"Forest Fire" responsible for a 2.5mi *mushroom cloud*?
Thomas Shaddack
shaddack at ns.arachne.cz
Sat Sep 11 22:50:35 PDT 2004
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.
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