ATLAS

DivergenceOMEGA-3-21-5Sheet 5 of 5 of the dossier Celestial dome

What Fishbowl actually was

The documented purpose, results and side effects of the 1962 high-altitude tests, against the claim that they hit the dome.

Black-and-white photograph of several slender rockets held upright by guy wires on a sandy island, under a cloudy sky.
Rockets carrying instruments for measurements during the Operation Fishbowl high-altitude nuclear tests, on Johnston Island before liftoff, mid-1962. United States Government Defense Nuclear Agency. · public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Summary

This sheet answers the Fishbowl claims point by point with the documented record. Operation Fishbowl was a series of five high-altitude nuclear weapons-effects tests carried out in 1962 from Johnston Island in the Pacific, planned in haste after the Soviet Union ended a three-year moratorium on testing. A 1962 planning document quoted by Lead Stories states that its purpose was to meet urgent Joint Chiefs of Staff requirements for data on the effects of weapons, not to break through anything. The best-known shot, Starfish Prime, was detonated on 9 July 1962 about 400 kilometres up with a yield of 1.4 megatons. What the sky did next is the opposite of a barrier: the pulse knocked out about 300 streetlights in Hawaii, and the artificial radiation belts disabled six or more satellites, among them Telstar 1 and Ariel 1. The failed launches, such as the first Starfish attempt when the Thor engine stopped after 59 seconds, have mundane causes. Fact-checkers also traced the videos circulating as evidence: the clip of a rocket hitting a dome appears to come from a 2014 amateur launch, and the apparent ripples in another clip are caused by cold gas thrusters on a Falcon 9 first stage. The divergence is therefore factual: the claim says the tests tried to crack the sky, while the documents describe tests of weapons effects whose consequences in space were measured.

Verified facts

  1. Verified fact

    Starfish Prime, the best-known Fishbowl shot, was a high-altitude nuclear test detonated on 9 July 1962 at about 400 km above the Pacific, with a yield of 1.4 megatons.

    • Starfish Prime, Wikipedia
      Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States
  2. Verified fact

    Operation Fishbowl was planned rapidly after the Soviet announcement of 30 August 1961 that they were ending a three-year moratorium on nuclear testing.

    • Operation Fishbowl, Wikipedia
      Planning for Operation Fishbowl, as well as many other nuclear tests in the region, began rapidly in response to the sudden Soviet announcement on August 30, 1961, that they were ending a three-year moratorium on nuclear testing.
  3. Verified fact

    Several launches failed for ordinary reasons: on the first Starfish attempt the Thor engine stopped after 59 seconds and the missile broke apart before being destroyed by the range safety officer.

    • Starfish Prime, Wikipedia
      The Thor missile flew a normal trajectory for 59 seconds; then the rocket engine stopped, and the missile began to break apart.
  4. Verified fact

    The electromagnetic pulse of Starfish Prime caused electrical damage in Hawaii, about 900 miles away, knocking out about 300 streetlights.

  5. Verified fact

    The man-made radiation belts created by the tests eventually caused six or more satellites to fail, including Telstar 1 and Ariel 1, and the effects were measured.

    • Starfish Prime, Wikipedia
      these man-made radiation belts eventually caused six or more satellites to fail
  6. Verified fact

    The "rocket hitting a dome" clip appears to come from a 2014 launch by the Civilian Space eXploration Team, and a nearly identical video of that launch makes no mention of a dome.

  7. Verified fact

    The "ripples" shown in the viral video are not waves in water but an effect caused by cold gas thrusters on the first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9, lit by sunlight at twilight.

Photograph of a bronze-coloured satellite model with four solar paddles and antennas against a dark background.
Scale model of Ariel 1, the United Kingdom's first satellite, one of the satellites disabled by the radiation belts created by Starfish Prime (London Science Museum). Stephencdickson · CC BY-SA · Wikimedia Commons

Official version

  1. Official version

    The 1962 planning document states that the purpose of Operation Fishbowl was to meet urgent Joint Chiefs of Staff requirements for weapons effects data, concerning missile defence, early warning and communications, not to break a barrier.

Play on YouTube (third-party content)
Operation Fishbowl - High-Altitude Weapons Effects, a film on the five 1962 tests published by the Nevada National Security Sites.
The Nevada National Security Sites