Introduction
What few people understand about the first atom bomb detonation, dubbed
'Trinity,' is that when the U.S. internationally admitted to the Trinity blast in New Mexico days after
the bombing of Hiroshima, the fallout issue was not mentioned. U.S. government officials in July 1945 had
collected measurements of unusually high radioactivity in air and soil over central and northeast New Mexico in the
hours and days after the Trinity A-bomb explosion and although Trinity 'workers' were instructed in and
followed radiation safety protocols, citizens of the state of
New Mexico were left in the dark (and high levels of radioactivity); they were never told they were being exposed
to harmful levels of radiation in their air, their cistern water,
and their livestock (Chupadera Mesa, an area used then (and now) for livestock grazing and
perhaps the hardest hit off-site area from Trinity, wasn't subject to a soil survey whose data wasn't classified or made secret
until the 1980s). Through the present, residents of New Mexico have been confronted with mysterious cancer clusters stemming
from exposures in the days and years after Trinity from an underestimated cause: lingering 'Trinity fallout'.
As we now know, the same story of censorship and downplaying of
lingering fallout has played out over and over again in our nuclear age, from the downwind areas of the Nevada Test Site to southern Japan. Although the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki unleashed
an eye-blinding, skin-burning, fire-breathing, debris-crushing, shockwave-pounding, and ionizing-ray-shooting
hell on Earth for those unfortunate persons who happened be within several miles of the blasts,
one cause of short- and long-term ailments in the affected areas, dangerous levels of radioactive debris on the ground, was never fully
recognized by official scientific committees who investigated the total health effects of the
atomic explosions. Although Trinity created more widespread and greater depositions of local and regional fallout than 'Fat Man' or 'Little Boy'
on account that the 'Gadget' was detonated on a tower (the A-bomb attacks were airbursts),
'black rain' and other atmospheric processes formed significant hotspots of fissile and fission materials in
the nearby outskirts. American, British
and some Japanese scientists conspired to cover up both the presence of residual alpha-radiation dangers in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the nature and threat of the hotspots in the suburbs caused by the 'black rains'. All
people would learn - then and through history - was that beta and gamma levels in the urban areas were slightly elevated but far from
levels of concern. The fallout levels, especially the urban alpha deposits and black rain hotspots, were censored and access to or accumulation of data on the environmental radiation levels in even the most fallout-impacted zones - the 'black rain' areas such as Koi, Takasu (3300 yds from hypocenter) and Nishiyama - was
denied by the occupying military regime for decades and decades. The intended (or unintended) result was
that citizens of A-bombed cities and even entire prefectures in Japan were kept in the dark about dangerous
levels of plutonium and uranium and other radioactivity in their reservoirs, city streets, food supply, etc...
Another intended (or unintended) result is that researchers and scientists across the world and through the present have been kept from
knowing what happens to people who are exposed to the lingering radioactive debris
from the atom bomb. Such myths that hotspots are fiction,
fallout quickly dilutes to safe levels in the environment, and fallout causes no biological harm at minor levels have become a believable truth to most educated persons.
The above account is a prime reason why our
global radiation monitoring networks are not in great shape and remain a low priority in relative terms
to other issues. Few intelligent people
understand that 'anthropogenic radiation' in the environment is as worrisome a threat to wildlife
and humans as DDT was to these entities in the eyes of pesticide truth-seekers like the late Rachel Carlson. Few
people realize that health studies on fallout were sabotaged by such coverups
throughout history in order to fashion an apathetic and carefree public 'take' on environmental radiation.
As events like Fukushima are
cultivating a new awareness in global citizens that governments cannot be relied on to state the true nature of
radiation emergencies, the gap between actual environmental radiation levels and the public's knowledge of these levels is seeing a
reversing trend, from widening to narrowing; such citizens are arming themselves with dosimeters and using social network-enabled
radiation monitoring to coerce corrupt government officials to reverse
claims that places like Tokyo were spared from the meltdowns. Hopefully, these awakened citizens will
come to realize that if their governments easily engaged in a
cover-up over Fukushima then past radiation events, which potentially
already harmed or killed their own relatives or friends, may have been covered up
too.
