N. Korea: A Seismic Event Detected Yesterday Afternoon(2.3 in Richter Scale)

KBS ^ | 08/26/06 | Lee Ki-moon

[FreedomCalls]

TNT. Calibration test?

[Spktyr]

Yes, and yes, but it's almost 4am, so I'll find them in the morning.

There has been discussion of this on FR before, and others have cited sources as well.

[Centurion2000]

Nukes also have a distinct and easily identifiable P and S Wave pattern. It's how we know that China and the USSR popped at least one nuke off in their border wars back in the 70s.

At least ONE? Got any information or a link with ome more information? I'd love to see the seismograph if we had it somewhere.

[Centurion2000]

The general consensus seems to be that about 5 atomic or nuclear weapons have been used in anger, including ours on Japan.

What .. 2 in Japan and 3 on the Soviet-Sino border wars ?

Wasn't there also an unexplained nuclear detonation underwater in the Indian Ocean right about the time that Taiwan, SouthAfrica and Israel were rumored to be collaborating on a nuke?

[Spktyr]

Yeah, its been discussed on FR before. At the time, I quoted sources, but it's about 4am and I can't find them now.

[Spktyr]

Yup. There may have been more, but nobody's talking.

And yes, there was an unexplained subsurface nuclear detonation in the middle of the Indian Ocean on 22 Sep 1979. The South Africans finally claimed it as theirs in 97, then backpedalled. Officially, it's still unclaimed.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/nuke-test.htm

[SoldierDad]

This has been a test of the Iranian/Korean nuclear missile alert system. Had this been an actual alert of a Iranian/Korean missle attack, place your head between your knees and kiss your @ss goodbye (dependant upon where in American you currently reside).


Alert to Iran/Korea - prepare to glow in the dark!

[Straight Vermonter]

Could they be calibrating their equipment by doing underground explosions?

[Straight Vermonter]

You beat me by a half hour.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

So I'm guessing these were "Small" nukes designed to target troops? Or are there towns and villages in that area that have mysteriously disappeared from the maps?

[Riley]

Judging by the size, per experts, the devices were of the tactical nuke class. (There's a couple of books on the subject; titles completely escape me at the moment.) The background radiation count also went up, but other than that, there was no proof that anyone had done anything - no point in announcing it.

If the titles or a link to the thread come to mind at some point- would you mind dropping me a ping? I have heard rumors of this- and my Googling on the subject has been less than spectacularly successful. :-)

[FreedomCalls]

Could they be calibrating their equipment by doing underground explosions?

That's just what they did at Trinity in 1945.

Before Trinity: The 100 Ton Test

May 7, 1945:
To help in preparing the instrumentation for the Trinity shot the "100 Ton Test" was fired on 7 May 1945. This test detonated 108 tons of TNT stacked on a wooden platform 800 yards from Trinity ground zero. The pile of high explosive was threaded with tubes containing 1000 curies of reactor fission products. This is the largest instrumented explosion conducted up to this date. The test allowed the calibration of instruments to measure the blast wave, and gave some indication of how fission products might be distributed by the explosion.

Men stacking crates of TNT for the trial run explosion test.

[Spktyr]

Both, actually, though not, perhaps related.

First, towns and villages out in the middle of nowhere Siberia used to disappear on a regular basis under the Soviet regime, for various reasons, ranging from plague to famine to KGB relocation/liqudation to getting overrun and destroyed by the Chinese. Sometimes the KGB didn't look into the matter too closely (if they weren't responsible). There's still a whole lot of questions of just what the heck happened out there from Stalin on; and I really doubt that anyone will find a statistically significant percentage of the answers.

Next, yes - that's what a tactical nuke is, and these detonations seemed to appear in that class on the seismograph. There is another possible explanation, though.

Starting 1969, the Soviets were known to have deployed a good portion of their nuclear forces to the Sino-Soviet border zone, sometimes right up to the border itself. It's entirely possible that in at least one of the events, a Soviet missile position was about to be overrun by Chinese troops and faced with a "use it or lose it" scenario, the commander used the "salvage-fuse" option and set one off.

However, that's speculation as, well, nobody's talking about just *what* happened on that border.

[Dosa26]

Fascinating. If you have a book title or other source on the sino-rus border skirmishes (especially involving nukes) please recommend. Thanks.

[Heatseeker]

It's an interesting topic. As I recall, the nuke story was generally attributed to fears seeded into New China News Agency (now known as Xinhua News Agency) articles that the USSR might use nuclear weapons.

A declassified "Intelligence Note" from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, of June 3rd 1969, briefly touches on this.

However I've never seen any evidence such weapons were actually used.

[WoofDog123]

would small nukes leave visible terrain features visible today? thinking if a person knew what to look for, google earth might provide a reference.

[MadJack]

I remember hearing something about the Sovs using Fuel-Air Explosives during the border fighting. A possible explanation for the nuke stories?

[Pine Mtn. Maverick]

Pingaling!

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #28

The location is far away from Kilju where the suspected test site is. If they do the calibration test, would it make more sense to do it at the Kilju site?

[TYVets]

ping