DID TWO NUCLEAR BOMBS ALMOST DETONATE IN NORTH CAROLINA

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
The World Unexplained the World a podcast that explores the
unusual beliefs, conspiracies, customs, rituals, and traditions from around the world.
This is your host, Doctor Carlos.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome back everyone, Andy. Before we get started, to make
sure to share a subscribe and hit the like button
over the five stars if you're on Apple. Did the
US accidentally almost drop two nuclear bombs in North Carolina?
Let's take a look. In January nineteen sixty one, a
US Air Force bomber broken half while flying over eastern

(00:49):
North Carolina. That's right, broken half from the belly of
the B fifty two fell two bombs. What worthy nuclear
bombs that hit the ground near the city of Goldsborough,
A disaster that could have been worse than the devastation
rotten Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have been falling in the
United States that night, but it didn't thanks to a

(01:12):
series of fortune fortunate missteps. Believe it or not, declassified
documents of the National Security of Archive release offer new
details about the incident. Multi megaton bomb was virtually armed
when it crashed to Earth to a blazing headline. Secretary Defense

(01:32):
Robert McNamara put it back then, the slightest margin of chance,
literally the failure of two wires to cross, and nuclear
explosion was averted. It's difficult to calculate the destruction of
those bombs could have caused, but some figure now one
bomb the signs of the two that fell in nineteen
sixty one, would have met thermal radiation over fifteen miles

(01:56):
the populations in the area. In the area at that
current level would kill more than sixty thousand people, and injure,
over fifty It's worth noting that Carolina's nineteen sixty one
total population was about half of what it is today,
like most places in the US, so it could have
killed still twenty eight thousand people, not a small number

(02:16):
by any means. UCLA estimate that, respectively, Hiroshima and Nagasaki
had populations of over three hundred thousand and a quarter
million when they bombed in August of nineteen forty five.
By that December, the city's death toll included by conservative estimates,
at least ninety thousand. Wayne County, which includes Goldborough, had

(02:37):
a population of about eighty four thousand. The Goldsborough incident,
to be fifty two, was flying over North Carolina when
it suffered a failure of the right wing. As the
plane broke apart, the two bombs plummeted towards the ground.
The parachute open nun one and did none the other.
The impact of the aircraft breakup initiated the fusing sequence
of both bombs. In other words, both weapons became alarmingly

(03:01):
close to detonating. Weapon one, the bomb whose parachute opened,
landed intact. Fortunately, the safety pins that provided power from
a generator to the weapon had been yanked, preventing it
from going off. Weapon number two, the second bomb, with
the unopened parachute, landed in a free fall. The impact
get this of the crash put it in the armed setting. Fortunately,

(03:24):
once again it damaged another part of the bomb needed
to initiate an explosion. While it's unclear how frequently these
types of accidents have ever occurred, the Defense Department did
disclose thirty two accidents involving nuclear weapons between nineteen fifty
and nineteen eighty. Between nineteen fifty and nineteen sixty eight,

(03:45):
twenty one declassified accounts reul aircraft light incidents in which
nuclear weapons were lost accidentally dropped Jennison for safety reasons
are on board planes that crashed. The accidents occurred in
various US states, including an including countries of Greenland, Spain, Morocco,
and England. Another five accidents current planes were taxing or parked.

(04:08):
Two months after the close calling Goldsborough, another Bee fifty
two was flying in the Western United States when the
cabin depressurized and the crew ejected, leaving the pilot to
steer the bomber away from populated areas. Again, catastrophe was
averted in the Goldsborough instrument incident, and it was first
detailed in a book called Commanded Control by Eric Schlosser.

(04:29):
Eight crew members were aboard the plane the night, five
survived the crash. According to account pulished by the University
of North Carolina, recounted the co pilot, Major Richard Rody,
and I could see three or four other shoots against
the globe of the wreckage. I hit some trees, I
hit fixed on some lights and started walking. The Mk
three to nine bombs weighed ten thousand pounds and their
explosive yeal was three point eight mega tons. Compare that

(04:53):
to the bomb's drop that dropped in Hiroshima that were
only zero point zero one and zero point zero two Mega,
but Rodan, the pilot, didn't know then what a catastrophe
had been avoided. An amazing story, but it was explained,
so yes. Two nuclear poems nearly detonated in North Carolina