by Texe Marrs
THE EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
What damage to property and loss of life would result if the world’s fifty thousand nuclear weapons were exploded? It’s too horrible to even measure. In his book Weapons of World War III, 1 defense analyst William J. Koenig says that if only five hundred nuclear weapons were detonated—a mere 1 percent of those stockpiled—the following results would occur:
50 million people would die instantly. Many more—as much as the entire population of Europe and half of that of the U.S. and the Soviet Union—would die later from radiation sickness and epidemics of cholera, typhus, cancer, and other diseases spawned in the aftermath of the explosion.
Changes in climate would result, with many people suffering fatal sunburn and skin diseases caused by the destruction of much of the earth’s ozone layer and the subsequent exposure to the sun’s deadly ultraviolet rays.
Imagine the devastation to cities and industry if, as Dr. Koenig speculates, only 1 percent of the available nuclear warheads were unleashed. Surely this would be an apocalyptic event which modern man can’t even begin to contemplate. But then, consider the toll that would result from an all-out nuclear war. In 1983, a World Health Organization report by a committee of ten scientists calculated that such a war would leave in its aftermath 2 billion victims—that’s nearly half the world’s population of 4.5 billion. The survivors could not expect medical attention, and millions would starve. Perhaps, as Premier Nikita Khruschev of the Soviet Union once said, “The survivors of nuclear war will envy the dead.”
The primary effects of nuclear weaponry are as follows: savage winds, mushroom cloud, a raging fire that enfolds and billows its fireball, and a blinding flash. After the initial blast, the specter of radiation awaits survivors.
Fire and Heat. One of the most damaging aspects of nuclear weapons is the fierce heat generated upon detonation. An ultra-hot, rapidly expanding fireball consumes virtually everything in its path. This blast of heat is no respecter of property or persons: homes, buildings, people, animals—all would be incinerated as the fire, heat, and flash move across the land. A small (one-megaton) explosion would cause severe third-degree burns up to five miles away.
Blast. Casualties in a nuclear war obviously mount from the effects of the blast. The energy released, first heard as a loud, highly charged noise, can best be conceived of as a shock wave, a wave of magnified, compressed air. This air has the destructive force of a deadly hurricane as it sweeps along at supersonic speed, destroying practically everything it encounters: A small nuclear weapon can generate winds of 250 miles per hour, about as much as a tornado, while a larger weapon can send forth winds at an awesome velocity of over 700 miles per hour.
According to Koenig, such dynamic pressure “makes twigs, pebbles, broken glass and other small objects as deadly as shrapnel and can also hurl people against hard surfaces with lethal effects.” However, most of the casualties would result from collapsing structures.
In 1979, the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress conducted a study that showed blast effects of a single, one-megaton bomb on a city. If Detroit was the target, said the study, the blast would dig a crater in downtown Detroit 200 feet deep and 1,000 feet across. Nearly all structures in a 5.4 mile radius would be destroyed; 220,000 people would die and the total casualties would be over one million—all this from one bomb. Yet experts say that in a major war, targeted cities could expect over a dozen such warheads!
A Shaking of the Earth. Another characteristic effect of a nuclear explosion is that observers experience it as earthshaking. Witnesses to nuclear tests have stated how, miles distant from ground zero, they felt the earth move with tremors. Said one man, over fifty miles away from a blast, “I thought it was an earthquake; the earth appeared to shift. It truly frightened me.” Experts also say that, following a nuclear explosion, there is a danger of secondary quakes as the earth and its numerous earthquake fault lines react to the violence of the blast.
In Isaiah 14: 16-17, the prophet speaks of an evil figure who “made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof.” Likewise, in 24:18 Isaiah envisions that the “foundations of the earth do shake” and in the same chapter, verse 20, he gives us an image of the predicament that will result when thousands of thermonuclear weapons are exploded in the fury of world war: “The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage.”
These words of Isaiah appear to warn mankind of another danger involved in nuclear war that is even more scary than quakes and tremors, as damaging as they may be. Some scientists contend that an all-out exchange of nuclear weapons will cause a shifting of the poles of the earth. Geological evidence indicates that during prehistoric times, there were many reversals of geographical poles. Such shifting caused cataclysmic upheavals—seas flooding entire continents, plains thrust into mountains, civilizations razed to rubble, and towering forests made into scattered debris.
It seems likely, then, that massive blasts of spasmodic nuclear attacks could result in earthquakes, volcanoes, enormous shifting of mountains and hills, and gigantic tidal waves. Entire continents could disappear beneath the sea. Multiple nuclear blasts could break dams, change the course of rivers, and topple great cities.
In a foreword to the book The Path of the Pole (by Charles Hapgood), Albert Einstein affirmed the possibility of a shifting of the earth’s geographical poles. Furthermore Einstein, whose work laid the foundation for development of the atomic bomb, stated that it would not take much of an impact for such a dreadful event to occur. “Such displacements,” said Einstein, “may take place as the consequence of comparatively slight forces exerted on the crust, derived from the earth’s momentum of rotation, which in turn will tend to alter the axis of rotation of the earth’s crust.” 2
Blackout. Another effect of nuclear explosion is the phenomenon known as electromagnetic pulse (EMP). EMP waves are much like radio waves but many thousands of times stronger—so strong that they disrupt and severely damage communications and electric power systems. This, in turn, produces a blackout in the affected area: the elimination of radio, television, electric lights, utilities, and perhaps even telephone lines. Everything powered by electricity will grind to a halt. Darkness will envelop the land. Authorities say that a single atomic bomb, detonated high in the atmosphere, could knock out electricity over the entire United States.
Dust. As if the effects of EMP would not be enough, nuclear scientists believe that the blasts of scores of nuclear explosions would throw huge amounts of dust into the upper atmosphere. This would fulfill the Bible’s prophecy that, in the time of tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the earth plunged into blackness:
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day. (Amos 8:9)
Imagine the fear and trepidation that would grip humanity as electrical power fails. Minor blackouts in the 1960s in New York City and on the East Coast caused panic and pandemonium. Soon, just a few years from now, the entire United States—probably the whole world—could experience an eerie total blackout as thousands of tons of dust obscure the sun and usher in a period of darkness. First would come the initial flash of the fireball, melting the very eyeballs of those who observe it close-up; then electromagnetic radiation and dust will extinguish the light.
Radiation One of the deadly effects of nuclear weapons is the harmful radiation that results. This radiation travels rapidly through the air. If a bomb is exploded near clouds or over a body of water, poisonous rain showers may fall on people, property, and land. Radiation can kill immediately, or within days, weeks, or months, depending on the dose.
The most terrifying aspect of radiation is the manner in which it kills. Often the process is slow and painful, and the victim of radiation sickness suffer greatly. Agonizing deaths can result from delayed poisoning or from the outright ba
ttering. The blood, lungs, and brain suffer from ingestion of excess radiation. Exposed victims who live for longer periods may be stricken with cancer of all kinds and with leukemia—harrowing effects, points out William Koenig, that leave people “tainted with deformity and death.”
According to Koenig, the radiation fallout area following the detonation of a single nuclear device may be up to two hundred miles long and twenty-five miles wide. Fishermen eighty miles away from a test blast over Bikini Atoll in 1954 in the Pacific came down with serious illnesses from radiation poisoning, and one died.
Not only does a nuclear explosion cover a wide area with radiation poison, but the body-destroying effect of this ghastly chemical lingers for a long, long time, perhaps exerting its abhorrent effects months and even years after the blast. Small traces of radiation fallout from above-ground nuclear tests in 1963 still are being detected over twenty years later!
THE REAL NUCLEAR THREAT
Examining these facts leads us to wonder if all-out nuclear war could really happen. Is humanity doomed to extinction? The man often called the “Father of the atomic bomb,” Albert Einstein, once pondered such questions. The great scientist finally came to the conclusion that it is not the bomb we must fear, but human beings with empty souls who hold the power to unleash nuclear terror. Einstein asked: “What is it that we really fear? Is it the power of the atom bomb or is it the force of evil within the heart of man?”
CHAPTER EIGHT: TERROR FROM THE HEAVENS: SPACEANDAIR WARFARE
The development by the superpowers of massive air and space combat forces has long been a top priority. Each nation’s military force now includes a wide range of systems, from supersonic jet fighter aircraft packed with electronic gadgetry to nuclear-bomb-carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In recent years, space systems have been emphasized, and billions of dollars are now being spent on lasers, particle beam weapons, and other ultra-sophisticated arms designed to attack targets in space and targets on earth from space.
SPACE WAR
In 1962, newspaper columnist Stewart Alsop wrote that “man will use the fourth dimension of space as he has used the earth, the sea, and the air—to assert his power, to make his will prevail, perhaps to make war on other men.” More recently, in 1982, Undersecretary of the Air Force Edward C. Aldridge asserted that “our use of space in support of our military forces is inevitable—the advantages are clear.”
In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy encouraged the peaceful use of space and even negotiated a treaty with Moscow to ban weapons in space. But since the days of Hitler’s V-2 rockets, Russia’s Sputnik satellite, and the U.S. moon shot, many other military and political leaders have held the same view as Alsop and Aldridge: the militarization of space is inevitable.
The huge expenditures over the past decade by the Soviet Union on space weapons far exceeds the amounts spent by the United States. In its FY 85 report to the Congress, the U.S. Air Force noted that “the Soviets are busy exploiting space for military advantage, including development of an anti-satellite weapon.” The report also said, “Since Sputnik in 1957, the Soviets have launched twice as many spacecraft as the United States, and 85 percent of their space activities are related to military efforts.“ 1 Because of the advantage sought by the USSR, there is little chance, if any, of stemming the tide of weaponry being produced to patrol the heavens.
Among the space systems now in use or proposed for use are the following:
A comprehensive system of weather and communications satellites.
Spy and surveillance satellites that gather intelligence and also detect hostile intercontinental ballistic missiles shortly, after launch.
America’s NAVSTAR Global Positioning Satellite System, with precise atomic clocks designed to improve accuracy of sea-based nuclear-tipped missiles and to enhance military operations by providing minute and accurate position information.
Project High Frontier, a proposal of Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham (Ret.) and others to build a defensive system of 432 satellites in space. This system would detect Soviet missiles and fire charges to destroy them in flight.
The continued use by the superpowers of space shots for military missions, including testing and eventual development of lasers, particle beams, and other weapons on space stations and other space platforms.
America’s initial anti-satellite (ASAT) force, scheduled to be in place by 1987, consisting of twenty-eight modified F-15 aircraft with fifty-six rockets, each designed to intercept and destroy enemy satellites. The Soviets also are developing an ASAT force and have conducted successful tests.
Research on a true aerospace plane similar to the space orbiter vehicle that can take off and land on runways instead of launch pads. Called the transatmospheric vehicle (TAV), and capable of speeds of 18,000 miles per hour, this aircraft is being designed by McDonnell-Douglas under a USAF design contract.
Satellites deployed to detect enemy submarines hidden in the ocean depths, making the Soviet submarine force highly vulnerable to destruction by nuclear depth charges and other new weapons.
The new, devastatingly powerful electromagnetic railgun, now in prototype stage, which is able to fire projectiles at a quantum velocity and obliterate distant targets in space. Called simply the “electric gun,” this weapon can be mounted on unmanned satellites orbiting the earth or on planes and tanks. With machine gun rapidity, it uses huge bursts of electronic energy to fire small projectiles able to destroy much larger space targets, such as missiles, satellites, an opponent’s space platform, or ground targets such as trucks or tanks.
Collectively, these systems—known as “Star Wars” in the media—are referred to as Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) by the U.S. Department of Defense.
DEATH RAYS
In 1976, I was selected by the Air Force to attend a special three-month course at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, designed to train officers for advanced management positions. Special briefing teams were sent from the Pentagon, Headquarters Strategic Air Command, and from the other services to bring the assembled USAF officers up to date on the newest weapon systems in the military arsenals. One of the weapons discussed was the laser.
We were shown a dramatic film of a small drone plane in flight. Suddenly, from the earth, a fixed stream of superheated laser rays struck the plane. For several minutes, as the plane continued to fly on its course, the corrosive and concentrated laser beam focused on the metal of the plane’s frame. A hole appeared in the outer metal and soon the plane burst into flames and went crashing to the ground.
All of us in attendance were amazed at the speed of the laser and its ability to actually melt an airplane frame while in flight.
Now, over a decade later, laser ray weapons have been greatly improved. In only a few more years—ten at the most—we undoubtedly will have laser weapons that will beam at the speed of light (186,282 miles per second) toward an incoming enemy missile and obliterate it before it has a chance to begin its downward trajectory.
As Allan Maurer points out in his book Lasers: The Light Wave of the Future, 2 since 1960, when a scientist developed the first laser, this technology has been used in a number of wondrous ways. Lasers are now used to drill diamonds, to vaporize cancer, and even to print newspapers. They are also being used to prepare for war.
According to defense consultant William Koenig, the U.S. has already spent over 1.5 billion dollars on development of laser weapons. The Soviet Union has invested three to five times as much. 3 In fact, Maj. Gen. George Keegan, former intelligence chief of the U.S. Air Force, reports that the Soviet Union possesses the world’s largest laser weapon and is making a concerted effort to stay ahead of the West. Japan and other nations are also hard at work to develop laser weapon systems.
KILLER BEAMS
Distinguished from the laser beam, the particle beam fires a stream of atomic or subatomic particles, such as electrons, protons, or ions. The particle beam’s effect resembles a bolt of lightning.
/> What kind of destruction can be inflicted with the laser and the particle energy beam? The weapons now envisioned—and under construction—will be able to smash satellites in the sky and bring down enemy missiles and aircraft. On the ground they may turn tanks and armored vehicles into fiery coffins.
Within a decade, powerful energy beams and lasers sitting on space battle stations may be able to direct a heat ray toward an American, British, Middle Eastern, or Soviet city. Such an attack, according to physicists knowledgeable with current research, could incinerate a land area of hundreds of square miles. The first such weapons in space would probably be used defensively to destroy enemy missiles, but their lethality would be so remarkable that their use as offensive weapons would soon take precedence.
Two laser weapon systems already developed and tested are portents of greater and more lethal things to come. The first is a portable system that beams an intense and deadly laser ray back and forth a mile ahead in the path of advancing enemy troops. All who look at the all-encompassing beam would have their optic nerves seared and be permanently blinded. This system, which would be integrated into tanks, helicopters, and small vehicles, is discussed further in chapter 10.
The second laser weapon is a device the U.S. Air Force employs aboard a converted Boeing 747 aircraft called the Airborne Laser Laboratory (ALL). In a 1983 test, the weapon successfully destroyed five air-to-air missiles launched at it. Current research centers on “Coronet Prince,” a device affixed to the underside of an aircraft and capable of blinding enemy pilots and damaging the electronic optical systems of enemy aircraft.
