# Nuke Blast in Australia? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 29, 2001, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672 "2001-06-29T23:52:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2001, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/1 "2001-06-29T23:52:02Z")
Reading this book about Australia, it mentions something about an enormous explosion in the middle of the Australian Outback, _circa_ '94, and some dark hints that it occured on a site occupied by an outpost of those wacky Aum Shinryko. It is further averred that they went there specificly to mine uranium in order to build an A-bomb, end of W. Civ. as we know it, yadda yadda. This didn’t happen right? This **couldn’t** happen, right? ---
**Author:** ![Purd\_Werfect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/2 "2001-06-30T00:44:08Z")
I’ve done some web searches on this, and have been unable to find any further information. I assume the book you’re referring to is Bill Bryson’s excellent “In A Sunburned Country”. There’s a page [here](http://www.randomhouse.com/features/billbryson/excerpt.html) which contains the story. > [@](#): > > Then in 1995 Aum Shinrikyo gained sudden notoriety when it released extravagant quantities of the nerve gas sarin into the Tokyo subway system, killing twelve people. In the investigations that followed, it emerged that Aum’s substantial holdings included a 500,000-acre desert property in Western Australia very near the site of the mystery event. There, authorities found a laboratory of unusual sophistication and focus, and evidence that cult members had been mining uranium. It separately emerged that Aum had recruited into its ranks two nuclear engineers from the former Soviet Union. The group’s avowed aim was the destruction of the world, and it appears that the event in the desert may have been a dry run for blowing up Tokyo. From what I’ve been able to find, it’s still not clear what happened, but apparently the Aum Shinryko does or did own a piece of land in the area of the seismic disturbance. Interesting stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/3 "2001-06-30T01:14:09Z")
I’m as close as you’ll come on SDMB to an expert on Aum, I’ve been studying them for years, read everything available (in both English and Japanese) and I even know a couple of Aum members. And my judgement: Aum did not posess the means to produce a nuclear explosion of any kind. Current thinking is that the incident was a meteorite. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/4 "2001-06-30T01:19:54Z")
A google search for Banjawarn Station gave me these sites, among others: [http://www.cheniere.org/misc/brightskies1.htm](http://www.cheniere.org/misc/brightskies1.htm) [http://www.pip.com.au/~paceman/BRIGHTSKIES1.html](http://www.pip.com.au/~paceman/BRIGHTSKIES1.html) I glanced at these, but did not read them in any deep detail, so I can’t say they’re exactly what you’re looking for. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/5 "2001-06-30T02:25:59Z")
Too wierd, I want to agree. Leads to thoughts like nuclear armed Scientology. Isn’t “Banjawarn” Aborigine for “Area 51”? And how is it that a whopping big meteorite smacks down and isn’t more thorougly reported/researched, etc? I’ve read lots of stuff about meteorite fragments of (presumed) Martian origin. Stuff like this happens so often, nobody is interested? Black helicopters…flouridated water…“Swamp gas”…“meteor strikes”… Coincidence? Perhaps. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Scene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bob\_Scene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Scene)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/6 "2001-06-30T06:33:57Z")
It was not a nuclear explosion. For one thing, turning uranium that you dig out of the ground into an atomic bomb is a government-sized, expensive, challenging, and unhideable project, unlike making nerve gas, which is cheap and easy to do on a small scale. If the cult members really were mining uranium, even moving the equipment needed to purify it into the middle of nowhere without drawing a lot of attention would probably have been beyond their means. For another, the U.S. military has a system in place to monitor the world for evidence of nuclear explosions and they [seem to be pretty confident](http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/ctbt/text/ctbt_report.html) of their ability to detect a nuclear test almost anywhere. A test almost anywhere in the world would be detected either by satellites that would detect an above-ground nuclear explosion by the gamma rays produced (and other means) or by seismographs, which could detect an underground explosion even in a remote place like the Australian Outback. Unless the U.S. military and [seismologists all over the world](http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/220798/detFOR05.htm) are in cahoots with Aum Shinrikyo, we would have heard about a nuclear explosion there. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/7 "2001-06-30T06:48:29Z")
Please do not take these statements to imply that I believe Aum did set off a neuclear blast, but if they did, do you honestly believe any government capable of detecting it would tell us about it? It’s not like we could do anything about it except panic. I don’t think _I_ would tell, and I pretty much dispise government secrecy. ---
**Author:** ![woolly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ebca7d/32.png) [@woolly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woolly)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/8 "2001-06-30T07:21:15Z")
FWIW, a previous and similarly sceptical thread on this topic was … [Did Australia get nuked in 1993?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=55385) ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Scene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bob\_Scene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Scene)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/9 "2001-06-30T09:34:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Alan Smithee \* > \*\*Please do not take these statements to imply that I believe Aum did set off a neuclear blast, but if they did, do you honestly believe any government capable of detecting it would tell us about it? It’s not like we could do anything about it except panic. I don’t think _I_ would tell, and I pretty much dispise government secrecy. \*\* They couldn’t keep it a secret from all of the seismologists in the world. And when, other than in whacky conspiracy theories, have all the scientists and governments ever hidden something as big as that to keep people from panicking? And why do you say we couldn’t do anything about it? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/10 "2001-06-30T17:52:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bob Scene \* > For one thing, turning uranium that you dig out of the ground into an atomic bomb is a government-sized, expensive, challenging, and unhideable project The suggestion was that Aum Shinrikyo was simply buying their originally-Soviet materials on the black market, presumably via the ex-Soviet scientists they had hired. > [@](#): > > For another, the U.S. military has a system in place to monitor the world for evidence of nuclear explosions and they [seem to be pretty confident](http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/ctbt/text/ctbt_report.html) of their ability to detect a nuclear test almost anywhere. Didn’t work all that well in the India-Pakistan tests a couple of years ago, though. That may be due more to complete failure of intelligence that it was about to happen, admittedly, but there was still a lot more reason to look there for nuke tests than in the Australian Outback, of all places. Now, did the Australian government ever send anyone official to Banjawarn with a Geiger counter to see what really did happen there? Did the police look for any Aum cultists or Russian scientists there? I’m very willing to believe it was a meteorite, but it would be nice to have even a little close-up confirmation. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/11 "2001-06-30T18:42:45Z")
If there was an unexplained multi-kiloton event detected anywhere in the world, you can rest assured that the appropriate country would send someone out with a Geiger counter to check it out. Further, if there were any unusual levels of radioactivity there present (as would be inevitable for a nuke), then we would hear about it (especially if it happened in a democratic country allied with the U. S.). Since we haven’t heard any conclusive evidence that it was a nuke, we can safely assume that it wasn’t. If this event really was in the kiloton range or higher, then the most likely explanation was a comet or asteroid impact, which might not necessarily leave behind any material evidence: We still haven’t found any trace of the object which hit Tunguska. If it was a comet, then it would have melted before anyone had a chance to go find it, and even if it was an asteroid, there’s a non-negligible chance that it vaporised completely or fragmented on impact into unnoticeably-small pieces. Even if there is a big chunk of meteoric iron lying around in the middle of the Outback, there’s still no reason to suppose that we would have found it: Recent meteorites are seldom found unless someone saw the thing coming through the atmosphere, and the Australian outback is notable for being both big and relatively featureless. While I have no doubt that Aum Shinryko would love to get their hands on nuclear bombs, it’s not easy. Even if they got all the igniters, etc., from the Russians, the hardest part of building a bomb is still getting the fissionable material. In order to turn natural uranium (what they were allegedly digging out of the ground in Oz) into something that’ll go bang, they’d need an awful lot of equipment which is awfully hard to keep secret, and do you really think that the Australians would let civilians buy a uranium mine in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/12 "2001-06-30T19:30:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chronos \* > If there was an unexplained multi-kiloton event detected anywhere in the world, you can rest assured that the appropriate country would send someone out with a Geiger counter to check it out. Further, if there were any unusual levels of radioactivity there present (as would be inevitable for a nuke), then we would hear about it (especially if it happened in a democratic country allied with the U. S.). Since we haven’t heard any conclusive evidence that it was a nuke, we can safely assume that it wasn’t. You can rest assured if you like, but there just doesn’t seem to be anything on the Web, or referred to in Bryson’s book, or in the Congressional testimony by ISIS in the other thread, that says that happened - not even a simple “Veni, sed non vidi”. Regarding the lack of a comet fragment etc., that almost doesn’t matter - the OP was “Was it a nuke?” If there’s no remaining background radiation, then it wasn’t. But we (here) still don’t know that. > [@](#): > > In order to turn natural uranium (what they were allegedly digging out of the ground in Oz) into something that’ll go bang, they’d need an awful lot of equipment which is awfully hard to keep secret, and do you really think that the Australians would let civilians buy a uranium mine in the first place? That’s one version of the speculation. Another, referred to by Bryson, is that they were getting their U-235 already refined by the Soviets through some black-market channel, along with the other more-ordinary parts they’d have to put together. The Outback was simply a good place to work without pesky neighbors. As you stated earlier, the Outback is large and fairly featureless, and it isn’t at all hard to keep something secret there. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Scene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bob\_Scene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Scene)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/13 "2001-06-30T19:49:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves \* > \*\*The suggestion was that Aum Shinrikyo was simply buying their originally-Soviet materials on the black market, presumably via the ex-Soviet scientists they had hired. > \*\* I was responding to the original post. It says: > [@](#): > > . It is further averred that they went there specificly to mine uranium in order to build an A-bomb… > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves \* > **Didn’t work all that well in the India-Pakistan tests a couple of years ago, though. That may be due more to complete failure of intelligence that it was about to happen, admittedly, but there was still a lot more reason to look there for nuke tests than in the Australian Outback, of all places.** It did work in that case. People all over the world were able to detect the explosions and determine that the governments involved were exaggerating their size. When the event in Australia happened, seismologists were able to determine that it wasn’t even a nuclear explosion. ---
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/14 "2001-06-30T22:20:05Z")
Another article on the subject: [http://www.forteantimes.com/artic/99/rumble.html](http://www.forteantimes.com/artic/99/rumble.html) ---
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/15 "2001-06-30T23:20:03Z")
I was surprised at that Fortean Times article, that’s the least informative thing I ever read in that magazine. If you want the lowdown on Aum’s nuke attempts, the best book on the subject is probably “The Cult at the End of the World.” The book was scrupulously researched, and some info was compiled from the actual russian sources involved in the nuclear deals. It details Aum’s attempts to purchase nuclear material and knowledge. Their attempts were laughable. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2001, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/16 "2001-07-01T02:09:21Z")
Could seismologists actually tell a nuclear blast from a meteorite impact? ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2001, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuke-blast-in-australia/70672/17 "2001-07-01T03:58:31Z")
From [Frontiers](http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/publicat/frontier/9-97/9seismic.htm): > [@](#): > > “If the eyewitness accounts are credible, the seismic signal was most likely created by the impact of an iron meteorite about two meters in diameter,” says IRIS seismologist Gregory van der Vink. Such a meteorite could survive passage through the atmosphere and impact Earth with sufficient energy to create the seismic signal picked up by one of the stations in the Global Seismographic Network. > > But, as there is no previously known digital seismic signal from a meteorite impact, “we have nothing to compare this record to,” adds Christel Hennet, van der Vink’s colleague at IRIS. [Here](http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/f001_art.gif) you can see a comparison of a seismograph record of the subject of the OP compared to one for an earthquake and one from a mining blast. It’s interesting to note that the record in question shows a significant amplitude event at ~3.5 tics on the x-axis time scale, _preceding_ by a little over one full tic the high amplitude event. I don’t think it’s a ground wave as you wouldn’t expect such to arrive first. Here’s another relevant snippet: [Seismic Discrimination - The Art of Indentifying Explosions and Earthquakes](http://www.ees3.lanl.gov/EES3/RD/expseis.html)