On Sun, 12 Sep 2004, Thomas Shaddack wrote:
On Sun, 12 Sep 2004, J.A. Terranson wrote:
"No big deal"? Who are they kidding?
A 2-mile wide cloud is WAY too big to be caused by a single explosion, unless REALLY big.
Exactly. And there aren't many things *that* big.
The forest fire claim sounds more plausible in this regard. An existing cloud could be used for masking, though.
Wait a minute: since when does a forest fire create explosions? Or have enough ground force to push up a mushroom cloud?
But a surface or atmospheric blast would produce a flash plowing through the entire EM spectrum; from long-wave radio to microwaves to hard gamma. That's something the satellites Up There can't miss even through a smoke cloud - at least if they are still operational or replaced by newer ones.
Agreed. Except that _I_ do not have access to those sattelites, so I don't know what it is they saw (or didn't see).
(Remember the strong flashes of gamma bursts, originally discovered by satellites observing the nuclear test ban: <http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast19sep97_2.htm>.) Also a disruption of this kind would be perceivable in long range, possibly by quite many people.
And, lo, a *lot* of people noticed it.
An underground blast, if not screwed up, wouldn't produce a cloud at all.
That I didn't know.
However, both surface and underground blast would have a peculiar seismic signature. There is a network of both nonproliferation-surveillance and plain old scientific seismic stations all over the world. Something like that couldn't stay hidden for too long. Remember the day the the Kursk submarine became famous; the recording of the double signature, the explosion and shortly later following implosion, appeared online in couple days (or maybe even hours?) after the Event.
Yes, I do remember that. I also remember everyone denying it at first.
It's difficult to imagine a true nuclear blast would stay unreported for more than few days.
Agreed - we can only wait and see. However, I do *not* expect that the USG would want this out if it *is* a nuclear test - Shrub is facing a PR nightmare if it is, since he is the one who pushed them into the nuclear corner.
Even if it would really be a nuke test and the politicians would want to be quiet about it, there are too many subjects outside of the direct US political control to either report the measurements or the eventual pressure to not report them.
According to CNN, there was also a strong blast reported in the area of a missile base. We don't know how strong the blast was, and if it couldn't be just a "conventional" explosion, caused by eg. a combination of a forest fire and an ammo depot.
That of course brings us full circle: how many fuels can produce a blast which results in a 2+ mile mushroom? That's a *lot* of explosive force.
There is also a possibility the "senior officials with access to intelligence" were injecting media with false information. Remember there are many subjects with different agendas here and a little psyops here and there is quite common.
Let's not jump on the conclusions yet. Wait 2-3 days, optionally watch the traffic in conferences of geologists taking care of the seismic activity worldwide and in the vicinity of the area of interest. It's Saturday and many people who could know the answers are away from their instruments; let's wait what they will find on their screens on Monday morning.
Hey look here Shaddack: you're ruining a perfectly good conspiracy theory here! I'll have none of this well reasoned CRAP in *my* conspiracy theory! :-) I, like many other, will be looking at this as it develops... You may be right, but, really, a *forest fire*???? -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them." Osama Bin Laden - - - "There aught to be limits to freedom!" George Bush - - - Which one scares you more?