"Forest Fire" responsible for a 2.5mi *mushroom cloud*?

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 12:01 AM 9/12/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote:
>"No big deal"?  Who are they kidding?

JAT, any large explosion will create a mushroom cloud.  Its the
blast wave reflecting off the ground that lifts the thing, plus the
buoyancy of the hot gasses.

If it *were* a nuke, it would be easy to detect --from Vera
gamma-ray satellites staring at the earth to optical sensors
(there's a characteristic nonlinear time-course of optical emissions)
to fallout monitors, ground and plane based.

Time will tell, and it certainly could have been a nuke (they have
the SNMs), but if you do it, you talk about it, much like
the Indi/Pakis did.  And you can't hide a surface burst, or
even a large belowground test --and an underground test
that vents to the atmosphere doesn't make such a big cloud.

Nukepunk