An Ominous Radiance - Declassified Footage of the US Nuclear Weapon Testing Program

Between 1945 and 1962, the United States conducted and recorded 210 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests.

Imagery is courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and provided with a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, as is imagery from this production.

Music is from the "Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Trailer #3" and rights are retained by the owner.

[zombienation]

"And I will finish what you started... grandfather."

[Denis-fpku]

At 1:54 you can see the mach stem racing slightly ahead of the blast wave at ground level.

[waspbloke]

if it were possible to separate the blasts from the horrific destruction, I can easily see why anybody might want to keep letting these things off, they really are quite amazing spectacles

[FulloutPostal]

0:10 - 2:23 is my favorite part
1:47 is my MOST favorite part

[sumitbhattacharya]

I pray these never ever get used again. The problems with humanity can be solved without killing each other.

[meatatarian]

the only nuke going to be dropped is the one Disney has for you for using Star Wars music

[MichaelEliChristensen]

0:10 tesla from operation teapot 7kt
0:17 bighorn from operaton dominic 7.71 mt
0:23 ray from operation upshot knothole 210 tons
0:27 harlem from operation dominic 1.21 mt

[RedSkyHorizon]

Now imagine being around to witness the late heavy bombardment period with impacts creating basins with diameters of about 5, 000 km.

[CapitalTeeth]

These things blowing up in the sky is one hell of a thing to witness. It looks like a second sun spawning out of nowhere.

[shaemess]

"Aw-ful" both spectacular and devastatingly heartbreaking... but great job as always David!

[kathyguidry]

My Dad was a photographer in the US Marines and was assigned to photograph some of the tests. They had to hide behind protective barriers. He said that when they returned to check the photos, all of the film had been ruined in their cameras. I was surprised to see this footage.

[iriyabran]

1:48 is terrifying, even more if it had a banana for scale

[paulelephant]

Terrifying, but I sort of wish I could have gone to Nevada in the 50s and watched one of these things go up, pretty crazy they were letting these bombs off within 100 miles of Las Vegas!

[Silentsilo]

Oppenheimer trailer brought me here...the one at 1:48 is totally the one Nolan used to guide him visually. Looks almost exactly the same in the trailer with those high energy x-rays shooting out vaporizing the cables attached to the tower

[MRMfwich]

Why would you add Star Wars to the Audio? This footage is incredible on its own.

[rareinnature]

It's unnerving to think that there have been 'Broken Arrows' and that to date, six nuclear weapons have been lost and never recovered.

[bipolarspock]

At 58 seconds looks like a hand is holding the explosion

[rjpx]

The moment you realize the soundtrack is completely appropriate here, because you are igniting miniature stars over the Earth, and summoning them to use on other people in an act of total war...

[inkitatus]

superbly edited with the music, really good job. Horrific & evil, but compelling & beautiful too. Let's hope they're never used again.

[Ricky-cejo]

Something I hope to never see in my life detonated, as mesmerizing as it is