Australian Nuclear Attack?

[SpyMoose]

I don't usually buy into much on this part of the sciforums, but I do have a fondness of the more earthcentric conspiracy theories. So when I was reading "In a Sunburned Country" a book by travel journalist Bill Bryson I was overwhelmed with paranoia at a bit in the beginning of his book (which was mainly describing how little attention the US pays to events in Australia) which accused that the new age religion/terrorist organization Aum Shinrikyo may have detonated a nuclear device in a western region of the Australian outback.
Bryson claims that at 11:30pm on May 23 1993 seismographs in the Pacific region recorded an incident consistent with a mining explosion, but 170 times more powerful than any ever recorded in that region. Witnesses described fireballs, bright flashes and the like. The shock could have been a meteor strike, but there was no observable crater.
All this was more or less forgotten until Aum conducted its infamous sarin gas attack in a Tokyo subway in 1995, and all the investigation that stirred up. It was discovered that Aum owned 500,000 acres in the desert near the alleged site of the explosion, and a raid of their compound there yielded evidence that they had been mining uranium, and had recently recruited two nuclear engineers from the former soviet union.

Now, Bryson's point in his book (which is not about conspiracies, but about Australia) is that he could find no Australian news articles about the incident, and only a hand full of American ones. He used it as a point about how little attention America pays to Australia, shouldn't this have been urgent world news after all? A doomsday cult that may have nuclear capabilities? In his book he claims he has never found any follow up on this story, and to this day does not know even if anyone was ever sent out there with a Geiger counter to check for fallout.

I don't know either. I can't find credible reporting on this subject. Lots of new age hoakyness abounds about how Aum must be perfecting weapons based off of Tesla's work, but that’s all the usual groundless gibbering conspiracy nuttiness. I'm interested if anyone follows Aum in the news, or knows anything more that I have not found about it that has been verified by independent news media, or even published by government organizations. I can't understand why this was never huge news. If terrorists may have detonated a nuclear device in MY country, I think maybe there would be just a bit of a media frenzy, or at least a very high profile cover up by our government (Which would really serve the same purpose. Our government is not very good at anything it does people).

 

[sideshowbob]

If there were no Australian news articles, maybe that's because it was a non-event. If there were a handful of American articles, maybe the Americans are paying too much attention to Australia, at least when it comes to "odd" stories.

Why are people so concerned about terrorists developing "new" weapons? Aren't the old ones deadly enough?

And finally, why is this thread in the "pseudoscience" forum if there's anything to it?

 

[SpyMoose]

http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/prophet/1.html?sect=22

Here we go, a great article in 29 chapters about this Aum cult. It dosnt mention the strage explosion, but does state that sarin nerve gas was tested in Australia before the 1995 Tokyo attack.

Also, my post is about existing weapons, I don't buy the Tesla idea at all. This is in pseudoscience because of the unconfirmed nature of the potential atomic blast. It dosnt really fit into WE&P or history neatly, so I decided to drop it here. It is fairly outlandish, even if what I'm reading seems to indicate it was quite possible. This cults influence extended into the Russian national security council for petes sake! The Russians taught them how to make the sarin, maybe they taught them how to make a nuke too.

Read the article, you will probably find a lot of places in it where you wish for more elaboration. It definately seems possible to me they detonated a nuke, and they are still functioning as a cult today under the name Aelph.

If, as this article claims, it is established fact that the cullt used sarin in Austrailia, and acted even more brazenly in Japan, I can't immagine why they are allowed to exist any longer. Its a facinating subject.

 

[phlogistician]

Sounds completely bogus. If the Aum sect had developed a nuclear weapon, they'd have used it, not wasted it in some test in the desert. They could have tested it in a city, and caused some mayhem.

If a nuke had gone off, that area would have been crawling with the military afterwards. There's no way an event that powerful wouldn't get noticed, there are spy satellites that record the IR from every plane that takes off around the whole globe, a nuke would have been noticed. Seismographs would have confirmed the detonation, and people would have seen it, and felt the shockwave. It would have made the papers.

Also, complexity. Sarin is fairly easily made by someone with knowledge of Chemistry, and the precursors are easily available. Nuclear bombs however are pretty hard to make and source the components for.

So I'm not buying this one.

 

[Stryder]

With the constant growth of the population the whole world knows that it's in ever increasing demand for power. I suggest that if the AUM has a mine for radioactives, it's not just for weaponry but more for the demand of nucleur reactor-grade material for power plants.

Such mines aren't going to be run by small mining companies with a handful of security staff, for instance if the site was to go critical then the military would have to lock down the area. Thats why I suggest the military has control of such sites to maintain that any such event doesn't happen.

As for Seismic explosions, I did theorise that it would be possible to locate a particular deposit base of a mineral like Iron ore (or similar) and detonate a nuclear device in the vein. Doing so would potentially generate nuclear grade material from the original vein, therefore increasing the material you have present in your own country.

 

[blackholesun]

Sounds like it was an air-burst meteorite to me.

 

[phlogistician]

Stryder, there's no way a mine is going to 'go critical'. Ore is very low in fissionable material, so there's no way you can get a critical mass together from ore. The only way that could happen is after it's been refined. Even then, as small amounts are centrifuged out, it's incredibly unlikely a critical mass is ever going to come together. Here's the skinny ;

"The most complicated issue to be addressed in making of an atomic bomb was the production of ample amounts of "enriched" uranium to sustain a chain reaction. At the time, uranium-235 was very hard to extract. In fact, the ratio of conversion from uranium ore to uranium metal is 500:1. Compounding this, the one part of uranium that is finally refined from the ore is over 99% uranium-238, which is practically useless for an atomic bomb. To make the task even more difficult, the useful U-235 and nearly useless U-238 are isotopes, nearly identical in their chemical makeup. No ordinary chemical extraction method could separate them; only mechanical methods could work."

(source: http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa050300a.htm)

On criticality;

"For weapons applications, the concentration U-235 must be much higher to create a condition called "prompt criticality". This means that it is critical with only the neutrons directly produced in the fission process. For U-235 enriched to "bomb-grade" uranium, the critical mass may be as small as about 15 kg in a bomb configuration."

(source: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/moder.html)

So 15Kgs of U-235, gets centrifuged from 1500kgs of refined Uranium, which comes from 750,000 kgs of ore. Unlikely to end up together in one place I think, and suffer a chain reaction.

As for sub-terranean nuclear explosions yielding more fissionable material? Just how is that supposed to work? Releasing neutrons via a fission reaction may decrease the amount of fissionable material locally, as neutrons hitting nucleii in the ore could start them into a fission reaction, depleting the ore. Of course, once it's stinking with radioactivity, how are you going to mine it?

 

[Stryder]

Well Phlogistician, the idea is placed into the right forum to begin with right?
It's just a quaint little theory of what could potentially be achieved, as for "critical" I didn't just mean extraction I meant processing too.

There is also the question as to if it's actually Uranium or Plutonium ore thats used for Nuclear reactor cores ( I think Uranium at a particular quality is only used in weapons manufacture, not that any needs to make anymore of them).

In fact the whole problem with either Nuclear plants or weapons (or of course Naval Submarinal vessels engines) is they all eventually need to be disposed of when they are too radioactive for use or too depleted. This usually incurs a cost that might of not been necessary if it had been thought about before hand as to whether the nuclear core or missile was actually needed in the first place.

 

[SpyMoose]

Sounds completely bogus. If the Aum sect had developed a nuclear weapon, they'd have used it, not wasted it in some test in the desert. They could have tested it in a city, and caused some mayhem.

I dissagree, there are plenty of sound reasons to create a "proof of concept" nuclear device before attempting to smuggle one into a major city without knowing how effective it will be.

If a nuke had gone off, that area would have been crawling with the military afterwards.

I would think so too, which is what makes this weird.

a nuke would have been noticed. Seismographs would have confirmed the detonation, and people would have seen it, and felt the shockwave. It would have made the papers.

Again I dissagree. We had to wait till formal public announcments from both India and Pakistan before discovering they had conducted nuclear weapon tests. Also seismograph readings are exactly what tipped anyone off that this had happened. Later witensses were found who describe a massive fireball, but this was deep in the unpopulated Austrailian outback, the witensses were principaly truckers on a highway in the area. And it did make the papers, just not in as big a way as you might think something like this would.

Also, complexity. Sarin is fairly easily made by someone with knowledge of Chemistry, and the precursors are easily available. Nuclear bombs however are pretty hard to make and source the components for.

Acording to the information I have found, IE the long article I likned to, Aum had been experementing with many deadly chemical weapons and failing consistantly to make an effective agent. It was only after thier leader made a trip to Russia and gained converts in Russian national security that they finaly developed a formula that worked (as well as a factory to produce ak-74 assault rifles) among other things.

Stryder, without going on a rant about your post, I would like to ask you to keep out of this thread from now on.

 

[phlogistician]

The only reason to detonate a weapon like that would be as a demonstration of power to extort world governments. Otherwise it's a waste of time and money. Check those numbers on how much ore needs mning to get enough material to make a bomb. That's incredibly costly.

The intelligence community knew India and Pakistan were conducting work towards making a nuke, and knew exactly when they were tested. The formal statements were posturing. You are aware of the tense relationship between India and Pakistan? They're having an arms race. That was what the declarations were about.

If a weapon had been detonated above ground, there would be residual radiation, and fission products (radioactive Iodine) to be detected. In fact, if a weapon had been detonated above ground, the increase in radiation would have been detected by any monitoring station on the planet. The first alert we got about the Soviet Chernobyl disaster in the UK, was the radiation detectors being tripped at one of our own nuclear power plants!

Also, Australia in non-nuclear, and proud of it. There would have been an outrage if a weapon had been detonated. They had enough of that when weapons were tested there.

So to me, it all sounds far too bogus.