A Bomb

This Kodachrome slide was among thousands that came from the estate of a man who was a Colonel in the Army. The back reads, Nevada, A Bomb Cloud, 1952. It was in a Kodak Carousel and oddly positioned between normal family shots. Although the slide is mounted on a Kodachrome mount and not a mass produced one, this could still be some sort of souvenir. I have no idea of its origin, but I found it to be an eerie image. 

Comments

[Tracey@Paper Dolls for Boys]

You found this??? That's Smithsonian material!

Eerie and sad, I would say myself. That's a lot of folks just standing there and watching. I wonder if the fallout from that bomb was safe...of course it wasn't, I wonder if all those people in the background are all military? Thanks for sharin' once again.

Peace

[suegee]

I bet the colonel was right out there watching the cloud and taking the picture. Strange as it may seem today, back then the government allowed people - soldiers, secretaries, newsman, other government employees to watch the atomic bomb tests. They even were kind enough to bus them to the site! Scary, Huh?

[cavalaxis]

I could be wrong but this looks an awful lot like Tumbler Charlie (http://www.radiochemistry.org/history/nuke_tests/tumbler_snapper/index.html). The first nuclear test to be broadcast on live television.

[Nolan]

I recently found a similar slide from around the same time period (1953). It was also in a Kodachrome mount. I'll have to get a scan of it.

I did some research on it and found that in the 1950s Nuclear Bomb tests became a tourist attraction in Las Vegas. For almost a decade they would explode a bomb every 3 weeks for 12 years. People would go on picnics and stay at hotels with good views of the bombs. Mine was mixed in with family slides of Las Vegas, so I assume they visited one of the bomb tests while on vacation. Still very mysterious though.

What surprises me about both of our images is the beauty of the atomic cloud. I've read eyewitness accounts to the Hiroshima bombing that have described the beautiful rainbow colors of the atom bomb bursting. Amazing that such beauty could come out of such tragedy.

Here is a link to a site with more info:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lasvegas/peopleevents/e_atomictourism.html