and ground
(56:23):
aquifers are it's a very dangerous combination. Yeah, it's true.
And at this point we passed the torch to you.
What do you think about this? Do you think that
people are maybe being alarmist about the connection between these
older nuclear debtonations and rates of cancer or certain medical
(56:44):
conditions in the area? Now, do you think that there's
not enough attention put on this? What do you think
about other similar tests in the world, and are there
any that you're aware of in your neck of the
global woods. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know.
You can find us on the Internet. We're all over it. Uh,
the Internet is just like lousy with our presence, despite
(57:08):
the fact that we have seemingly angered the Tulpa god
of Internet search. You can find us on Facebook, you
can find us on Twitter, you can find us on Instagram.
We especially like to recommend our Facebook community page. Here's
where it gets crazy. Yes, you can hang out there
(57:28):
with your fellow conspiracy realist talking about this episode, suggests, others,
post memes, whatever you want to do. You can hang
out with some of the awesomest mods that exist on
that old Facebook platform. If you don't want to do
that stuff, you can always pick up your phone and
give us a call. Our number is one eight three
three std w y T k. If you leave a message,
(57:52):
you can be certain that Ben and I will both
hear it, and Noel will will hear of it if
we deem it to be good enough for in melicit it.
I'm just choking. No's gonna listen to UM. If you
don't want to do that stuff, but you still want
to reach out, you can always reach us in our
good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heeart
(58:12):
radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know
(58:33):
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio 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
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
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
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.