Project 4.1
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Welcome to Theories of the Third Kind. My name is Aaron and I am one of your hosts. The other hosts joining me today are Daniel Sun and Caleb. Now, before we start today's episode, we want to state that no AI programs were used or harmed in the creation of this episode. The research for this show and all of its work was created solely by humans. If you would like to support the show, then there are a couple ways that you could do that.

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Go follow our Instagram and YouTube channels to stay up to date on all announcements, news, and updates. And that is the end of the announcements. So today's episode is over Project 4.1. And how this episode will go today is that we'll first talk about Operation Crossroads, and then we'll talk about Project 4.1, and then we'll go into strange facts and findings, theories, and of course wrap it all up with our own personal thoughts and theories.

So with that being said, let's get into today's episode. In the shadowy corridors of classified history, there lies a project veiled in secrecy, unfolding on a remote island far from prying eyes. A nuclear disaster which leads to a haunting tale of human experimentation being concealed from the public.

Some call it the forgotten project, a dark scientific inquiry, or even a human guinea pig experiment. Did the pursuit of scientific knowledge outweigh the welfare of those involved, leaving them to suffer the consequences? Or was it an unsettling revelation of the lengths to which secrecy and ambition can lead, with ethical boundaries blurred by the desire for knowledge?

In this exploration of covert experiments, we confront the chilling implications of a nuclear disaster cover-up. This is Project 4.1.

All right, so for us to fully understand today's episode, we have to talk about a few things. We need to discuss what was occurring in 1945, as well as some important top-secret government operations. The reason being is because all of this leads up to the development of this Project 4.1. So with that being said, Dan, can you start it off for us?

So, like Aaron stated, we need to discuss a few things that happened in 1945. Now, I am sure most of you are aware that the only time that nuclear weapons have been used in war was in 1945, specifically on August 6th and August 9th, 1945. That is when the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These bombings killed between 129,000 to 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians.

Japan surrendered six days after the bombing of Nagasaki on August 15. Now, why is this important? The following day, on August 16, 1945, Louis Strauss, the future chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, sent a memo to the Secretary of the United States Navy.

In this memo, Lewis stated that the United States needed to study the effects of nuclear weapons on Navy ships. The Secretary of the United States Navy agreed. However, with very few bombs available, it was suggested that they used a large number of targets, aka ships, and spread them out over a large area, then detonate a nuclear weapon near them to study its effects.

After a series of discussions, Operation Crossroads was created and it was determined that three nuclear bomb tests would be done to study the effects of nuclear weapons on ships, equipment, and material. However, there were a few details that still needed to be worked out. A test site location needed to be figured out. The United States needed an island where they could place their ships around, equipment, and material whenever they dropped the test bombs.

This test site had to be in territory controlled by the United States. If the test site was an island that had people living on it, then the inhabitants would have to be evacuated to another island at least 300 miles away. Also, this island would have to be within 1,000 miles of an air base so that a B-29 bomber could fly to the island and drop the bomb. Also, another thing that the U.S. Navy needed was an island that had a predictable weather pattern.

The predictable winds would avoid having radioactive material blown back onto the task force personnel, and predictable ocean currents would allow material to be kept away from shipping lanes, fishing areas, and inhabited shores. After many internal discussions, the United States named Bikini Atoll as the site for two of their planned 1946 nuclear detonations.

This Bikini Atoll is a coral reef that is located in the Pacific Ocean. If you are wondering where it is located at on the map, just imagine where Australia is at, then go northeast and it's located around there, in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Ocean. And we'll provide an image of the globe where Bikini Atoll is located on it, and you can find that on our website at theoriesofthethirdkind.com.

Alright, so like I was saying, this Bikini Atoll is a coral reef that has a central lagoon. It is around 229.4 square miles and contains 23 total islands inside of it. So this Bikini Atoll is part of the Marshall Island, which is made up of 29 coral atolls and in total 1,156 individual islands.

Now, the reason the United States selected Bikini Atoll is that it offered the most remote location and it had a small population living there that could be moved, which at the time was around only 167 individuals.

Now, before we go any further, it is important to note that these Marshall Islands had come under exclusive United States control on January 15th, 1945, when President Harry S. Truman declared the United States to be the sole trustee of all the Pacific Islands that were captured from Japan during World War II. This trust of these Pacific Islands was made through the United Nations and promised that the United States government would protect the islands against loss of land and resources. So pretty much the government took over.

took control of these islands from Japan and said, hey, United Nations, we're going to take care of them, okay? So with that being said, the government pretty much said, F that. We're going to use it as a testing ground to blow shit up. So on February 6, 1946, a survey ship with the United States government began blasting channels through the Bikini Reef into the lagoon to prepare for the upcoming nuclear tests.

At the time, the 167 residents were still living there and they were asking what was going on, but they were told absolutely nothing. Four days later, on Sunday, February 10th, the United States Military Navy Commodore Ben Wyatt arrived by seaplane to Bikini Atoll. Ben went to the local chieftain of the island and told him,

The children of Israel whom the Lord saved from their enemy and led into the Promised Land. We need this land for the good of mankind and to end all world wars. The chieftain, who is referred to as King Judah, said that the natives of Bikini were very proud to be part of this wonderful undertaking.

By the way, we do want to mention that before this happened, missionaries were sent to Bikini and spread biblical stories. The Navy Commodore Ben Wyatt learned about this and then used these biblical stories that, you know, the Bikini residents heard as a way to manipulate them into giving up their land. So yeah, just figured we'd kind of mention that. Anyway, back to the story.

On March 7th, the 167 islanders were taken, along with their belongings, and moved 128 miles east to the uninhabited Rondrick Atoll, which was a part of the Marshall Islands as well. Alright, so following the move, on June 30th, 1946, the United States conducted their first nuclear test near the island. The second test occurred on July 24th, 1946, and the third occurred on March 1st, 1947.

During these tests, various ships were strategically placed and had animals deliberately confined to them so that the radiation effects could be studied. That is, if the ship didn't sink.

During the three tests, a total of 57 guinea pigs, 109 mice, 146 pigs, 176 goats, and 3,030 white rats were placed on 22 target ships in stations that were normally occupied by people.

And we do have a photograph of one of the goats, actually two of the goats that were on one of the ships. This reminds me of like Jurassic Park. It's exactly what it looks like. Yeah. Where that goat is sitting there in Jurassic Park and the T-Rex comes and eats it. That part. Yeah, I remember that one.

All right, so with all those animals, 35% of them died or were euthanized in the three months following the explosions. 10% of them were killed by the air blast. 15% of them were killed by radiation. And 10% of them were killed by the researchers as a part of a later study. Well, damn. Yeah, that sucks.

During one of the tests, it was discovered that a large ship, even a mile away from the explosion, would receive around 10,000 rem of initial nuclear radiation. So that means if you were located inside of a ship that was within a mile of the explosion and the ship did not sink, it didn't matter. The initial dose of 10,000 rem would mean your entire crew would have been dead within days due to the radiation. Only a ghost ship would remain, floating unattended in the vast waters of the ocean.

And it wouldn't be a fun next few days for you, or next week or two. You'd lose your hair, organs would start shutting down, skin would start peeling off. Horrible way to go. Alright, so now that we have an understanding of the area, along with the tests that were being conducted, let's fast forward to February of 1954.

So during this time, Bikini Atoll was still uninhabited and the United States decided to conduct a joint venture between the Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Defense with the ultimate objective of testing aircraft-deliverable thermonuclear weapons. To sum it up, the United States Department of Defense wanted to test out extremely powerful thermonuclear bombs by dropping them from airplanes onto Bikini Atoll.

and the Atomic Energy Commission wanted to join in on these tests to study the effects. This operation was named Castle Bravo. On March 1, 1954, the United States decided to detonate a thermonuclear weapon that was the first lithium deuteride fuel device ever tested. Seconds after the bomb was detonated over the Bikini Atoll, a mushroom cloud 4.5 miles wide formed. It ultimately reached a height of 130,000 feet.

The explosion left a crater on the ocean floor with a diameter of 6,500 feet and a depth of 250 feet. This bomb was approximately 1,000 times more powerful than the Little Boy atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima.

And we do actually have the original video of this bomb being detonated, and we'll provide it on our website for anyone that wants to take a look at it. It's in black and white, and it's slowed down. But it is absolutely terrifying, and I suggest everyone take a look at it. So originally, this bomb was not supposed to be that intense. The yield of the blast was predicted to be 6 megatons of TNT,

However, it was way more than that. It was 15 megatons, which was 2.5 times the predicted amount, which this led to radioactive contamination in the surrounding areas. Over 7,000 square miles of the surrounding Pacific Ocean was contaminated with radioactive debris during the test.

Do they have no regard for like the wildlife that is there and the wildlife that we eat on a regular basis? The shrimp and crab and fish? Not at all. You want to know what these nuclear Navy subs do to all their radioactive waste? They just dump it out in the ocean when they're just driving along. The solution to pollution is dilution, is their quote.

Oh my God. Yeah. It's super bad. Hold on. Don't those radioactive isotopes have a half-life of like a million years or some shit like that? Billion years. Motherfucker. They're going to be here longer than the Earth is. How the hell can you dilute that then? You can't. In their eyes, they're seeing the ocean as huge, vast. And they're taking an isotope and just dropping it in the ocean.

But if you have multiple, multiple, multiple subs all doing this, it definitely accumulates, you would think. Yeah, it does. It's like playing that game of, uh, was it Minesweeper? Yeah. Eventually somebody's going to get one of those isotopes. Yeah. We're going to get in our sushi. Don't say that. Anyway. After the explosion, the wind spread radioactive particles east, affecting several inhabited atolls. U.S. sailors observing the test and the servicemen station on Rondrick were also exposed to radiation.

Within 15 minutes after the test, radiation levels began climbing on a new island, site of the test control bunker, which was supposed to be upwind from the test and thus immune to fallout. An hour after the blast, the level had reached 40 R an hour, and personnel had to retreat from the control room to the most heavily shielded room of the bunker until they could be rescued 11 hours later.

Also, Navy ships 30 miles south of Bikini found themselves being dusted with fallout, with deck radiation levels rising to 5 R an hour, and were forced to retreat below the decks and the ships retreated further from the atoll. So as the fallout drifted east, U.S. evacuation efforts lagged behind the plume, the radioactive plume. No one was living on the Bikini atoll at this time of the blast.

However, a total of 236 people were living on the atolls of Ronglap and Uterik, 100 and 300 miles east of Bikini. At Rongelik, 28 U.S. personnel were manning a weather station that was evacuated the following day on March 2nd, but not before receiving significant exposures.

Radiation safety personnel computed that the islanders received a whole-body radiation dose of 175 rad on Rongelap, 69 rad on Alienae, and 14 rad on Uteric. Approximately five hours after the detonation, it began to rain radioactive fallout at Rongelap. Within hours, the atoll was covered with a fine, white, powder-like substance. No one knew it was radioactive fallout.

The children played in the snow and they ate it. Jesus Christ. The U.S. evacuated the inhabitants of Ronglap two days after the test. These individuals were relocated to the capital of the Marshall Islands. Wind shear and ocean currents spread fallout from the Castle Bravo explosion all over the world.

Traces of radioactive material were later found in Japan, India, and Australia, as well as in parts of Europe and the United States. After this test, the exclusion zone around the castle tests was increased to 570,000 square miles, a circle 850 miles across. For comparison, this is equal to about 1% of the entire Earth's land area.

Damn. Yeah, it's a lot. We do have a photograph of the accumulated dose of radiation measured hours after the detonation, along with the islands and all that, and then the ground zero where it's at. And we'll provide this on our website for anyone that wants to take a look at it. Now, following this test, the United States kept things hush-hush, not really telling anyone what was going on and how they had just exposed a ton of people to radiation and contaminations.

Within a week of the test, the United States decided to secretly launch a medical study on the effects of radiation on the island inhabitants and provided medical care to the people who had been exposed. This study was led by the National Naval Medical Center and was called "The Study of Human Beings Exposed to Significant Beta and Gamma Radiation Due to the Fallout from High-Yield Weapons" .

This project was classified secret restricted data. This was due to the possibility of negative public reaction. All personnel in this project were specifically instructed to not discuss the purpose of it and its background or findings with anyone except those who have specific need to know.

Also, the team participating in the project did not ask the inhabitants for their consent or even explain to them that a study was being conducted. They were only told that they were being treated for their various illnesses, but rarely was a translator present to explain what tests were being conducted or for what purpose. In the following years, an enormous amount of distributing data was discovered.

For example, between 1954 and 1958, one in three births on the Marshall Islands resulted in fetal death. People from the island of Ronchelap start suffering from cancer and major birth defects at an alarming rate. Also, babies start to be born without bones and with transparent skin and are nicknamed jellyfish babies.

Even with all of this happening, the United States government assures the islanders that they can return to Ronglap and live safely. Many of the residents return, only to flee again in 1985 when the United States announces that radiation levels on the islands are actually unsafe. By that time, communities are plagued with the effects of radiation damage.

including significantly higher rates of miscarriages, birth defects, and cancer. Rates of hepatitis B and liver cancer are approximately 30 times higher in the Marshall Islands than in the U.S. Cervical cancer rates in women of the Marshall Islands are 60 times greater. Rates of breast, lung, oral, and gastrointestinal cancer are 3 to 10 times greater than in the U.S. Due to this, life expectancy on the islands sharply declined to 40 years.

In 1982, four United States servicemen affected by radioactive fallout from Castle Bravo sued the United States government, alleging a, quote, conspiracy to cover up and conceal vital scientific information, end quote. One of the veterans involved, Gene Kerbo, explained how a mixture of patriotism and ignorance had kept him from speaking out before.

Years later, on March 5, 2001, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal ruled against the United States for damages done to the islands and its people. The United States ended up paying the islanders a total of $125 million in compensation for damage caused by the nuclear testing program and displacement from their home island.

And that right there is the history of Operation Crossroads, Castle Bravo, and Project 4.1. And just like every week, as we dug deep into this topic, we came across some odd, strange facts and findings that we are now going to get into. So Caleb, can you start that off for us? Now before we get into that, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

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Alright, welcome back. So our first strange fact and finding is about the Lucky Dragon incident. So when the Castle Bravo test was conducted, there was a fishing boat located 80 miles to the east. This Japanese fishing boat was named Daigo Fukiru Maru, or Fifth Lucky Dragon. And of course, they had no clue that there was going to be a bomb test happening that day. When the bomb went off, the men on the boat remembered seeing a yellow flash of light through their portholes.

They were curious as to what had just happened, so they jumped up from their bunks and ran out onto the deck. They were astonished at what they were seeing in the sky. A giant mushroom cloud that was yellow and orange in color filled the sky. The boat continued to fish and an hour and a half after the test, fallout began to rain down on the fishing boat and his 23 crew members.

The fallout caused many of the crew to grow ill due to radiation sickness. One member died of a secondary infection six months later and another had a child that was stillborn and deformed. The fish located in the boat that were caught earlier in the day were completely irradiated. However, the fishing boat didn't know this and decided to bring them back home. When these irradiated fish entered the Japanese market, it caused a panic and strained United States and Japanese relations.

It was this Lucky Dragon incident that made the Castle Bravo test extremely public. The United States was forced to unveil some of the secrecy that previously surrounded the nuclear testing. In an interview done in 2002, physicist Ralph Lapp stated, and we quote,

The story of the lucky dragon blew the lid off secrecy because the Atomic Energy Commission could not keep it a secret. This story had to be told because radioactivity persisted and could deny territory to normal use. Furthermore, there was the fact that some of the chemicals in the fallout were highly toxic fission products and this could be a health hazard. And that right there is our first strange fact and finding.

And I must ask both of you, if you were fishing in that boat and you witnessed a giant mushroom cloud like that go off, would you continue to fish? I personally would not. Honestly, no. But then they were 80 miles. 80 miles. They're pretty damn close.

So even if they did take off, they'd still probably get the snowfall, wouldn't they? Yeah. So they were pretty much screwed no matter what. But still, I mean, the further you get away, the less fallout you receive. True. I don't know. If I saw something that big in the sky, I'd be booking it the other way, but whatever. Yeah. All right. Speaking of that, let's talk about our next strange fact and finding. Can you tell us about it, Caleb?

So our next strange fact and finding is about nuclear explosions and their effects on human health. So when it comes to these explosions, there are different stages. The first stage is the initial explosion.

So this stage is the first one to nine weeks, and it is when the greatest number of deaths occur, which 90% of them are due to thermal injury and or blast effects from the bomb itself, and 10% are due to super lethal radiation exposure.

So you aren't really dying from the, well, some are dying from the radiation, but majority of them are from the thermal, you know, the heat coming off the bomb. So they're burning up. Yeah, it's like the movie Terminator 2 where Sarah O'Connor's holding onto the fence and it just melts her skin off. I've seen that. Anyway, continuing on to the next stage.

Next you have the intermediate stage which is from 10 to 12 weeks. The deaths in this period are from ionizing radiation in the median lethal range LD50 which LD stands for lethal dose. So LD50 is the amount of a material given all at once which causes the death of 50% one half of the group.

The last stage is called the late period, and it lasts from week 13 to week 20. This is when people start to improve their health. However, from week 20 onward, things begin to go back downhill. This is when numerous complications occur, mostly related to the healing of thermal and mechanical injuries. If the individual was exposed to only a few hundred to thousand millisieverts of radiation, they would be susceptible to infertility, subfertility, and blood disorders.

So that right there is our second strange fact and finding. Now let's get into our next strange fact and finding, which is about the biggest nuclear bomb ever built. So as we looked into this story, we started to wonder what other nuclear bombs were created and detonated that were larger than this Castle Bravo one. Well, this is what we found out. Now, before we get into that, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

Crime Door TV is now a podcast. I'm your host, Sydney Schofield. Join us as we dive deeper into the world of true crime and go one-on-one with legal analysts. There is a presumption of innocence. There really does have to be some factual evidence. Your exclusive interviews with families of victims. When my daughter was kidnapped and we found out the truth, I couldn't imagine that anybody could feel as awful as I felt.

and get an inside perspective from the experts closest to the cases. I really appreciate platforms like this that are there for the victims and to give them a voice. Listen now to the Crime Door TV podcast, your home for true crime analysis. All right, welcome back. The RDS-220 hydrogen bomb, aka the Tsar Bomba, is the most powerful nuclear bomb ever built. It was created by the Soviet Union and tested on October 30th, 1961.

The bomb itself weighs approximately 27 metric tons, aka 59,520 pounds, and is 26 feet long by 7 feet wide and has an explosive yield of 50 megatons. The one we just talked about, Castle Bravo, was what, 15? Yeah, 15. Oh my god, he's a beast. A random fact about this bomb is that it had a special parachute on it that was deployed when it was dropped to help slow the bomb's descent to Earth.

This gave the bomber crew enough time to fly approximately 28 miles away before the hydrogen bomb was detonated.

28 miles ain't shit. Because people were like 300 miles away and still got fat. Especially this one's almost four times bigger. So they're hiring jihadists for this. It's funny you mention that. Because before this bomb was tested, some of the Soviet scientists were sitting around talking with one another. And they were unsure if the plane and its crew would survive the blast.

They ended up doing some calculations and gave the pilots only a 50% chance to survive it. But they didn't tell them that. Oh, man. 50% chance my ass. That's way lower than that. 50% would be giving them hope. I can see that being like 90% chance of fatality. Hell yeah. Even more than that, probably. That's crazy. So when this SAR bomb was tested, it was dropped from an altitude of 34,500 feet and detonated approximately 4,000 meters above ground.

The nuclear blast reached a yield of 58.6 megatons and was so powerful that the shockwaves were felt over 127 miles away by an observation aircraft.

The bomber crew did survive the blast, however, the shockwave caught up with their aircraft 71 miles away and nearly caused it to crash. This SAR bomb could have been seen from over 620 miles away and created a 5-mile-wide fireball along with a 42-mile-high mushroom cloud, which is seven times the height of Mount Everest.

Researchers discovered, to their amazement, that the bomb's shock waves reached distances of 560 miles, shattering windows as far as Norway and Finland. The heat from the explosion was also capable of causing third-degree burns as far away as 62 miles away.

Despite the bomb's tremendous power, Soviet scientists had actually diminished the Tsar Bomba's yield significantly by removing its uranium-238 tamper before delivery.

And we do have an image right here that

That is a comparison of nuclear explosions. And in the bottom left, you can see Little Boy and Fat Man, which were the bombs detonated in Japan, in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. And then you have Castle Bravo at 15 megatons. And then you got the Sarbomba at 50 megatons, which is way bigger. That's scary. I couldn't even imagine seeing that shit. Imagine it was going to be double that, 100 megatons. That's how the world ends.

So let's get into our next strange fact and finding, which is about the United States president. So did you know that the president of the United States can use nuclear weapons at any time? Now, as commander in chief, the president has complete control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. No one in Congress or even in the U.S. military can legally prevent their use once the president's order is given.

So if he wants, he can just start pressing buttons and firing off nukes. No one can stop him. That's terrifying. No, no, no. We're safe. We're safe. Because they call it the nuclear football and they have a code that they use. He'd forget the code. You're exactly right. Anyways, our next strange fact I'm finding is about medical experimentation on Alaska natives.

From 1956 to 1957, the U.S. Air Force's Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory conducted a study on the role of the thyroid gland in humans who were used to living in the cold using iodine-131. The study involved 200 administrations of iodine-131 to 120 test subjects, including Alaska Natives, Eskimos, and Indians.

Upon investigation, it is found that the communities were not properly informed of the risks of the study, nor were they properly informed about the study's purpose. So they were just giving them iodine-131 without even telling them, and it would flood their thyroid. Is that why they pay people to live in Alaska? Because don't they get like a monthly allowance for living there? I have no idea. I've never heard of that before.

Really? Is their internet good? I don't know. I swore I heard that. I could be wrong. We're going to have to fact check that. But before we do, let's get on to our last strange fact and finding, which is about SpongeBob. Now, did either one of you know that the Bikini Atoll nuclear blast is the basis for the show SpongeBob? I mean, I knew it was called Bikini Bottom, but I didn't think it'd have anything to do with this. But I guess that would make sense now.

That's where he lives, and that's why it's a sponge and Patrick Starfish. They are all mutations from the nuclear blast. But do you want to know the secret ingredient to the Krabby Patty? No. It's crabs. All right. With that being said, are y'all ready to get into our theory section? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right. Who wants to start it off and tell us about this first theory we have? So our first theory is called Cold War Politics.

This theory is that Project 4.1 was part of a larger context of Cold War politics. During this period, there was a race for nuclear supremacy between the United States and the Soviet Union. It is believed that Project 4.1 was an attempt by the U.S. government to gain a competitive edge in nuclear research.

I can kind of see this, but I think it falls along the lines of the next couple theories as well. I mean, the United States was pretty competitive going to space and you're going to research all that shit. So I could kind of see that. Yeah. So what's this next theory that we have?

So this next theory we have is called human radiation guidelines. This theory is that these experiments were conducted to establish radiation safety guidelines for future nuclear tests and operations. By studying the effects of radiation exposure on human subjects, the government may have sought to determine safe exposure limits for military personnel and civilians.

I can see that. I can as well. Yep. Because you got to think about all the unethical human experimentations that were done by the United States during this time period. This falls in line right with it. But I also think this next theory has a role in it as well, which is called medical research. So this theory is that the experiments were conducted for medical research purposes.

The goal may have been to study the effects of radiation on the human body, to develop medical treatments, or understand the long-term health implications of radiation exposure. I think it's human radiation guidelines, medical research, and for them to gain a competitive edge in nuclear research against the Soviet Union. So, so far, it's all of the above. Yes, and I think this last one even plays a role as well.

Which this last one is called unethical and it states that if any of the previous three theories are correct, then it is almost certain that this project 4.1 was driven by unethical motives. The government knowingly subjected vulnerable populations to harmful experiments without informed consent or regard for their well-being. The government knew the exact yield and then said, oops, as a way to try and make it look like a mistake, when in reality they purposely did it to study its effects. Okay, first of all, the first question, yes or no?

Do either of you think that they knew the true yield of 15 megatons? They probably had an estimation. They stated that they thought it was 6 megatons, that Castle Bravo was 6. But in reality, it was 15 megatons. Do you think they knew the real yield of the bomb? I think they probably did know the real yield, but ended up giving that lower number to maybe get it approved first.

so the test could be conducted. I'm 100% in agreeance with that. Do you think that they did this on purpose as a way for the Cold War politics theory? I can definitely see the Cold War theory because at that time we were at such a war with communism. So I can see us as a country trying to flex dicks with them and that type of competition. So I can see that. As far as the medical research...

That's like two birds with one stone. If you're going to conduct the experiment, then you may as well reap the benefits, if that's even a good way to put it, of the people that were subjected to your damage. That way, if you were to get in a war with Russia in the future, then you would already have an understanding and basis of the effects caused. Damn.

That's really good. What about you, Dan? I mean, Caleb said it perfectly. That's honestly how it is. Yeah. And it's evident in the cover-up of Project 4.1. Them trying to conceal it. This project of them taking and saying, oh, okay, well, we're going to reap the benefits now, but we're going to keep it secret. This project. But we're going to study these inhabitants of this island that we just took over from Japan, okay? And that's what they did.

Aaron, what are your thoughts in regards to this? So this bomb that they dropped, Castle Bravo, a.k.a. Shrimp is what they also called it,

It was developed in Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. Some of the smartest scientists in the world are there working on this new type of thermonuclear device. And you tell me that they miscalculated the yield of this bomb by 2.5 times. No way. They knew the exact yield. They reported it to the correct military branches who then took the bomb and said...

You said 15 megatons. That means that we're going to have to expand the area of the fallout, which means we're going to have to move these 167 inhabitants to a different island. Let's not do that. Let's just say the yield was six megatons. So we don't have to push back this test because they were in a race and that's what they did. Right. They said, nope.

Six megatons, we'll just deal with the fallout later. It can't be that bad, right? They exploded it and they're like, holy shit, it is bad. It is really bad. Let's just say, oops, you know, like Dan said. So that's what I think. And they tried to cover it up with Project 4.1 and then realized, holy shit, okay, we can't cover it up because there was a Japanese fishing boat that got caught in the crossfire. That's my belief around this entire thing. I agree with you. Corruption. You know what I just thought about?

They knew what would happen after this shrimp exploded. And then the people moving back to the island, 100% guaranteed they knew that the island was still contaminated. That was part of the human testing. They wanted to see how long the land was contaminated and what would happen if people moved into the area, what effects it would have and shit.

They knew what was going to happen. They allowed them to move back to the island even though it was contaminated. And they did this to study the effects of individuals living on an island that had been a part of a nuclear blast. These individuals were the guinea pigs that the government used. If you or a loved one were a part of the Bikini Bottom tests, send us an email. We'd love to hear from you. And I do realize I just said Bikini Bottom. I was going with it.

So do either one of you have anything else you want to add to today's episode? I enjoyed this episode. It was a good one. I enjoyed it. It's scary. It's scary and it shows you the blatant disregard that certain government agencies have for the human life.

I do have a question though. Say there was a bomb coming to Austin and it would hit here. It's currently 545. It would hit here at 9 p.m. So we have three hours to plan. Where would you go? What would you do? Where's the bomb coming from? Russia. So we don't know what the yield is. The question is, do you stay put or do you drive away? Because you start driving away, you got to think everybody's getting the alert at the same time. They're all going to hop in their vehicles and they're all going to start driving.

I mean, let's just assume that it's just like the Tsar Bomba. Instead of them reducing it, they do it to its full capacity. 100, what, megatons, was it? Yeah. I think there's a website you can go to that can show you, I can't do it on mine, but it's a website that shows you nuclear blast radius and you can enter in the bomb, you can select it and drop it wherever you want in the United States and it shows you all the areas that are affected.

Yep, nuclear bomb simulator. Take a hundred megaton or even like the 50 megaton SAR bomba and drop it right in the middle of Austin. Alright, so I'm using this simulator. I'm using the SAR bomba at 100 megatons. It's full capacity. And we're going to... Drop it in Austin? We're going to drop it in Austin. And detonate.

Oh my god, so there's three zones. There's the initial fireball radius, the moderate blast range, and the thermal radiation range. Actually, there's one, two, three, four ranges. There's the fireball radius, the moderate blast damage radius, the thermal radiation radius. Holy shit, that entire yellow area is people that would receive third degree burns.

So we're in the moderate blast damage radius, which at 5 PSI overpressure, most residential buildings collapse, injuries are universal, fatalities are widespread. So we're likely dead. We're likely dead. So Temple is right outside of the entire blast area. How long does it take to get to Temple?

So we can make it there. We can make it. Because it takes about 45 minutes. It's 45 minutes, but here's the thing. If we all get the alert, I-35 is going to be just shut down. Back roads, baby. Yeah, we can do that. I have four-wheel drive. You have four-wheel drive. There's enough flatlands. We just drive across. We don't even need roads. Does it show how many people die in that? So we're going to calculate the amount of casualties for this, and it's taken a while to load this. Dude, it's still calculating. I don't know if it's actually going to give us an answer.

This detonation group took too many servers resources to calculate and the calculation was halted.

Alright, so a lot. A lot of people would die. We hope that never happens. Shit ton of people. With that being said, I hope another nuclear bomb never drops again. Hope we never hear an alert like that. Yeah. In our lifetime. Well, that is the end of today's episode. I hope everyone enjoyed it. And I want to thank you for joining us today. And again, thank you for your support. You are all amazing. Every single one of you. So with that being said, Dan and Caleb, you want to roll us out?

Sure will. It's okay to be out of this world with your thoughts. Because you are not alone.