H Bomb dropped over the USA

Holy mackerel. Apparently in 1961 the US very nearly scored an own goal of unimaginably catastrophic proportions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183879

A B52 bomber, carrying two hydrogen bombs, started to break up (it doesn't see why), and the two bombs were dropped over US soil. One did not arm, the other did

Worse than that. Apparently all the failsafes failed except one according to the article, but from the description it sounds to me like they all failed, and the only reason the bomb didn't detonate is because one switch that was meant to fire it, failed.

The article says how it would have changed history had it gone off. Well yes, at 260 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb, it wouldn't have left much in the region, and of course the other thing about nuclear bombs is that the damage carries on long after the blast. Potentially decades after. Sometimes I think mankind has chanced upon more power than we're ready to play with.

 

That would has been a bad dose of friendly fire

 

yeah id say it could of started a nuclear war between Russia and the us

 

The yanks very nearly did that on at least one other occasion that I know of, and it was much more recent than many might think (I can't remember exactly when it was, but it was in my lifetime, so post 1974). Lots of early warning systems are electronically linked, so that if, for example, the yanks spot something we miss (or vice versa), their early warning systems automatically tell ours all about it. One day such a signal arrived at RAF Fylingdales up on the north yorks moors, and our planes were scrambled in response. The Russians detected our planes taking to the air and reached the obvious conclusion and started to mobilise their hardware too, which of course we and the yanks detected. The story goes it was a computer error in one of the US based early warning systems that falsely report the initial Soviet mobilisation. Thankfully the error was identified and everyone stood down before it came to anything. Or so the story goes. A few years ago I researched the incident and was only able to find sparse information about it. Almost as though it wasn't exactly kept quiet (otherwise the likes of I wouldn't have found out), but might not have been too heavily publicised.

 

I think this happened allot didn't it? ive seen a few documentaries about the cold war where this sort of thing happens. false alarms going off and such.

 

Still, you gotta laugh....

 

Yes I think it did.
And if that was happening in the West, I hate to think what was going on in the East.

Its easy look back, in hind sight, and look at what went on during the cold war.
But the East was considered a massive threat, and I do believe it was just that, it was only the fact that the West was matching them, that they did not take over Europe in much the same way Hitler wanted to, and nearly did.

 

Thank goodness this guy wasn't on board!

 

I'm not sure 'favourite' is the right word, but I always find this video clip very moving, and its probably relevant to the discussion.

Warning, contains harrowing scenes throughout.



Edit: I should probably add that the KLF made this video in an ambitious attempt to make the various bosses of the world see sense.

 

This is a bloody good what if film!

 

Didn't know they'd re made the filum, nice one Catz