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CLASSIC: The Atomic Whoops: When the US Air Force Bombed South Carolina · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Happy new Year.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: By the way, we are taking a little bit of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: time off here and we wanted to give you some
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: of our favorite classic episodes. We called this one the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Atomic Whoops, which is still a hilarious title.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: And it's hilarious. We've been in the spirit of reflection
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: in this new year. Can you believe we've been doing
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: this show for like, what more than five years?
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: At this point, I think we're coming up on six years.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: I mean no, this was gonna be surprising to you
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: because I think in April it'll be three years of
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: me on the show. I don't believe it. It makes
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: no sense.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: But you haven't only get rid.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Of me yet.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: I we would never You're the soul of the show.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: The time lies by. And also it's what's great about this,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: what I think we're all thankful for, is that if
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: you had if you had told us at the very
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: beginning of this show the way our bosses did, that
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: we'd only be doing this for six weeks, we would
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: have said, that's a lot of time. But here we are,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: my friends, Max Doll, all our fellow Ridiculous Historians, we
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: are having such a time we have so many adventures
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: ahead and we are seeing so much ridiculous history. This
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: story is about the time South Carolina was bombed not
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: by enemy forces but by Uncle Sam.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah speaking, I think that don't make sense.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: The greg family of mars Bluff, South Carolina, was very
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: much a where the Cold War was happening. They, however,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: did not realize that they were going to be kind
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: of at the center of it. The ground zero, if
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: you will, the X marks the spot and the cartoons
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: where the bombs doth.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Fall by accident. But boy, it was it a doozy
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: and a real whoopsie for the US Air Force. Come
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: dive in with us.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Let's find out why we call it This episode the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Atomic Whoops. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio Boom
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: or Not to Boom. Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: My name is Ben.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: Ben. You startled me.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, nol. It was not my intention to startle you.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: You startled me so much that I forgot to announce
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: my name. But you did it for me, so thank
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: you for that. You know how you did that though
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: you dropped a bomb on me.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Ben, you dropped the bomb on me, all right, just
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: go beat be And of course we would be remiss
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: if we did not shout out our super producer, good
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: friend Casey Pegram who is who is sipping the coffee
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and gave us a cheerful a cheerful nod and toast
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: a good day, A good day. Yeah. And we're at
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the very end of the year as we record this.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Right yeah, yeah, I mean the magic of podcast post
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: production will be giving you this episode later, but it
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: is in fact very close to the end of the
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: year as we sit and record this right now.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And here in the podcast world, as we
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: approach the end of the year, in vacation times and stuff,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: things can get a little hectic. So both of us
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: are a little bit punchy and filled with some nervous
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: energy as we're finishing everything up this week, right.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Totally, And we can relate to this idea of multitasking
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: and having to really scramble to get things done. And
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: such was the case during the Cold War when America
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: was gripped by paranoia surrounding a potential nuclear war with Russia,
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: and part of that involved the clandestine transportation of atomic
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: bombs over American soil. And again with that theme of
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: multi ti asking and scrambling. Sometimes, you know, I mistakes
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: are made.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Oh gosh, what an infamous understatement. Yes, sometimes
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: mistakes were made. Multitasking is tricky. And when you feel
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: like you are juggling something while you're driving something, while
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: you're also doing a very difficult math in your head,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: maybe you begin to feel a little bit like something
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: approaching a pilot.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: And imagine if one of those things you're juggling was
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: a seventy six hundred pound or three point four metric
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: ton nuclear warhead.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Once upon a time, friends and neighbors. In January of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three, the greg family moved into a home
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: in a rural part of eastern South Carolina, and it
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: was on land that their family had owned for a century.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Would you describe it as idyllic?
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, boucolic. Even they had no idea that five
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: years later they I would earn a very strange, distinctive,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and dangerous honor by becoming the first and only American
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: family to survive the first and only atomic bomb dropped
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: on American soil by Americans.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Our pal Laurie L. Dove wrote this great article for
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: how stuff works. She did not bury the leave. The
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: title of the article is the US Air Force dropped
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: an atomic bomb on South Carolina in nineteen fifty eight,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: and that, friends, is the subject of today's story.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And we want to be clear it is an accidental bombing.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: It wasn't as if the Air Force said, you know
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: who's really bugging us? The Greg family.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: So on March eleventh of nineteen fifty eight, two of
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: the children of Walter Greg Helen, aged six, and Francis,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: age nine, were playing with their nine year old cousin,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Ella Davies. They were just paling around. They had a
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: nice little playhouse in the backyard near a garden patch,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: and there Walter, along with their brother, Walter Junior. We're
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: working on some projects in a nearby tool shed.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, a lovely day. Yeah, what could go wrong? You
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: can almost hear the light music in the background right
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: but elsewhere high in the air. At four nineteen pm,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: a member of the crew of the US Air Force
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: B forty seven E bomber futs things up. A little
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: mistakes were made, and the crew member accidentally released a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapon that landed on the girl's playhouse while they
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: were about two hundred feet away and the family's nearby garden,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: creating a massive crater that was at a circumference of
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: about fifty feet oh and was more than thirty feet
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: deep out of nowhere. Just but you know, a more
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: dramatic sound, Yeah, significantly more dramatic. This created like a
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: shock wave that's cracked windows, was and shook homes in
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the nearby community of Mars Bluff, And it flattened this
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: playhouse just to nothing, And there were chickens that were
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: described as having been vaporized.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: And it basically just put a herding on their entire property.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: All of the buildings, their outbuildings became uninhabitable. It literally
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: changed the slope of their land such that the foundation
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: of the home was no longer secure. And it injured
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: at least somewhat everyone around, right.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, luckily it was not a fatal injury for everyone.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: But it's difficult, although we laugh about it out, it's
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: difficult to fathom the amount of emotional distress this would cause. Right, So,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: before we dive into detail about the specs and stats
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: of this bomb, look at what was happening that day, Right,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: How did this crew get up in the air where
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: they where were they coming from? Where were they going?
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Earlier that day, the crew was part of a training
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: exercise that would require the bomb to be loaded into
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: an airplane and flown from Savannah, Georgia, across the Atlantic
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to England. This was a mock mission. Think of it
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: like a training exercise.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: The operation snow Flurry is what it was called.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: And so Captain Earl Koehler, who is the pilot, Captain
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Charles Woodruff who was the co pilot, Captain Bruce Kolka,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the navigator, bombadier and crew chief Sergeant Robert Scriptalk had
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: arrived at Hunter Air Force Base just outside of Savannah
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: to fly in this operation Scriptalk.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: That is a fascinating sounding name.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: If it was just just Scriptalk instead of Robert Scriptalk,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: it sounds like a character in a sci fi fantasy film.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: You're like Star Trekers.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Scriptoc, lord of the Igneous rock people.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: In this world. He's an Air Force pilot. So as Noel,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: as you said, what was the name of the operation again,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Operation snow Flurry, Operation snow Flurry. They carefully load the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: bomb onto the plane, takes an hour. They put it
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: into a shackle mechanism. That's designed to keep it in place,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: but they had a difficult time with a steel locking pin.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they actually noticed that there was like a light,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: a fault light that started to glow, and that told
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: them that the bomb's locking pin had not properly been engaged.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: So Navigator Captain Bruce Kulka went to take a look.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: So while Captain Navigator Captain Bruce Kolka is investigating this
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: light and finding the source of the fault, he accidentally
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: hit the emergency release pin as he reached around the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: bomb to pull himself up. The device hit the bomb
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: bay doors.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: It wasn't really a pin, it was like a like
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: a like a lever.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And he when he did this, when
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: he hit this, it forced the doors open. And can
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: you imagine, noll, the look on this guy's face as
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: he watched it leave the plane.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the way I've seen it is he
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: was kind of crawling on top of the bomb, sort
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: of had himself positioned like arms and legs spread, trying
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: to get to this pin. And then when he sort
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: of lost his footing, he reached out and grabbed this
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: release lever, and all hell broke loose, and yeah, he
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Apparently as that bomb fell out from under him.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: He was left.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: He watched it, but he was left suspending himself from
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: that handle and whatever else he had a foothold and
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: a grasp on there and just watching, looking straight down
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: as that bomb hit those bay doors. Eventually the weight
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: forced them open and then it was bombs away.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And we're very lucky that he didn't fall out as well, right,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: because he's as you said, he's standing there picture a
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: letter X, just hanging out with nothing between the ground
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and himself except for a very dangerous drop through naked air.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: So back to the idyllic Greg family homestead, the children
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: are playing, the boys and the father are at work
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: in the shed for nineteen pm, right, and they look
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: and they see this bomber flying overhead. But that would
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: not have been an unusual sight at the.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Time, especially not in the nineteen fifties.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Exactly, because these kinds of runs were pretty common. So
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: when this chaos went down, mister Greg was quoted as
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: saying he thought that the plane had crashed. Can you
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: imagine just the chaos that would have ensued, and just
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: not being able to fully wrap your head around what
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: had happened, and just trying to figure out the possibilities
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: in certain the first one the go to would not
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: be Oh, the Air Force accidentally dropped an atomic bomb
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: on my kid's playhouse.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Right, And so, as we said, all five members of
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the family were injured, as was the cousin Ella, but
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: they had no idea what was happening. Wasn't until later
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: that night, where they were crashing at the house of
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: their family doctor, that they learned it had been a
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: bomb dropped by us, by the US Air Force.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Now here's the thing. The most serious injury sustained in
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: this event was the cousin, who I think got somewhere
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: in the neighborhood of thirty one Stitches. And you may ask,
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: but Ben Noel, this was a nuclear warhead that was
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: dropped on this family's house. Where's the mushroom cloud?
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: What about the radiation?
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Where's the nuclear fallout?
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Why does Mars Bluff still exist?
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: Where are the ghouls? Why is this not you know,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: like mad Max Overnight.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Especially considering that this Mark six bomb was actually larger
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: than its predace cess or the Mark four or fat
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Man used in World War Two.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: And the look of this thing is is is pretty cartoonish.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: It looks like kind of something that you would see
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: in a Looney Tunes cartoon act printed on the side,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: or it makes me think of that scene in Doctor
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Strangelove where Slim Pickens rides the bomb cowboy style.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Which could could have got close to doing exactly.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Very very interesting and the same time period that's being
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: described in that that paranoid cold war fear. But here's
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: the thing. We did kind of bury the lead here
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: a little bit. It turns out that in order to
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: transport these weapons, they would be what's called safet in
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: other words, they still had explosives in them, but they
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: did not have that nuclear payload, that core of plutonium.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And thank god, because as we said at the top,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: this was a mock mission. This was timed to see
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: how how long the operation would take where it to
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: happen in a genuine conflict. So they did safe it.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: But safeing it is not the same thing as just
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: making it a dummy bomb. It did possess explosive power,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: it did explode, It did not, thank sweet Pete, contain
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: any sort of nuclear payload.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that part was actually transported separately, which you know,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: good on you Air Force, smart smart smart going and
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: you know, this thing did lead to updated security measures
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: where it was absolutely required that these locking pins be
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: in place at all times, even during takeoff and landing.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: I would think especially during David. I mean that's when
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: I get dislodged, and you know they'd yell at us
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: about our overhead luggage bins that may shift during takeoff
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: and landing. Watch out. I would think it'd be pretty
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: important to have that locking pin make sure that that
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: bomb didn't shift during tankoff and landing.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: And in this mission in snow flurry, they actually jury
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: rigged it a bit because they used a hammer to
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: bang the pin in place.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: But imagine banging a nuclear warhead with a hammer.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: This is interesting because it may seem ridiculous to us now,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: but we have the benefit of hindsight in.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: A very real way.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: The technology behind nuclear weapon detonation changed as a result
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: of this in a very very important fashion. So back
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: in the fifties, in this time, one thing that's so
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: scary about knocking this thing around with a hammer is
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: that nuclear weapons had a trigger that compressed the uranium
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: plutonium core to set off the chain reaction of a
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: nuclear explosion, and things like this. Mark six that got
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: dropped on the greg family homestead could be set off
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: or triggered by concussion, which means anything from shooting it
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: with a bullet, knocking on the ground, dropping it on
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: a playhouse, dropping it on a playhouse. And so the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: bomb's trigger did explode when it hit the ground and
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: hit the ground of the Gregs. The ground of the Gregs,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling that one if the nuclear components had been there,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: it would have been a massive catastrophe. We're talking hundreds
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: of thousands of people would have died.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Because you know, I hadn't heard of this story until
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: we looked into it for the show. I would bet
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: that many of you listeners have not heard of this,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: the US accidentally dropping an atomic bomb on an unsuspecting
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: family in the South. And that's because at the end
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: of the day, nobody died. There was no atomic fallout, right,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: It was not a catastrophe of epic proportions.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: It did, however, become one of the driving forces for
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: very important change, which is that today nuclear weapons are
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: going to be set off not by concussion, but by
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a specific type of electrical impulse. Within days of this
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: accidental bomb drop, the Air Force published new regulations. I
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: think you already mentioned right, Oh yeah, where they said,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: hey guys, let's make sure that we don't, you know,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: act we want to drop bombs where we are supposed
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: to drop them.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: No more of this willy nilly, you know, pin hammering business.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: But what about the Gregs? What about I feel like
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: we've we've talked about the near miss, right that occurred,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: but what about the actual greg families. Poor cousin Ella, Well,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: they never returned to that home out there, and then
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Mars Bluff they received about fifty four thousand dollars in
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: damages from the Air Force.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which by today's standards would be in the neighborhood
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: of half a million.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Bucks, which is not too bad. But you also we
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: have to think, you know, they own that land. It
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: was in their family for one hundred years. There's some
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: things that you can't really put a price one.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: And they moved to a nice little cozy bungalow in
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: nearby Florence, South Carolina, and this became.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Of course, we don't know if Walter Gregg was the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: kind of guy to hang out in a bar, but
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: we do know he was a church member for all
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: of his life. Wherever he was hanging out and spending
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: his free time. You know, this was his go to
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: story when people are spinning tales. You know, he pointed
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: it out, not too many people can say they've had
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb dropped on them. Oh and also he
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: was a former paratrooper, so he's familiar with aspects of
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: military aviation. And he also spent most of his non
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: military life working as a conductor for the railroads.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: And he finishes that quote with and not too many
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: people would want to And I would side with Walter
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: on that point. To this day, you can actually go
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: visit this site. There's a historical marker which is beautiful,
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: embarrassing historical marker. It says atomic bomb accident at Mars Bluff,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: March eleventh, nineteen fifty eight. The bomb landed in the
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: woods behind the asbestos sided home of the railroad conductor
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Walter Bill Greg born nineteen twenty one. Greg, his wife,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: their three children, and a niece were injured by the concussion,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: which destroyed the house and outbuildings and did slight damage
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: to build things within a five mile radius.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: And that's when we say slight damage, think of like
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the windows break exactly exactly, so One of my favorite
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: parts of this story is there's something that I picture
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: is a very Wes Anderson moment. It's that the Gregs
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and the Air Force crew they got in touch with
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: each other, and the crew would hang out with them
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: because they felt so bad, you know, and write them letters.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: And to me, I just picture something in a lost
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Wes Anderson film where you know, there's this immaculately decorated
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and choreographed room, right, it's perfectly set, everything's just so,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and then Captain Kolka Navigator walks in and says, hello,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: this is the anniversary of the time that I accidentally
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: drop the bomb on you. And then Walter greg says, yes, Captain,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I'm aware. It's like I have brought you this gift.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: And then they then they eat a nice Thanksgiving style
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: meal together.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: It's like I brought you a gift, and it's like, well,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: I hope it isn't another bomb.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: And speaking of bombs, there is also you can go
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: to where the crater is and it's still there. It
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: looks kind of like a crappy pond, you know, because
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: it's basically just you know, it's obviously filled in over time,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: but it's still there. It just tends to be full
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: of standing water, and there's a plywood silver spray painted.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: It looks like plywood actual size bomb. It's like a
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: silhouette yea MK six seventy six hundred pounds. And there's
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: like an Instagram photo on the How Stuff Works article
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: where the girl standing next to it and saying I've
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: been wondering for years where exactly the atomic bombs I
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: was and finally found it.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: We do want to say that it is on it.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: You can visit it. However, the site is located on
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: private property. The Gregs did sell the land, yeah and
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: seventy seven right, Yeah, and it's currently on private property.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: There's no public access road. So we don't want Ridiculous
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: History to be known as a show that encourages trespassing.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: So do check with the do check with the locals
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: before you go on an expedition.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: And be careful how to get a snake bit or
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: get a tick or something. There's probably some tall grass
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: around there, but yeah, to get to it, you have
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: to go through this abandoned lot that used to have
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: a trailer park and walk through a totally overgrown path
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: and then you come upon this crappy pond that was
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: created by the one and only time that an atomic
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: bomb was dropped on American soil by American forces.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And so this got me thinking. As I was always
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: reading this, I was remembering this poem by Elizabeth Bishop
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: called one Art, which is the art of losing isn't
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: hard to master. That's the first line, and it goes on,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I don't want to ruin It's it's worth reading.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: No poetry spoilers, ben no poetry spoilers in ridiculous system.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Right, no trespassing, No poetry spoilers. But it's a poem
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: essentially about how easy it is to lose things. And
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: it also inspired me to think about the other times
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: that nuclear weapons around the world have been lost. And
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it turns out that since nineteen fifty there have been
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: thirty two nuclear weapon accidents the accidental launching, firing, detonating
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: after loss of weapon. I mean around the world, you know,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: in Canada, in England, and the strangest thing that happens
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: is in a few cases the exact location is unknown.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: There was an incident in March tenth of nineteen fifty six,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: just a couple of years before this incident in the Carolinas,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: where a B forty seven and carrying two nuclear capsules
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: on a flight from Tampa, Florida to an overseas base
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: was reported missing. It didn't make contact in the Mediterranean
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: when it was supposed to for second refueling, and no
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: one ever found the plane. It's just out there somewhere
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: in the ocean.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Hikes.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so at least thirty two of these broken Arrow
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: events occur, which is why that John Travolta movie is
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: called Broken Arrow?
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Who else gon bring you a broken row? Who else?
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Don't bring you a bottle of rey?
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: And if you were the Gregs, what would you have
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: done when you found out that this occurred? Personally, I
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: don't play the lottery, but I would think my probability
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: odds are pretty cool right now.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Or it could be like a final destination kind of
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: scenario where it's like, you know, the Reaper was robbed
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: and then I'd be looking for like any number of
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: things to kill me in my basic surroundings.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Which those movies got strangered, stranger, more and more like intricate.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I feel they had to double down with the goldberg
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: ness of it all. You know, there we go.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: That's the Craig phrase. So I guess we're done here right?
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: No?
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Wait, what is that?
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Do you hear it too?
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I hear it.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Now wait, Casey, why are you laughing?
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: No, here comes It's time. Gentlemen.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Yep, I'm back. It's the quist Quister Jonathan Strickland. Yep,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: we thought the show was over.
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: No, no, it has only just begun, my friends, For
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: it is time to test your ability to tell fact
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: from fantasy.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, then let's get on with this.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: So this is the segment of the show where in
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: our nemesis, the evil Quister Jonathan Strickland co in to
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: test our ability both to discern fact for fiction, as
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: he said, and also to see whether we can work
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: together to figure it out, and also to slowly wear.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: Us down over time until we crack.
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: And for those who did not hear the previous installment,
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: here are the general rules that hold sway from one
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: incident to the next, which is, you have three minutes.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: What is this accent you're doing?
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Three, I'm trying something else. Three.
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: I'll probably have a different one every time. I'm on
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: three minutes. Three minutes, gentlemen, three you say three in
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: order for you can talk with one another. You can
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: address me with any questions. If I have any more information,
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: I will give it to you based upon the way
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: you ask the question.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I may not give you all.
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: The information you wish, but you have those three minutes
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: to make your determination, at the end of which you
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: must then tell me whether or not the scenario I
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: present to you was fact or fantasy.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: And I also.
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: Create an arbitrary rule every time, and it will change
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: every single time. So last time you had to proceed
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: every question with a phrase. This time you have to
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: end every question to me with the words tick tick tick.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Boom, three ticks than a boom, three.
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: Ticks followed by a boom. And as soon as I
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: finished giving you your scenario, you will start the timer
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: of three months, the enormous Grandfather Timer. As we have
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: previously established, we.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Spent our whole budget on that thing.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: You know, I know it's I really had this whole
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: like like sketch for a costume and a mask, and
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: instead I'm just I'm just hearing a plaid shirt.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: It is. It's an audio podcast, though you could be
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: wearing anything. Just use your imaginations work, okay, all right,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: So all right, So we do this.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm hanging. I'm hanging on the edge of the
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: second hand right, I'm going to do a pull up
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and start the timer when it.
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: Excellent, So here is your scenario. In October twenty seventeen,
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: the Royal Navy was called out to detonate an unexploded
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: World War One era bomb which previously had been used
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: by a family as a door stop.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Start the timer, Okay, okay, So it's a World War
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: One era bomb which and a door stop.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: So clearly not the size of our giant warhead they
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: were talking about today. Sounds more like maybe the size
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: of like a like a propane tank or something. Maybe, yeah, yeah,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: what kind of bombs are they using in world?
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Definitely not nuclear?
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: No, no, uh all right.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: The quister, could you repeat the salient points one more time?
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Tick tick tick boom. Yes.
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: October twenty seventeen, Royal Navy is called out to a
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: fun farm in Devon, England, to detonate an unexploded bomb
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: of the World War One era that had previously been
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: used as a doorstop.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say true, I think true. I think
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: we're gonna I think we're gonna call this one early.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: I think maybe we will.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: All right, are we official on it? Yes?
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: Lock in the answer, locked in.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: We think it's true.
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: Gentlemen, you are two for two.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: As it turns out, there was a farm in Devon, England,
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: and the while it had been previously used as a doorstop,
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: what had actually happened was that they found this bomb
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: inside a wall. It had been placed on purpose inside
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: the wall when the wall was constructed. The grandparents of
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: the owners of the farm said, oh, we used to
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: use it as a doorstop. It was a corroded twenty
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: five pound unexploded ordinance from the UK. Chances are it
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: was actually fired into the farm area by accident from
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: a nearby firing range.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: So that's what I was gonna ask. Is this sort
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: of like a mortar round? Almost along those lines?
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, twenty five shell?
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Got it?
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: Yes, very well done, Very well done. So you've gotten
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: one fantasy correct, one fact correct? What will next time bring?
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: Who's to say it's except me? I have like the
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: next three written, so I I.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, you know what the quist does his homework.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: You know, you can say a lot about Jonathan, but
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: he definitely does.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Got to respect the craft, you know, got to respect it,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: got to respect the quiz. Well, Jonathan, you know, thank
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: you so much for coming aboard the show.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: Thank him.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, Jonathan and I acknowledge that you are here.
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: I mean we can't we can't really deny it. I,
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: as we've also previously established, I have no way of
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: getting out of this room without someone from outside opening
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: the door for me.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Again, we spent a lot of the budget on our
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: gigantic Grandfather Timer, and you know that we just didn't
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: allocate the right money for locks.
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: It's fine, I'll just sit in the corner.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: Now, get the hens, foul demon.
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: I'm just back here. I'm sorry.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: It's okay, you can stay.
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: I'm getting a call, all right.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Hey, yeah it feels great.
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, sure, no, I'll you know, I'll have lunch
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: with you.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: We're recording so well, Jonathan makes his lunch plans. Would
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: we would like to so, while Jonathan's making his lunch plans,
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: we would like to thank you listeners for joining us
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: for another episode of Ridiculous History, another of Jonathan's diabolical
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: quiz segments, which you know I could, I could, I
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: could take her leave. I'm having a good time.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I'm having I'm having a great time with it. I
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: mean we're technically we're winners.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Now, that's true. Let us know if you're having a
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: good time, right I said ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: right where we are Ridiculous History, and.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: You can also, of course find our nemesis, Jonathan on
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: his own show, tech Stuff, which is available wherever you
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: find your favorite podcast. So be well, have a fantastic week,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: throw us a review if you'd like. We'd love to
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: hear from you, and stay tuned for another episode of
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: Guys, I'm on the phone.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.