Strange things in the desert

[Mojave]

OK, here’s another. The bomb and missile stories will have to wait.
This is a sad story and wouldn’t be scary if it weren’t true, but it is.
Back in 1987 I got a job and moved to the very small and remote town of Tonopah, Nevada. My company had an older gentleman who was in charge of training, including orientation for new employees. This man, Don, and his wife kind of took pity on the young single guy from Texas who didn’t know anybody. We became good friends and to this day he is still one of the finest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. He was the retired principal of the local high school and an icon for hundreds of miles. He shared many stories with me from his life in the area. He told me about how his teenage buddies used to camp in a cave while hunting in the mountains. One particular cave became known as the Gatecliffe Shelter which the Gatecliffe point is named after. He and his wife had a nice little collection of artifacts and is part of the reason I got interested in the first place.
Anyway, one evening while I was waiting for a softball game to start that I was playing in, he came up to me and told me this story. The softball fields were located adjacent to the high school next to the track and field area. Around the track was a fence I was sitting on. This fence was made from sections of railroad ties mounted vertically in the ground as posts. Near the top of each post was a hole drilled through and heavy steel cable about an inch or so in diameter strung through them all the way around the field. As I was sitting there rocking back and forth on this cable he told me about the time back in the 50s when the Air Force did a lot of nuclear tests. Most tests were underground. But they needed to detonate some above ground to evaluate the blast force. Don told me that when they did that at night it would light up the sky like it was noon. For many of these tests they built tall scaffolds hundreds of feet tall to put the bombs on. They got to the point that they needed to be higher. They decided to suspend the hydrogen bombs from hot air balloons. You probably know where I’m going with this now. The cable around the track was one that suspended one of those H-bombs. A bunch of kids went out and found it in the desert and brought it to town on a flatbed. When the Air Force found out they came and cleaned it but let them keep it.
Since then a new high school was built. I have no idea if the old cable is still there or not. But apparently many of those kids died of various cancers over the following years. The government was still paying restitution to families in the area.
There is a book about one of my favorite areas that I’ve commented on in a few threads.
“Railroad Valley: Too Tough for Others, Just Right for Us”
The last chapter talks about what some of the locals dealt with there. If that doesn’t scare you, nothing will.

[silverback]

It seems that it would be impossible to remove radiation from metal permanently or even temporarly. That's probably why the Air Force made a big mistake in allowing them to keep that radioactive cable around & then having to pay restitution as a result.

[arrow719]

Originally Posted by Mojave

OK, here’s another. The bomb and missile stories will have to wait.
This is a sad story and wouldn’t be scary if it weren’t true, but it is.
Back in 1987 I got a job and moved to the very small and remote town of Tonopah, Nevada. My company had an older gentleman who was in charge of training, including orientation for new employees. This man, Don, and his wife kind of took pity on the young single guy from Texas who didn’t know anybody. We became good friends and to this day he is still one of the finest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. He was the retired principal of the local high school and an icon for hundreds of miles. He shared many stories with me from his life in the area. He told me about how his teenage buddies used to camp in a cave while hunting in the mountains. One particular cave became known as the Gatecliffe Shelter which the Gatecliffe point is named after. He and his wife had a nice little collection of artifacts and is part of the reason I got interested in the first place.
Anyway, one evening while I was waiting for a softball game to start that I was playing in, he came up to me and told me this story. The softball fields were located adjacent to the high school next to the track and field area. Around the track was a fence I was sitting on. This fence was made from sections of railroad ties mounted vertically in the ground as posts. Near the top of each post was a hole drilled through and heavy steel cable about an inch or so in diameter strung through them all the way around the field. As I was sitting there rocking back and forth on this cable he told me about the time back in the 50s when the Air Force did a lot of nuclear tests. Most tests were underground. But they needed to detonate some above ground to evaluate the blast force. Don told me that when they did that at night it would light up the sky like it was noon. For many of these tests they built tall scaffolds hundreds of feet tall to put the bombs on. They got to the point that they needed to be higher. They decided to suspend the hydrogen bombs from hot air balloons. You probably know where I’m going with this now. The cable around the track was one that suspended one of those H-bombs. A bunch of kids went out and found it in the desert and brought it to town on a flatbed. When the Air Force found out they came and cleaned it but let them keep it.
Since then a new high school was built. I have no idea if the old cable is still there or not. But apparently many of those kids died of various cancers over the following years. The government was still paying restitution to families in the area.
There is a book about one of my favorite areas that I’ve commented on in a few threads.
“Railroad Valley: Too Tough for Others, Just Right for Us”
The last chapter talks about what some of the locals dealt with there. If that doesn’t scare you, nothing will.

A lot of people in southern Utah got cancer from all that testing too. They called them the down winders because the stuff would get in the jet stream then fall all over Nevada and Utah. There's another book about it also it's called The Day We Bombed Utah. This is what gave John Wayne the cancer that killed him as he was filming a movie in southern Utah. You know that radioactive stuff is still around in places, makes me nervous sometimes.

[Mojave]

I've heard about the cluster around St. George. There was another cluster in Fallon a few years ago. I used to go up there pretty regularly for work. When the cluster news got out, everybody that could move did. I knew a lot of officers that commuted all the way from Reno because of it. I don't know if they ever figured it out.

[Mojave]

I found the time to scan one very old 35 mm pic so it is scratchy and grainy. I am going out of town for several days so I wanted to get at least one done. This is an air-to-air missile that "lawn-darted" into the ground. Almost the entire missile is buried. Just more oddball stuff in the desert.

[silver lake]

Great stories John and I love the picture!

[Mojave]

Thanks Dana. I was just flipping through a shoe box full of old pictures. I really need to get busy scanning.

[DesertWalker]

Mojave, did you ever visit those pink buildings, just north of town, by the bowling alley?...lol. Tonopah is an interesting place, part of the town is built on old mine tailings. Been there, and at, Blair, Millers, and Goldfield, a number of times, metal detecting and digging in the old dumps.

[Mojave]

You mean good ol' Bobby's Buckeye Bar?
Never went in even though it was still open when I lived there. That place scared me.

[DesertWalker]

Yep, that's it..lol. It has been closed every time I have been there in the last 10 years. Think it was closed down after all the military work thingy was done there. We were driving out there a few years ago. Stopped at the last long stretch of road going in for a break. There were tracers and all kinds of fireworks in the sky over the secret base. Wish I would have gotten some photos.