The Vela Incident: Who Nuked the South Atlantic in 1979?

a reply to: mirageman

sounds like an pretty small nuke
its an wonder it even had any effect...

a reply to: mirageman

Why are you confident the prime suspect would have been a huge exploding bolide today?

Because today, we understand the dynamics of bolides in Earth atmosphere so much better than in the late 70's. We also understand how frequent it really happens. Add to that the internet, where information about huge flashes in the sky, some coupled with huge sound events, is instantly communicated around the world so that scientists can analyze that data so much better.

a reply to: mirageman

What is strange is how you thought someone said "there may have been a mushroom cloud but they don't know if was a mushroom cloud?" Perhaps you can explain that?

Generally nuclear explosions are followed by big mushroom clouds. Why did they not just time stamp the date and find the place on google maps or other programs or satellites and see if there were any funny cloud patterns? I mean all that tech and humbla to sense things from across the world, yet no pictures?

You know the motto of this site, pictures or it did not happen.

Oh may bad. This happened in the 80s and there going by signal strength. This does get stranger and stranger, and also sillier and sillier.

originally posted by: galadofwarthethird
Oh may bad. This happened in the 80s and there going by signal strength. This does get stranger and stranger, and also sillier and sillier.

Indeed. However, you are still wrong - to help you, there is a small clue in the title.

And the motto of the website is "Deny Ignorance".

a reply to: charlyv

OK i think I've got it. So repeating what was in the OP we have the following:


- The Vela satellite detecting a double flash consistent with a nuclear explosion that does not occur in nature.

- the Arecibo ionospheric observatory detecting an anomalous ionospheric wave indicating a nuclear explosion

- Syowa Base in Antarctica reporting a flash reinforcing the possibility of an EMP burst.

- Updated findings of Global Science and Security. pointing to a nuclear detonation.

- Intelligence reports hinting that South Africa co-operated on a nuclear weapon test with Israel at this time. [/font]

- No research at the time, or since, has produced any findings to indicate that this was a bolide.

Despite, all those findings indicating a nuclear weapon exploded, you feel that today's technology would have recognised this event as a bolide?

a reply to: humanoidlord

sounds like an pretty small nuke its an wonder it even had any effect...

This might give you an idea.

a reply to: mirageman

I apologize I haven't read all of the thread, it's probably been said or asked.. What are the chances of a en.wikipedia.org..., again it could have been said, just got home from work I'll read through now but this is one of the first things that popped in my head after reading the OP.. Very strange incident really, of course a much smaller country would claim it to be them because, why not? Don't mess with me! Just a question reading through the thread now.

a reply to: mirageman

No nation state has ever claimed responsibility for testing a nuclear weapon at that time and location.

And it's doubtful we'll ever be given a straight answer to this one.

Good post dude

a reply to: mirageman

Oh undoubtedly there's a whole bunch of things that are all contributing to the situation and the ones you listed are a big part of this seeming drop off.

However the population concentration thing is not only not something that gets brought up by most, it is also a massive factor in the ability to deliberately keep stuff from being seen in the first place.

Look at farming and ranching for instance. Modern farming and ranching requires far fewer people than in the past, and this much smaller group of people also tend not to live anywhere near their workplaces instead concentrating in towns etc.

Simply put, while our populations may be much larger the total land mass under direct human observation for at least 12 hours a day has shrunk pretty drastically.

a reply to: mirageman

Also you forgot to mention how the Vela satellites had not had a single instance of reporting a false positive of any type during their operational histories.

So even though bolide type events had occurred many many times well within view of these systems they hadn't at any point triggered the satellites to register a false positive!

This thread is kind of frustrating in that the majority of posters are trying to argue in favor of the least plausible explanation mostly because they couldn't be bothered to read the source material which shows very explicitly why this explanation is ridiculously implausible.

Edit: Also don't forget the hydrophone network having detected what sounded remarkably like what a nuclear detonation would sound like in the same approximate vicinity etc too!

The plain fact is that the only real things in dispute about this incident is who popped a nuke in that area that day, what the purpose of this detonation was, the specifics of device construction delivery method etc, and finally the biggest question of all...

Why did the US government etc choose to whitewash and bury the incident behind an implausible explanation which is thoroughly contradicted by even the very minimal amount of publicly accessible data?

a reply to: mirageman

thanks!
strange that no one ever found the culprit though

a reply to: humanoidlord

They didn't particularly WANT to find the culprit.

a reply to: roguetechie

This thread is kind of frustrating in that the majority of posters are trying to argue in favor of the least plausible explanation....

It's been like a type of Dunning Kruger test hasn't it?

a reply to: mirageman

Is that any different than insisting it's South Africa and Israel when France has had control of islands in that exact area since 1955 and in 1979 were under fire for their nuclear tests? Ones as good a theory as another and it could have been someone entirely different. Truth is nobody knows and veiled insults don't exactly endear others to your theory. Dunning Kruger test Insulting people for brainstorming is well....sad is it not. A bit egocentric?

a reply to: Blaine91555

Well you did make a case that it may have been the French. That can be debated.

That's not really where the frustration lay. I don't think it's hard for anyone who reads the whole thread through from start to finish to see how it unfolded.

Another poster summed it up.

This thread is kind of frustrating in that the majority of posters are trying to argue in favor of the least plausible explanation mostly because they couldn't be bothered to read the source material .....

I'm not going to add anything more because that small moment of higher blood pressure has passed now and so point taken.

As I posted earlier, there are a few explanations which can be tested. One is who owns those nearby Islands. I.E. they needed a staging area. DUH. Two is that this spot on the Globe has a particular ANTIPODE, on the other side of the planet. And someone wanted to sample the EMP, over there. And an ANTIPODAL nuclear EMP attack might be the ultimate Stealth attack. There were rumblings about this concept over twenty to thirty years ago, but nothing recently.
Third, it was rogue agents setting off an A Bomb, with the knowledge that the "Roaring Forties", winds would scatter their fallout patterns, making their test, invisible.

Only the property ownership, staging area, idea, postulates any direct, local, sponsors. The antipode of this smallish test would appear to be in Northern Canada, or the North Slope of Alaska. But I haven't mapped it out. But by definition, it's as far North, as this test was South, of the Equator.

So, get out my two favorite scientific instruments; a Globe and a length of string. Stretch the string over the Globe, and bring it all the way back to the point of origin South of South Africa. The half way point on the string is the Antipode. So take it off the Globe, fold it double, and mark the half way point. Then put it back over the Globe.

originally posted by: moebius

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: deltaalphanovember
a reply to: intrptr

because a nuclear detonation has a specific "signature". This signature is what the 12 Vela satellites were designed to look for. They were "watchdog" satellites.

That watchdog system can and has been fooled by space rocks. I read an article about it in the 80s.

Bright flashes of light, loud booms, high in the atmosphere?

ReCheck your 'specifics'.

Can you provide the source for "has been fooled by space rocks" please?

Afaik nuclear explosions have a very specific signature. There is an initial extremely bright and ultrashort light flash, quickly followed by a weaker secondary light caused by the expanding shockwave.

Here's an article from many years ago - those satellites detect flashes of light than are generated by small meteorites hitting the atmosphere and flaring up into a flash equivalent of 15,000 tonnes of TNT.

www.nytimes.com...

"From 1975 to 1992, the satellites detected 136 explosions high in the atmosphere, an average of eight a year. The blasts are calculated to have intensities roughly equal to 500 to 15,000 tons of high explosive, or the power of small atomic bombs. Experts who have analyzed the data are publishing it in the book, "Hazards Due to Comets and Asteroids," say that the detection rate is probably low and that the actual bombardment rate might be 10 times higher, with 80 or so blasts occurring each year. "

"... the blasts seen by the military satellites are produced when speeding objects up to the size of large houses are heated to incandescence and then explode about 17 to 20 miles above Earth. They create vast fireballs and powerful shock waves that nonetheless leave few or no discernible traces on the ground, since they begin so high up."

originally posted by: galadofwarthethird
a reply to: mirageman

What is strange is how you thought someone said "there may have been a mushroom cloud but they don't know if was a mushroom cloud?" Perhaps you can explain that?

Generally nuclear explosions are followed by big mushroom clouds. Why did they not just time stamp the date and find the place on google maps or other programs or satellites and see if there were any funny cloud patterns? I mean all that tech and humbla to sense things from across the world, yet no pictures?

You know the motto of this site, pictures or it did not happen.

You only get mushroom clouds if they are detonations where the expanding fireball reaches the ground then starts to rise upwards, sucking all the surrounding dust upwards. An airburst explosion only scatters the original material of the original device.

There were nuclear tests on the outer edge of the atmosphere like Starfish Prime. They created all sorts of visible cloud effects:

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: mirageman

You asked me the same question again. Yes, I think it was a Bolide.

No corroboration of an explosion, such as the presence of nuclear byproducts in the air, was ever identified.

The only instrument that detected an anomaly was the light flash photodiodes, which were based on luminosity.

WP:No single natural phenomenon is known to produce this signature, although there was speculation that the Velas could record exceptionally rare natural double events, such as a meteoroid strike triggering a lightning superbolt in the Earth's atmosphere, as may have occurred in the Vela Incident.
...
President Jimmy Carter initially deemed the event to be evidence of a joint Israeli and South African nuclear test, though the now-declassified report of a scientific panel he subsequently appointed while seeking reelection concluded that it was probably not the event of a nuclear explosion.

- There is room for conjecture in both of these statements.

I also do not believe that Israel and South Africa were able to detonate anything in the South Atlantic, and that is just my personal opinion.

SO, I think that with what we now understand about the nature of huge bolide detonations, we would be much more leaning toward that explaination today, especially due to the lack of evidence that there was a nuclear explosion. Hey, just my take. Anyone is welcome to their own opinion.