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. The forest fire claim sounds more plausible in this regard. An existing cloud could be used for masking, though. 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. (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. An underground blast, if not screwed up, wouldn't produce a cloud at all. 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. It's difficult to imagine a true nuclear blast would stay unreported for more than few days. 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. 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.