Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 11, 2024 at 00:50 UTC

“Normal people” also generally aren’t hyper-focused on elections happening four months in the future, especially when it’s summertime.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 11, 2024 at 00:39 UTC

A data-driven counterargument:

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 20:13 UTC

Just random "2's" I believe (see pages 5-7 in this Senate report).

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 15:57 UTC

And it doesn’t matter if the alert is at 11pm or 11am, it’s the same process. Why? So the staff can fully assess the situation and enable POTUS to make an informed decision. We also know from past experience with nuclear false alarms that this is how the process works. Case in point (from 1980):

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 15:53 UTC

This is such bullshit, and a perfect example of the politically-driven “gotcha“ agenda of right-wing media. No officials outside of the White House can instantly call the president. Everything goes through the staff, in this case on the National Security Council and the White House Military Office.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 20:56 UTC

For more on the Charters of Freedom vault, see this blog post from the National Archives:

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 20:55 UTC

And here is footage from a 1953 documentary describing the special features of the display case and showing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights being lowered into the massive vault:

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 20:54 UTC

Here is the the Mosler Safe Co.’s custom-built display and bomb-proof vault, installed in 1952 at the National Archives to hold the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Until a renovation in the early 2000s, the precious documents were lowered nightly into the vault.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 16:38 UTC

In 2015, Jean-Luc Kister, one of the two divers working for the French intelligence service who attached two powerful limpet mines to the Rainbow Warrior, apologized in an interview for his role in the bombing, claiming Pereira’s death was unintentional.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 16:37 UTC

In 1987, under international pressure, France paid Greenpeace $8.16 million in damages for the brazen attack and also paid compensation totaling 2.3 million francs to Pereira’s wife, two young children, and parents. France did not cease nuclear testing at Mururoa until January 1996.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 16:36 UTC

However, in violation of the terms of its agreement with New Zealand, France allowed both Mafart and Prieur to return home in December 1987 and May 1988, respectively, where they were both freed and promoted. As a result, in 1990, France paid another $2 million to New Zealand.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 16:36 UTC

In 1986, France apologized to New Zealand for violating its sovereignty and paid it the equivalent of $6.5 million. New Zealand then released Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur—the two agents it arrested—into French custody, to remain detained at a French base on Hao Atoll for 3 years.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 16:35 UTC

After France’s culpability was proven, Defence Minister Charles Hernu resigned and Admiral Pierre Lacoste, Director of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, was fired. In 2005, it was confirmed President François Mitterand had personally approved Opération Satanique.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 16:34 UTC

France denied responsibility for the attack, which killed 35-year-old freelance photographer Fernando Pereira, and most of its agents (at least nine were involved) escaped. But New Zealand police identified and detained two suspects, who were posing as Swiss honeymooners, and unraveled the plot.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 16:29 UTC

Tonight in 1985 in Auckland, New Zealand (July 10, local time), French secret agents—in an elaborate intelligence operation codenamed Satanique—used two limpet mines to sink the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior as it prepared to return to Mururoa Atoll to protest French nuclear testing there.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 16:10 UTC

for essential workers, protect a significant percentage of industrial equipment, and ensure the continuity of the government during and after a nuclear war through a network of hardened, alternate facilities for thousands of government employees. Only the latter was actually implemented.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 16:08 UTC

In the late 1970s, conservatives claimed there was a civil defense "gap," which started the ball rolling again and led to the creation of FEMA. Under Reagan, FEMA proposed Crisis Relocation Planning to evacuate two-thirds (!) of the entire population to the countryside, build blast shelters ...

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 14:49 UTC

Yes, civil defense had a modest revival in the 1980s (particularly during President Reagan's first term), after essentially languishing since the 1960s. But as during the 1960s, many in the public—and not a few government officials—ridiculed the idea that shelters and mass evacuations would work.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 14:45 UTC

The manifesto—signed by 11 prominent scientists (including Albert Einstein, who died several months before it was published)—led to the creation and first meeting of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs in Nova Scotia, Canada, in July 1957 (25 scientists attended).

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 14:43 UTC

Today in 1955, Bertrand Russell issued the Russell-Einstein Manifesto in London, calling upon every government on Earth to prevent a nuclear war by publicly renouncing war, abolishing thermonuclear weapons, and pursuing “peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 09, 2024 at 14:02 UTC

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 21:11 UTC

Wow, "4,000 students that picketed the White House" over fallout shelters? Tell me more!

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:43 UTC

Today in 1996, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion ruling that the threat or use of nuclear weapons “would generally be contrary” to humanitarian law and the laws of war, and that states must pursue nuclear disarmament under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:40 UTC

Within months, at least six more satellites passing through Starfish Prime’s intense radiation belts failed after their electronics and/or solar arrays were seriously damaged, including Telstar, the first commercial relay communication satellite, and Ariel 1, the United Kingdom’s first satellite.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:37 UTC

Some high-energy electrons from the blast became trapped and formed artificial radiation belts around the Earth. Three satellites in low-earth orbit were quickly disabled, including the US Navy's TRAAC and Transit 4B, its first satellite navigation system.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:36 UTC

This was actually the second attempt for this well-publicized, high-altitude nuclear test. The first attempt on June 20 had to be aborted not long after launch.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:35 UTC

Here is a declassified and restored official US government film explaining the purpose of the Starfish Prime test and documenting its preparations, execution, and resulting artificial aurora.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:35 UTC

For about six to seven minutes, starting at 11:00pm local time, Starfish Prime’s artificial aurora turned night skies into day over Hawai’i.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:32 UTC

Tonight in 1962, a US Thor IRBM lofted a 1.45-Megaton W49 warhead 248 miles above Johnston Island for the Starfish Prime nuclear test. The effects were widely visible, including 833 miles to the northeast in Hawai’i, where the EMP tripped circuit breakers and shut off some street lights in Honolulu.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:19 UTC

And finally, see this short 2017 Skeptical Inquirer article concerning the identification of the “strange metal” Brazel recovered on his ranch back in June 1947 and its wholly-terrestrial links to Project MOGUL:

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:17 UTC

See also this 2017 Skeptical Inquirer article:

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:16 UTC

For more on the links between Project MOGUL and Roswell, see these detailed 1995 (media.defense.gov/2010/Dec/01/...) and 1997 Air Force reports (apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA...).

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:10 UTC

For more on Kenneth Arnold, see:

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:09 UTC

There, Arnold described how the unidentified flying objects moved, explaining that they flew “like a saucer if you skip it across the water.” This was misunderstood by editors and headline writers to mean that the objects he observed were saucer-shaped. And that's the birth of the “flying saucer.”

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:08 UTC

At a refueling stop in Yakima (en route to Pendleton, Oregon), Arnold told the staff there, whom he knew well, what he had seen. One of them called someone in Pendleton, and the next day Arnold was interviewed about his experience in the offices of the East Oregonian newspaper.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:08 UTC

By the way, the only reason we say “flying saucers” is due to an epic misquote of the first man who claimed to have seen one—amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold. On June 24, 1947, while flying over Mineral, Washington, Arnold observed multiple bright objects flying in tandem at very high speed.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:07 UTC

The story soon faded away and was largely forgotten. Until 1978, when the tabloid National Enquirer resurrected it, claiming that Marcel had recovered parts from a UFO back in 1947. That, along with additional stories by UFO “researchers” created a new—and equally false—UFO and Roswell mythology.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:03 UTC

Within hours, Gen. Ramey publicly responded that the sensational story was in error and that the mysterious debris was only a weather balloon—including a metallic radar reflector to enable it to be tracked from the ground. This partially-true explanation was also widely covered in the press.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 19:01 UTC

Project MOGUL used “trains” of high-altitude balloons more than 650 feet long, radar reflectors (to aid in ground tracking), and acoustic sensors to detect distant blasts. Numerous tests of the apparatus were conducted in New Mexico in 1946 and 1947. It was one of these—Flight 4—that failed.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 18:57 UTC

In reality, what crashed on Brazel’s ranch came from Project MOGUL, a top-secret, highly-compartmentalized, Army Air Forces program to detect Soviet nuclear test explosions by monitoring for telltale sound changes in the tropopause, the zone between the troposphere and the stratosphere.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 18:56 UTC

Fatefully, Marcel then decided to issue a public statement, leading to the headline above and this remarkable lede: “The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment Group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that the field has come into the possession of a flying saucer.”

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 18:55 UTC

Flummoxed, Blanchard called his superior, Gen. Roger W. Ramey, commander of the 8th Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas. He also ordered Maj. Jesse Marcel, one of his intelligence officers, to investigate. Marcel, Wilcox, and Brazel returned to Brazel’s ranch to collect everything.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 18:54 UTC

Wilcox couldn’t make sense of it either, so he called Col. “Butch” Blanchard, commander of the Roswell Army Airfield’s 509th Composite Group, which happened to be the unit responsible for dropping atomic bombs on Japan and one of ten bombardment groups assigned to the Strategic Air Command in 1946.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 18:54 UTC

The unusual tinfoil-like debris was torn and scattered on the ground and the sagebrush. Twenty days later, on July 4, still unsure of what it was or where it came from, Brazel went back and gathered up everything he could find. On July 7, he drove to Roswell and gave it to Sheriff George Wilcox.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 18:53 UTC

Here's what really happened—On June 14, 1947, as rancher W.W. “Mac” Brazel and his son Vernon were driving through their ranch about 75 miles northwest of Roswell, they spotted something unusual: “a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, and rather tough paper, and sticks.”

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 18:50 UTC

Something did indeed fall to the ground near Roswell, but not on this date. And the mysterious debris did not come from outer space but right here on Earth. In fact, the entire incident is directly linked to the US nuclear weapons program—and specifically to the extreme secrecy surrounding it.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 18:49 UTC

Today (and tomorrow) in 1947, newspapers in Roswell, New Mexico, featured sensational front-page headlines about the “capture” of a flying saucer by officials at Roswell Army Airfield, spawning a widespread, persistent, and completely false belief that an alien spacecraft had crashed there.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 07, 2024 at 17:08 UTC

CORRECTION: Secretary of the Army Elvis J. Stahr. Jr.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 07, 2024 at 16:29 UTC

Taylor grew to regret his work on nuclear weapons and, in the 1970s, became very concerned about the risk of nuclear terrorism. bsky.app/profile/atom...

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 07, 2024 at 16:25 UTC

Unlikely, but I don't know enough about his post-war activities to say. Melanoma is caused by excessive exposure to _solar_ radiation (though that's probably not what you had in mind). And, in any case, although he helped to design nuclear weapon delivery systems, he never worked on the warheads.

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