The Kix Atomic "Bomb" Ring

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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The story was all over Reddit this year, where I found it. In 1947, kids could send 15¢ and a boxtop from Kix cereal to see atoms splitting in an Atomic “Bomb” Ring - powered by deadly radioactive polonium. 3,500,000 were distributed. And it turned out that the Lone Ranger somehow was involved in this mess.

The CIA’s mindforces couldn’t cram a better set of trigger words into a couple of sentences to hook me. I became obsessed with the story and scoured the internet for better info.

As I should have expected, what was on the internet was some truth, some half-truth, some distortions, and some nonsense, with a lot, including an entire second act, left out. I dropped everything else I was working on and dove in.

I surfaced with an article that apparently for the first time ever contains the whole story, everything known and findable about the very real Atomic “Bomb” Ring. (Love those quotes.) Yes, it was powered by polonium. No, it was never dangerous. Does the word spinthariscope mean anything to you? Not to me, until I did the digging. As for The Lone Ranger, well, the radio series had him sent to guard a shipment of mysterious ore from the constellation Andromeda. Like Dave Barry, I swear I am not making this up. The words are never used but it couldn’t be clearer that the ore is the source for an atomic bomb or possibly a fusion bomb. The four-part serial ran at the same time as the newspaper ads in comic strips, but the words Lone Ranger are similarly never used by Kix. Many mysteries remain.

The Atomic “Bomb” Ring is now a pricey collectible, despite the quantities that once circulated. You can buy one, but it won’t work. Not an atom of polonium will (statistically) have survived the half-lives.

Please check out my article, because the story is too wonderful in many senses to be left to Reddit. I think I beat Wix into submission and that everything works. If not, let me know.

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I see it a lot. Usually there is some debunking of the bunk parts in the comments. The hyperbole reminds me of the amout over the atomic energy lab kit.(I “knew” a guy online for years that still had his from childhood with the original box. But didn’t know him well enough to beg him to Will it to me…)

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Some body had one, so I found out about having to be in the dark for maybe 10 minutes. Sounded hokey to me. Besides I had a radium dial alarm clock did the same thing. Oh yeah, I didn’t like Kix.

I did have a spy ring that let you see if you were being followed. It had a tiny mirror but I couldn’t see anything in it. I got a Wheaties altimeter that told you the altitude of Jap planes. It was 5 holes in a curved piece of aluminum. And I had a Jack Armstrong pedometer that actually worked, until I took it apart.

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I’m amazed Kix cereal existed in 1947!

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Seems like Kix was always around and:

Rice Crispies

Corn Flakes

Wheaties

Ralston

Cream of wheat

Shredded Wheat

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General Mills owned Wheaties, Cheerios, and Kix (wheat, oats, and corn) and used them all as sponsors for the Lone Ranger over the 1940s. Kix was launched in 1937.

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Thanks for a very interesting article!

I don’t know if you care, but I noticed a few typos in the article:

  • Any kid leaving through the comics section → should be “leafing”
  • you’ll see the trilling spectacle → should be “thrilling”
  • the good Dr. .Huer → extra period before “Huer”
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This occurred only four years after the discovery of LSD’s psychedelic effects. Just saying.

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Thanks. I proofread it a million times but something always slips through.

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Heh, my dad had some uranium ore (it was several rock-sized, maybe one inch diameter, pieces) he kept in a heavy canvas pouch on his workbench in the garage. One of his army buddies worked for Anaconda Mining, and he gave my dad the samples.

The buddy took a bunch of us kids up to an actual uranium mine in New Mexico when we visited when I was about four. It was on a Navajo reservation (where we stayed for a couple of days) so it really stuck in my memory. Driving up the hill to the mine in an open bed pickup truck, I remember the buddy saying that we had to stay sitting or we’d be “dead ducks.” First time I’d heard that expression, and it really tickled me.

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That’s Doctor Dot-Huer, thank you very much.

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I think “Evidence schmidence.” should have been “Evidence schmevidence.”

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I like that.

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Some miscellaneous and personal numbers. I turned 75 today and this is the 177th article posted on that website.

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Happy birthday, ХАРПО!

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I 100% thought this thread was going to be about this song.