On the 8th Day - Nuclear Winter Documentary (1984)

I am sure there are many members that will remember this documentary but I thought I would post it here for members that may be too young to have had the opportunity to see what the consequences would be for an all out nuclear war. If I could I would also make this video mandatory viewing every few years for the representatives we send to Washington DC.

One of the scientists involved in the creation of this documentary was Carl Sagan.

While watching this, I also considered the similarities between a nuclear winter that would proceed an all out exchange and the hype we have been subjected to these past 10 years about global warming. The difference is we are supposedly releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and a nuclear exchange would put enough smoke into the upper atmosphere that it would block the sunlight from reaching the earth causing the entire globe to cool down dramatically. Could there possibly be the same effect with the gasses rather than smoke or would it be the inversely opposite effect?

Regardless, it's definitely an eye opener to the consequences of an all out exchange and will make most of the prepers here realize the folly of thinking they could sufficiently prepare to survive such a scenario.

It's a 60 minute video but it is captivating so give yourself time to watch it and have your refreshments ready. Our stupid politicians may very well make this happen one day.

a reply to: CharlesT

Could there possibly be the same effect with the gasses rather than smoke or would it be the inversely opposite effect?

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert, but ...

Gases are expected to hold in heat while smoke was expected to block sunlight from reaching the surface. Thus the difference in expected effects.

Cheers

a reply to: CharlesT

There are many references to these events in the bible, examples:

"But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Joel 2,10 Before them the earth quakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon grow dark and the stars lose their brightness. Joel 2,10;

Joel 3,15 The sun and moon grow dark and the stars lose their brightness. Joel 3,15;

For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash forth their light; The sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shed its light.

Acts 2,19 ‘And I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. 2,20 ‘The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the LORD shall come. 2,21 ‘And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.’ (Joel 3,1–5)«. Acts 2,19–21;

The second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood, 8,9 and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life, died; and a third of the ships were destroyed.

I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; 6,13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. 6,14 The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

There was a glut of nuclear movies around the same time. The Day After apparently affected raygun deeply, Testament launched Kevin Costner's career and the bbcs Threads was the last good drama they did.
Of course Chernobyl happened and the UK and Europe had to deal with some very real radiation, it kinda signaled the end of the USSR though and the arms race which was good, sheep in Wales were less impressed.

a reply to: CharlesT

Maybe it is folly for preppers to think that they could survive an all out exchange.
But what if there was a limited exchange?
Or a repeat of the Carrington Event?
Or a tsunami on the East or West Coast?
Or a devastating earthquake?
Then the preppers can train their guns on the folly screamers and tell them to move on and starve.

a reply to: infolurker
Yes, I am aware of the biblical references that can be interpreted to include this possibility but I didn't want to bring religion into the discussion. But I'm glad you did. This could very well be what is prophesied.

a reply to: butcherguy
The documentary is about an all out exchange. As is stated toward the end of the video, there will be no limited exchange. Any exchange of nuclear forces will escalate into an all out nuclear war.

a reply to: CharlesT

While watching this, I also considered the similarities between a nuclear winter that would proceed an all out exchange and the hype we have been subjected to these past 10 years about global warming. The difference is we are supposedly releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and a nuclear exchange would put enough smoke into the upper atmosphere that it would block the sunlight from reaching the earth causing the entire globe to cool down dramatically. Could there possibly be the same effect with the gasses rather than smoke or would it be the inversely opposite effect?

This was exactly the scenario pushed back in the day -- '70s and 80s. I remember. Along with the Russia boogeyman and nuclear annihilation of course.

And, in fact, back in the early otts when our then-teenage kids asked us why we don't believe in global warming, both their dad I said in perfect unison, "we're still waiting for global winter!!!" We found it much more amusing than they did... funny that, eh?

originally posted by: CharlesT
a reply to: butcherguy
The documentary is about an all out exchange. As is stated toward the end of the video, there will be no limited exchange. Any exchange of nuclear forces will escalate into an all out nuclear war.

Was the documentary about preppers?
Because if we are going to point out the folly of prepping, they are now in the discussion. I simply wanted to point out that preparation for natural and man-made disasters is not folly.
As far as the impossibility of a limited nuclear exchange, it sounds like the thinking of the makers of the documentary may have been limited. I believe that a limited nuclear exchange is possible. Take Pakistan and India, for instance. They are both nuclear capable countries that could exhaust their nuclear weapons inventory in an exchange and not cause an all out global nuclear war. In that case, people that were prepared would definitely have an advantage over others.

a reply to: butcherguy
I guess I didn't make that statement as clear as I should have. I didn't mean to imply that prepping for any possible scenario is futile. Hell, I have even made preparations for the possibility of situations that could arise other than all out nuclear war. Prepping for natural disasters or even an EMP strike could save someone and/or their family but my comment was intended to address this particular situation. All out nuclear war. And no, I don't think a limited confrontation between nuclear superpowers is possible. It will certainly evolve into an all out exchange.


After all, I did place this it the WW3 forum.

a reply to: contextual

"Threads" was based upon the 1996 BBC film entitled "the war game,"which was banned from TV in the UK,likely because the government thought it would cause panic.
Although there are some differences,Threads is basically a shot for shot replica of the earlier film.

Despite having been produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the film was banned from television broadcast. The official reason was for violence and depiction of human suffering, but others hinted that it may have been because it went against the official government line concerning survivability of nuclear attack. While the ban forbade television broadcast, it did not forbid cinematic distribution. Because of this loophole, the film was given wide release in theatres, and won four major film awards.

www.imdb.com...

The war game is as far as I know,the earliest film depicting a nuclear war and its aftermath.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse
A nuclear confrontation between superpowers is not winnable...

a reply to: CharlesT
I agree its not winnable.
No harm in being prepared,although some of the larger nukes these days can blind you from 25miles away if you are in line of sight of the flash..scary indeed.

The scenarios that worry me more than say a nuclear exchange kicking off between USA/China/Russia,is a nuclear terror attack which results in all out nuclear war by the superpowers.
My thinking is that becuase the superpowers are obsessed with greed power and control,they are therefore unlikely to throw all that away by having a nuclear war.

However-there are fanatics out there who would love for this to happen,and all they would have to do is detonate a nuke in a superpower nation,and make it appear as though it was an attack by another superpower.

The other scenario would be a simple malfunction by a major powers computers which think an attack is incoming and launch all the missiles..I think this nearly happened once with the Soviets "dead hand"system-it misunderstood a wierd cloud formation as incoming missiles or something like that IIRC.

Crazy world..

a reply to: Silcone Synapse
I think Russian surveillance picked up some solar anomalies or flashes of bright light on the west coast and interpreted it as a ballistic launch. They almost let fly their missiles except for one officer that suspected this as being a false alarm and prevented Russia from launching retaliatory strikes. We came close to Armageddon that day.

a reply to: CharlesT

And no, I don't think a limited confrontation between nuclear superpowers is possible. It will certainly evolve into an all out exchange.

Yes, an exchange between nuclear superpowers would be hard to contain to 'limited'. But the scenario that I proposed would involve two nuclear powers. I admit that it could escalate to more countries becoming involved, but I should hope that other countries, especially superpowers would not condemn the world to hell just because two third world countries decided to have a nuclear war that the rest of the world could survive.

a reply to: butcherguy

I watched the video. The scientists argue that even a small localized exchange would have dramatic effects on the climate world wide. Even if one country fired and the other didn't.

Then why didn't see see more disrupted weather from wwII and all the testing done over the years. Are we seeing it and blaming global warming?

a reply to: butcherguy

even 2 nuclear powers would end up all out.

the SUPERpowers have treaties with most "powers'

so if India and pakistan go at it well it's anyones game after the first week.

if Israel and Iran, a few hours at best.

NK and Japan 30 minutes, tops.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We live in an unstable world. Just because no one's used the bomb since Japan doesn't mean it couldn't happen again. The threat is real and if two nations decide to go nuclear mankind is in for one hell of a ride. I sure wouldn't want to see the aftermath. Radiation poisoning is one of the worst ways imaginable to die.

a reply to: CharlesT

9 Nov 1979:

A computer error at NORAD headquarters led to alarm and full preparation for a nonexistent large-scale Soviet attack. NORAD notified national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski that the Soviet Union had launched 250 ballistic missiles with a trajectory for the United States, stating that a decision to retaliate would need to be made by the president within 3 to 7 minutes. NORAD computers then placed the number of incoming missiles at 2,200. Strategic Air Command was notified, and nuclear bombers prepared for takeoff. Within six to seven minutes of the initial response, satellite and radar systems were able to confirm that the attack was a false alarm.

It was found that a training scenario was inadvertently loaded into an operational computer. Commenting on the incident, U.S. State Department adviser Marshall Shulman stated that "false alerts of this kind are not a rare occurrence. There is a complacency about handling them that disturbs me." In the months following the incident there were three more false alarms at NORAD, two of them caused by faulty computer chips.

WarGames was released June 3, 1983.

Sept 26, 1983 – Soviet Air Force officer Stanislav Petrov identifies a report of an incoming nuclear missile as a computer error and not an American first strike.

Development on WarGames began in 1979, when writers Walter F. Parkes and Lawrence Lasker developed an idea for a script called The Genius, about "a dying scientist and the only person in the world who understands him – a rebellious kid who's too smart for his own good."

The Genius began its transformation into WarGames when Parkes and Lasker met Peter Schwartz from the Stanford Research Institute. "There was a new subculture of extremely bright kids developing into what would become known as hackers," said Schwartz. Schwartz made the connection between youth, computers, gaming, and the military. Parkes and Lasker also met with computer-security expert Willis Ware of RAND Corporation, who assured them that even a secure military computer might have remote access so users could work from home on weekends, encouraging the screenwriters to continue with the project.

One version of the script had an early version of WOPR named "Uncle Ollie", or OLI (Omnipresent Laser Interceptor), a space-based defensive laser run by an intelligent program, but this idea was discarded because it was too speculative.

36+ years later and amazingly we're still here.

General Beringer was based on General James V. Hartinger (USAF) the then-commander-in-chief of NORAD, who Parkes and Lasker met while visiting the base, and who, like Beringer, favored keeping humans in the decision loop.

The scenes showing Lightman's computer dialing every number in Sunnyvale led to the term "war dialing" (earlier known as "demon dialing"), a technique of using a modem to scan a list of telephone numbers to search for unknown computers, and indirectly to the newer term "wardriving".

en.wikipedia.org...

"The Day After" was released 20 Nov, 1983 first on ABC TV then later in theaters. The bulk of the activity centers around the town of Lawrence, Kansas.

Fact: the city Motto: "From Ashes to Immortality".
The largest private employer in Lawrence is General Dynamics.
Lawrence is the default starting point for Google Earth.

The 1980s began with the failure of a 46-cent computer chip causing the NORAD headquarters to mistakenly believe that they were under attack by Soviet missiles. Some 100 U.S. B-52s were readied for take-off before the mistake was discovered. On July 25, 1980, President Carter signed Presidential Directive 59, which called for flexible, controlled retaliation against political and military targets in the event of a "prolonged" nuclear war. When Carter left office the following January, he said in his Farewell Address that "in an all-out nuclear war, more destructive power than in all of World War II would be unleashed every second during the long afternoon it would take for all of the missiles and bombs to fall."

March 23, 1983: Reagan announced plans to proceed with a space-based missile defense which became known as "Star Wars."

Aug 11, 1984: "We begin bombing in five minutes": which went out over the air when President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, jokes while preparing to make his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio.

In September 1987 the U.S. and Soviet Union agreed to establish Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers in both countries to reduce the risks of accidental nuclear war.
In December the two nations signed the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Nuclear Files

That Treaty was recently nullified by Trump. Not like either side obeyed that Treaty but now it's public knowledge both sides can now resume the Nuclear arms race again.

The Doomsday clock is currently 2 minutes to Midnight. The last time it was at 2 minutes was back in 1953 when the first Thermonuclear bomb was tested.

I believe the first film depicting a nuclear war was "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964). Which ironically was the same year a nuclear annihilation blast video ("Daisy Girl") was used in a Presidential Democratic campaign ad against Barry 'Nuke' Goldwater.

I remember as a little kid doing dunk & cover drills in school. I lived 1 mile from a major SAC AFB that had a fleet of B-52's armed with nukes. My Dad always told me don't worry about it, you'll have just enough time to kiss your ass goodbye before the first ICBM hits.

a reply to: EndtheMadnessNowI remember seeing the movie the day after back when it came out. I actually bought it on blu ray a few months back.

I'm a mile away from ground zero if there were an attack. Back in the 80's there was a leak of targets and one of them listed was a mile from my house.

My local school system was built in the 50's and it was built in mind in case of an attack. All of the schools in the area area connected by tunnels. There are tunnels that span miles. My grandmother use to play in them when they were being built. All of the schools have fallout shelters under them connected via tunnels. Each school only has one entrance to the fallout shelters. Not many people know about the fallout shelters. I only knew because the principal had me carry down some boxes once. The school at the end of my street has been closed down and I know where the entrance is to the fallout shelter. With a crowbar I could be under ground in minutes. But would I really want to see the aftermath?

From what I understand if there were an attack by Russia it takes 45 minutes for a ICBM to get here from Russia. If it's a missile were launched from a sub it would take 15 minutes. In the event of an attack I often wonder if the government would even try to warn us. If the government didn't warn us I'm sure it would hit social media pretty fast that we're launching missiles from silo's.

We see a lot in the news about Russia breaking our air defense zones and stuff but we don't hear about the other stuff going on like with submarines. I'm sure there's a lot more cat and mouse going on then we're being told.

Russia has no chance in a conventional war with the USA. But what worries me most is they have a nuclear first strike doctrine. Whether they'd use it or not would and under what circumstances is anybody's guess.

We've been at war in the middle east for the past 20 something years. Suddenly Russia decides they need to establish themselves and get involved with Syria.

The world is a very unstable place. Russia in Syria between us in Iraq and Israel. Pakistan and India the US and Taiwan US and China in the south China sea North Korea. There are so many flash points we could wake up tomorrow and find the world is a very different place.

My own personal opinion is it's inevitable someone's going to push the button sooner then later.