A nuclear flash from the past - Israel and S.African testing, page 1
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Topic started on 8-1-2003 @ 12:01 AM by mad scientist
I don't know how many people are aware that the Israeli's and South Africans conducted a nuclear test in 1979 in the South Atlantic Ocean.


November/December 1997

At 3 o'clock in the morning of September 22, 1979, a U.S. Vela satellite detected a brief, intense, double flash of light near the southern tip of South Africa. Did it signal a low-yield nuclear explosion? Will we ever know for sure?

The controversy over the mysterious flash, which has never been settled, was raised again last April when South African Minister Aziz Pahad was quoted in Ha'aretz, an Israeli daily paper, as calling the incident "definitely a nuclear test."

The Ha'aretz report continued: "This was the first time an official spokesman of [Nelson] Mandela's government had admitted that the flash was in fact the result of a nuclear test, thereby contradicting declarations made by Mandela's predecessors that South Africa had never conducted such tests." Although the article did not explicitly say so, it also implied that the test might have been conducted with Israel.

Pahad's office responded that his remarks were taken out of context. For example, his press secretary told the Albuquerque Journal in an article dated July 11 that Pahad had said only that there was a "strong rumor" that a test had taken place, and that it should be investigated.

But it was no use. Also on July 11, Los Alamos National Laboratory issued a press release touting Pahad's original statement as confirming the lab's long-stated position that the 1979 flash indicated a nuclear test. Of course, not correcting the statement may have been part of Los Alamos's current campaign for funds to put a new generation of detection equipment on future satellites.

Despite Pahad's correction, a widely reported story in the July 21 Aviation Week & Space Technology led with the statement that a "South African government official has confirmed that his nation detonated a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere in September 1979."

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (iaea), however, South Africa did not construct its first nuclear explosive device until November 1979, two months after the mysterious flash. But the iaea has not investigated allegations that the event was an Israeli test, perhaps conducted with South Africa's knowledge.

www.thebulletin.org...


reply posted on 29-12-2004 @ 09:11 AM by Artificium
A lot of nuclear weapons research was done at Pelindaba.

(Look for Hartbeespoortdam on the SA map to find it)

Other bases of interest was one in the Kalahari dessert called Vastrap. A very basic but effective workshop used by the military.

nuclearweaponarchive.org...



Interestingly enough is the existence of Camp 13 that is said to have housed a laser testing laboratory.

This laser was rumoured to have been used to shoot down a UFO by using two mirage jet fighters to chase it close enough to the laser so that the UFO would be with in firing range.

But that's a whole other story.

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