On July 9, 1962, the United States detonated a 1.4 megaton hydrogen bomb 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean. Hotels in Honolulu threw rooftop parties so tourists could watch. Newspapers promoted it. The countdown broadcast over radio. Families brought their kids expecting a harmless light show 900 miles away. At 11:00 PM Hawaii time, the sky exploded in brilliant colors visible from Hawaii to New Zealand. Then Hawaii’s infrastructure started failing. About 300 streetlights went dark instantly. Phone systems died. Burglar alarms triggered across the city. The electromagnetic pulse was so powerful it exceeded what measuring equipment could record. Scientists had predicted minimal effects. They were catastrophically wrong about everything.

The explosion created an artificial radiation belt around Earth that lasted over 10 years and killed at least eight satellites, including Telstar 1, the first communications satellite. This episode examines declassified documents from Operation Fishbowl, the military program that conducted five high altitude nuclear tests in 1962. We trace the failed June launch that contaminated Johnston Atoll with plutonium, the successful July test that broke orbital space, and the 1963 treaty that finally stopped the madness. The most disturbing part is not the weapon or the miscalculation. It is the casual normalization. The rainbow bomb parties. The tourists complaining about slow drink service while a thermonuclear aurora lit up the sky. We threw parties to watch a hydrogen bomb test and treated nuclear weapons like entertainment.

Let’s listen in as Nathaniel Sheppard narrates this tale on my behalf, shall we?

-Daniel P. Douglas

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