[glock rocks]

A bimb?

[68skylark]

Hey, everyone loses things once in awhile. What's the big deal?

[NormsRevenge]

It's like an 11-foot-long bullet with a snub nose and four stubby fins. Written on it is its name: "No. 47782." Enclosed in its metal skin are 400 pounds of conventional explosives and a quantity of bomb-grade uranium.

No. 47782 is a hydrogen bomb, a Mark 15, Mod 0, one of the earliest thermonuclear devices (Castle Nectar / Zombie) developed by the United States.

It has rested off Savannah since 1958.

SciScoop Forum - Link - The Lost H-Bomb Of Tybee Island

http://www.sciscoop.com/story/2004/5/3/72022/88347

[Gondring]

Thunderball...

[lilylangtree]

I seem to recall a recent movie with a similar plot. Only the nuke was found in the middle east desert due to an Israeli plane crash. Thought movie plots followed reality not the other way around.

[zarf]

A 7600 lb hunk of metal can't be found?

Get a metal detector for these guys.

[NY Attitude]

Ah, the playing out of the Sum of All Fears.

[traviskicks]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/13/lost.bomb/index.html

The United States lost 11 nuclear bombs in accidents during the Cold War that were never recovered, according to the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

An estimated 50 nuclear warheads, most of them from the former Soviet Union, still lie on the bottom of the world's oceans, according to the environmental group Greenpeace.

One of the most celebrated accidents took place over Palomares, Spain, in January 1966 when a U.S. B-52 collided with a KC-135 tanker during midair refueling and released all four of its hydrogen bombs in the ensuing explosion. Seven of the 11 crewmen aboard both planes were killed.

The high explosive igniters on two bombs detonated on impact, spreading radioactive material, including plutonium, over a wide area of the Spanish countryside. A third bomb landed relatively intact and was recovered.

The fourth bomb landed in the Mediterranean Sea, and U.S. military searchers took nearly three months to find and recover the device intact.

[jwalburg]

Well, if it could not be found, it follows that there never was one.

[TheForceOfOne]

Just a thought, I have gone fishing before and caught an old boot. I can just imagine some guy saying, hey Charlie give me a hand, I think I really caught something here, help me pull it in! lol

[CaptSkip]

It's Bush's fault...really.

Bush took a trip back to 1958 in our Gov't "Way-Back Machine" and piloted the fighter DIRECTLY into the bomber...Bush Made It Happen On Purpose. Bush was transported back into the present and into an SR-71 Blackbird, just before impact.

UBL already has taken delivery of the reconditioned H-Bomb from the CIA, after a Mossad super-secret salvage op on July 04, 1976 when Pappy Bush was with the CIA. No one noticed the Israeli frogmen in their Tie-Dyed Yarmulkes, cause everybody was watching the Tall Ships in New York Harbor.

[Jeff Gordon]

I think I saw it in an Atlanta Surplus Store. It was kind of beat up.

[noblejones]

Holy crap! I picked that thing up years ago -- I hollowed it out and use it to boil crabs.

[LdSentinal]

I saw this on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

[TXnMA]

Clive Cussler found the H.L. Hunley in similar conditions, and the hunley's magnetometer signature can't be much bigger than this thing's.

Methinks the USAF is depending too heavily on finding radiation, and not on finding the bomb itself.

And they only searched an area the size of four football fields.

Not trying very hard, I'd say...

[Young Werther]

I was stationed at Minot AFB in the early 70s. I met an EWO, (Electronics Warfare Officer), who had survived a friendly fire shoot down. He was in a D model B-52 and was engaged in a Air Defense Command exercise. He was being chased by an F-86 which closed within firing range and selected his AIM-4 missile. He made sure his missile firing switch was on SAFE and pulled the trigger. Later inspection would show that the SAFE switch had crossed wires. When he pulled the trigger the AIM performed perfectly and even with an urgent call from the F-86 the EWO couldn't take action. The inboard engine pod under the right wing exploded and the B-52 broke apart.

this was the early 60s and all B-52 always flew with weapons on board! This would be changed after Palomeres!!

Gino the EWO didn't use his ejection seat since the cabin broke right at his work station. He released his seat belt and stepped out into space and safely floated to the ground. He was one of three out of six onboard who survived. When the recovery crew arrived they had to clean up the mess since four thermonucs had landed in a swampy area of South East Pennsylvania. The B-52 AC nearly cold cocked the first SAC Officer who arrived on the scene and wanted to make sure that the nuclear authenticators that each crew member wore around their necks were properly accounted for. The AC was livid since three men and four nucs were lost. The heck with the codes!

Gino became a close friend and he had one other war story. He was Italian-American and proud of the fact that his Dad had been an Ace for the Italian Air Force during WWII and in the early 70s was a senior pilot for Aeritalia! Yup his dad was mentioned in that short book of Italian war heros!

[DB]

This makes one wonder just how good our nuclear weapons detectors really are at our ports. Considering they can't find this big, old and likely poorly shielded bomb...

[Bear_Slayer]

"The best course of action in this matter is to not continue to search for it and to leave the property in place,"

This wouldn't fly if it were his car keys, or his wallet, why should it fly with a nuke.

I'm sur ethe residents of Tynbee don't agree!

[Bear_Slayer]

IIRC - the Navy lost a nuke in the ocean off Japan - it was never recovered either.

[Lucy Lake]

The Ruskies dug it out of the muck in the early 60s with a recovery submarine.