1951 – 1955: Atom bomb tests seen from Los Angeles

The Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), previously the Nevada Test Site (NTS), is a United States Department of Energy reservation located in southeastern Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of the city of Las Vegas. Formerly known as the Nevada Proving Grounds, the site was established on 11 January 1951 for the testing of nuclear devices, covering approximately 1,360 square miles (3,500 km2) of desert and mountainous terrain. Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a 1-kiloton-of-TNT (4.2 TJ) bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat on 27 January 1951. Many of the iconic images of the nuclear era come from the NTS.
Light from these test sights was visible from Los Angeles, follow the link to see these surreal apocalyptic nuclear sunrises.
http://www.retronaut.com/2013/09/atom-bomb-tests-seen-from-los-angeles/
27 Comments
Were there any documented medical effects on those standing outside and observing the blasts in real time?
Wow, incredible vintage footage
About halfway down the picture slide there is a man standing by himself on a bridge observing the explosive glow. The man actually looks as if he cheaply photoshopped into the picture, but I’ll chalk it up to some sort of irradiated glow that occurred, altering his sihouette. Wonder how he fared, medically, after that instance?
Just the vintage pictures of “nifty-fifties” LA alone is worth seeing the pictures
So many LA buildings captured that don’t exist anymore, like the Firestone factory and the Richfield building…amazing. Where did these landmarks go?
Come to think of it, most of the men pictured have that “corona” glow surrounding them. Probably not a good thing in the long or short term…
Good ol’ LA in the Good ol’ days
The augmented glow of lights dispersed across the Old LA tableau reminds me of the scene in The Prestige where David Bowie was playing Nikola Tesla and he demonstrated how he could light up his acres of property with newly discovered alternating current. Like magical lanterns dispersed everywhere. Very cool scene. Except his lanterns probably weren’t emitting massive rads.
How many extra rads did these unbeknownst observers absorb?
So much undeveloped land in LA back then, and so many buildings/structures razed to date as well. Yet hardly a decent plot of land to be found anymore.
How many of these observers died prematurely due to the exposure?
Excessive radiation exposure – the gift that keeps on giving for generations
My god, those truly are surreal apocalyptic nuclear sunrises
Was there a building in there that said “National War Armory”? Really ironic…
These vintage photos are just awesome…
These pictures speak 10,000 words each
Amazing pictorial history
These pictures blow me away…
If they exhumed the corpses of those exposed viewers, I wonder how excessively irradiated they would be?
Wonder how these pics would look if they were colorized?
Captures an era in LA and US history so incredibly
Amazing footage…
These are like surreal images out of a 1950’s sci-fi movie…
“surreal apocalyptic nuclear sunrises” says it all…
Is there video of these occurrences or just still photos? That would make for some surreal sci-fi movie
Wow…blown away
Not sure whether to be in good awe or bad awe…