A Bunch Of Rare, Declassified Nuclear Test Films Were Just Released On YouTube

From 1945 until 1962, the United States conducted 210 atmospheric nuclear tests — the kind with the big mushroom cloud and all that jazz. Above-ground nuke testing was banned in 1963, but there are thousands of films from those tests that have just been rotting in secret vaults around the country. But starting today you can see many of them on YouTube.

Explosion from a newly declassified nuclear explosion from 1958 as part of Operation Hardtack (YouTube)

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) weapon physicist Greg Spriggs has made it his mission to preserve these 7000 known films. Like this astonishing footage of a nuke detonating in mid-air:

Many of these films have been literally decomposing while classified and hidden from the public. According to LLNL, this five-year project has been tremendously successful, with roughly 4200 films already scanned and around 750 of those now declassified. Sixty-four of the declassified films have been uploaded today in what Spriggs is calling an “initial set”.

“You can smell vinegar when you open the cans, which is one of the byproducts of the decomposition process of these films,” Spriggs said in a statement to Gizmodo.

“We know that these films are on the brink of decomposing to the point where they will become useless,” said Spriggs. “The data that we’re collecting now must be preserved in a digital form because no matter how well you treat the films, no matter how well you preserve or store them, they will decompose. They’re made out of organic material, and organic material decomposes. So this is it. We got to this project just in time to save the data.”

It’s a race against time, and Spriggs figures it will take at least another two years to scan the remaining films. The declassification of all the remaining 3480 films, a process that requires military review, will take even longer.

“It’s just unbelievable how much energy’s released,” said Spriggs. “We hope that we would never have to use a nuclear weapon ever again. I think that if we capture the history of this and show what the force of these weapons are and how much devastation they can wreak, then maybe people will be reluctant to use them.”

You can check out the full playlist of LLNL Atmospheric Nuclear Tests here.

Originally posted on Gizmodo.