Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie

The Incredible History of America's Development of Nuclear Weapons
Contains Top Secret Atomic Bomb Footage Declassified for this Motion Picture

"'Trinity and Beyond' is a factually solid, visually stunning, informative documentary."
Emanuel Levy, Daily Variety

"Seeing a cannon fire a bomb in the Nevada desert or a detonation in space is enough to recommend this disturbing but explosively thought-provoking cinematic experience."
David Hunter, Hollywood Reporter

The Top Secret, strange and visually compelling history of the design, production and testing of Atomic Hydrogen Bombs

Narrated by William Shatner
The Atomic Bomb Movie features an original score performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra

The Atomic Bomb Movie features an interview with Dr. Edward Teller, the "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb", and one of the most controversial figures of the 20th century.

This award-winning production also features an amazing explosion segment that must be seen with 3D glasses to truly take in its full impact.

The Atomic Bomb Movie is an extraordinary production that provides an important understanding of events, and the creations of technologies, that have changed the world forever.

The Atomic Bomb Movie features extremely rare film segments from top secret government archives and startling footage of nuclear bomb tests conducted by Great Britain and China, plus the largest atomic explosion ever created, by Russia.

Whether being exploded under the ocean, suspended by a balloon, shot from a cannon or even detonated in space, these weapons are capable of devastating destruction - the quality of these images is as startling as they are remarkable.

Renowned special effects filmmaker Peter Kuran offers up amazing film footage chronicling this era in human history, during atmospheric testing of Atomic and Thermonuclear Devices by the United States. The quality of these images is remarkable and required the development of a new film restoration system to preserve these haunting images for generations to come.

Dakota Test (Redwing)

The Nuclear Battlefield - Below

The M65 280mm Atomic Cannon

The Atomic Cannon, an M65-280mm, is 42 feet long and weighs 42,500 lbs. It can throw a shell 20 miles

The first atomic cannon went into service in 1952, and was deactivated in 1963. A single 280mm shell was fired seven miles at the Nevada Test site on May 25, 1953 as part of the Grable Series - Upshot/Knothole. The shell detonated 500 feet in the air and yielded a 15 kiloton explosion (there's an amazing government film of the cannon firing and the mushroom cloud footage, included in the Atomic Bomb Movie).

Twenty Atomic Cannon were manufactured; at least 8 appear to have survived the Cold War and are on public display today. The largest atomic cannon sits in a public park in Junction City, Kansas, on loan (permanent) from the Smithsonian. You can find the others at:

Yuma Proving Ground, Yuma, Arizona
 Rock Island Arsenal, Memorial Field, Rock Island, Illinois
 Atomic Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico
 Fort Sill Museum, Oklahoma
 Virginia War Memorial Museum, Newport News, Virginia
Watervliet Arsenal, Watervliet, NY -- where they were all manufactured

The Popularity of the Atomic Cannon in the 1950's - Below Examples of Children's Models

Hiroshima - 69 Years After Zero Hour

On August 6, 1945 the United States dropped “Little Boy" at Hiroshima
The first of only two nuclear bombs ever used in warfare

The bomb was dropped from an American B-29 Superfortress, known as Enola Gay, at 0815 local time
The plane's crew say they saw a column of smoke rising and intense fires springing up

President Truman, announcing the Hiroshima news from the cruiser, USS Augusta, in the mid-Atlantic, said the device was more than 2,000 times more powerful than the largest bomb used to date.

Hiroshima, was the 'success' of Little Boy, a simple atomic bomb. On day four, Nagasaki experienced the technological triumph of Fat Man, a more sophisticated design. Five days later came what the official Air Force history calls the “grand finale,” a 1,000-plane raid (no mean logistical achievement) attacking Japan’s cities and killing many thousands of people, with leaflets falling among the bombs reading “Japan has surrendered”.

President Truman

Hiroshima before the Atom Bomb

Crew of the Enola Gay (B29 Aircraft that Dropped the Hiroshima Atom Bomb)

The plane’s navigator and last surviving member of the crew, Theodore Van Kirk, died just a week before the 69th anniversary of Hiroshima, at the age of 93.

Before his death, Van Kirk told the Associated Press that while the mission went perfectly, and that he believed the bombing which killed some 140,000 people actually saved lives in the long run, he felt slightly conflicted.

“I personally think there shouldn't be any atomic bombs in the world — I'd like to see them all abolished,” Van Kirk said.

Hiroshima - Cherry Blossoms Today

Bikini Marshal Islands Pacific Atoll - Operation Crossroads

In July 1946 on Bikini Atoll, the United States tests two Atomic Bombs - code named "Operation Crossroads"
These were the fourth and fifth atomic bombs ever detonated on Earth

“An outstanding achievement on all levels… an extraordinarily perceptive, haunting and informative documentary. It presents itself with quiet conviction but its under-lying passion burns in our minds and souls… an enviable artistic contribution.”
- Los Angeles Times

“A remarkable documentary collage… The awesome beauty of the explosions."
- London Times

The Most Terrifying and Unbelievable Story of the Nuclear Age

Radio Bikini is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning (and Oscar nominated) documentary film about an operation to test nuclear weapons conducted by the United States. Staged at a remote Pacific atoll called Bikini in the summer of 1946, the tests (Operation Crossroads) were also one of the first great ‘media events’ of the modern age.

Using rare and mostly never-before-seen archival footage, the film unfolds through the eyes of the elderly chief of the Bikinians, Kilon Bauno, and a former American serviceman, John Smitherman, who was there. Radio Bikini combines ‘live’ radio broadcasts from Bikini in 1946 with footage of the entire operation, recreating a feeling of the event as it happened in a way that is both haunting and surreal.

As the drama of this bizarre experiment unfolds, we witness glimpses of the U.S. Government’s never-completed attempt to produce a propaganda film about it. Ultimately, Radio Bikini is an allegorical portrait of a naive world at the dawn of a new era.

Produced by British film maker Robert Stone

1988 (Color and B&W) 56 minutes

Delving into historic archives, Stone has unearthed some sobering, formerly classified material that serves as the body of Radio Bikini. The U.S. government spared no expense to capture every possible second from every conceivable angle (apparently half the world's supply of film stock was consigned for it) of what was to be the definitive propaganda film of the era. It was never made but footage wound up in the newsreels. Now, more than 40 years later, the it is used for a purpose contrary to its original intent.

The Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands is picked as the Location for Two Tests
An Airburst Bomb and an Underwater Explosion
Hundreds of military men, scientists, soldiers, and journalists travel to the remote paradise to witness the destructive power of nuclear energy

USS Saratoga Aircraft Carrier
The Saratoga had it's bottom blown out by the underwater Baker Test
It sits on the bottom of Bikini Lagoon to this day

Underwater Test Baker - Bikini Atoll

Bikini Island is still too radioactive to sustain human and plant life!

Islanders Afraid to go Home - 60 years after Bikini Atoll H-bomb
Basic distrust of United States persists, 6 decades after 1954 Hydrogen Bomb Test
The World Heritage Committee, on August 1, 2010 at its 34th session in Brazil, inscribed the Bikini Atoll Nuclear Test Site on the World Heritage List

The Marshall Islands marked 60 years since the devastating US hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, with angry exiled residents saying they were too fearful to ever go home!

When United States government scientists declared Bikini safe for resettlement, some residents were allowed to return in the early 1970s. But they were removed again in 1978 after ingesting high levels of radiation from eating local foods grown on the former nuclear test site.

"After they were exposed like that I can never trust what the United States tells us," said Kramer, adding that she wants justice for the generations forced to leave.

USS Apogon Submarine

Operation Crossroads - Nuclear Test Fleet

Giant Tailed Stag Beetles_Bikini Atoll

Marshall Islands Sues over Nuclear Arms

The Marshall Islands was the site of Devastating Nuclear Tests in the mid-20th Century

The tiny Marshall Islands is dragging the United States and eight other nuclear-armed countries to the UN's highest court for failing to halt the nuclear arms race and rid the world of atomic weapons

China, North Korea, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, Britain and the United States are accused of "not fulfilling their obligations with respect to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." The government based in the Marshall Islands capital of Majuro said by not stopping the nuclear arms race, the countries continued to breach their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- even if the treaty has not been by signed by some like India and Pakistan.

The United States “destroyed an entire country that we were not at war with, that we were at peace with. Not only did they blow up these islands, but they contaminated all these people. It’s a very unknown story here.”

As early as 1956, the Atomic Energy Commission had characterized the Marshall Islands as:
“By far the most contaminated place in the world”

“Nuclear Savage” is a recent documentary film that explores American nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands, 1946-1958, and particularly the secret Project 4.1: an American experiment in exposing Pacific Islanders to overdoses of radiation, deliberate human radiation poisoning, just to get better data on this method of maiming and killing people. The public broadcasting establishment has spent more that two years keeping this story off the air.

The term “savage” is used to refer to people from primitive cultures, but this documentary shows how savagery reaches new levels with the advent of advanced technology. In the 1950s, the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, vaporizing islands and exposing entire populations to fallout. The people of Rongelap received near fatal doses of radiation from one of these tests, and were then moved to a highly contaminated island to serve as guinea pigs to test the affects of radiation on humans for almost 30 years, where they suffered from recurring cancers and birth defects that have affected multiple generations. This cynical act by the U.S. government was conducted with such arrogant racism that without incredible archival footage and shocking secret documents, the story would seem to be unbelievable.

The Atomic Cafe Documentary Film Footage (1982)

Nuclear Insanity at the Birth of the Atomic Age
The Goldmine of Absurdity

If this movie has a message beyond its obvious one (that nuclear war will be devastating and our civil defenses pathetic) it is a rather more subtle one. It acts as a reminder that, in the 1950s the government at least spent a good deal of its resources on addressing the possibility of nuclear war, however uselessly. Today, the government maintains a discreet silence about this awesome and awful subject.

The makers of The Atomic Cafe sifted through thousands of feet of Army films, newsreels, government propaganda films and old television broadcasts to come up with the material in their film, which is presented without any narration, as a record of some of the ways in which the bomb entered American folklore. There are songs, speeches, politicians, and frightening documentary footage of guinea-pig American troops shielding themselves from an atomic blast and then exposing themselves to radiation neither they nor their officers understood.

''One of the most beautiful sights ever seen by man'' is the way one enthusiastic United States Army chaplain describes the detonation of an atomic bomb, an event about to be witnessed for the first time by his men in the Nevada desert.

The Atomic Cafe focuses on the late 40's and early 50's, but it could not be more timely. It provides some background for nuclear-war optimism today.

Produced and Directed by Kevin Rafferty, Music Coordinator Rick Eaker, Distributed by the Archives Project Inc, Running Time: 88 minutes

Even if the Detonation of an A-bomb is one of the Most Beautiful sights ever seen by Man
It may also be Man's last sight of Anything

One of the few public figures who seems to take the peril seriously in The Atomic Cafe is President Dwight D. Eisenhower, shown in a clip of a speech in which he stresses that science has ''outrun'' our social, political and intellectual institutions.

Burt the Turtle, a cheerful cartoon character in a training film for children, demonstrates how he ducks and safely covers himself inside his shell whenever a firecracker explodes nearby - in this way to train children to crawl under their desks and hide their eyes as soon as they see the bright light of an Atom Bomb Detonation.

When changing winds blows radiation from a test toward a nearby town, residents are told to stay inside for an hour and not worry. And the list goes on. But, in one of the few examples of antinuclear footage used, spokesmen from Columbia University counter a government statement that people more than 12 miles from the center of a blast will be safe by noting that the firestorm would cover 2000 square miles, incinerating anyone in a fallout shelter in that area.

The Atomic Cafe proves that Authoritative, Official-looking Speakers don't always know what they're talking about!
Incidentally, the United States Postal Service had plans to issue emergency change-of-address cards in case of an all-out nuclear attack.

"Atomic Cafe"
Has been a popular name for Nightclubs and Coffee Houses

Nuclear War barely Averted in 1983

Stanislav Petrov served at a Command Center of the Soviet Missile Early Warning System outside Moscow
Command Center received reported launch data of five Nuclear Missiles, from United States Territory, on September 26, 1983
Petrov prevented a Nuclear War from being triggered, by Trusting his Judgment, and Ignoring his Direct Responsibilities

Deep inside Serpukhov-15, a secret bunker somewhere in the Soviet Union, military officers regularly monitored the early warning satellites. On September 26, 1983, Serpukhov-15 rotated its officers, putting Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov in charge of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System command and control post.

In the early hours of that morning, the Soviet Union's satellite system detected an incoming missile strike from the United States. The alarms sounding in Serpukhov-15 were deafening. Lt. Col. Petrov stood watching a red button flashing “Start” in bright lettering. Time was running out. Computer readouts suggested several missiles had been launched. The protocol for the Soviet military would have been to retaliate with a nuclear attack of its own.

If war had come, Soviet missiles would have destroyed Britain entirely, at least half of Germany and France, and America would have lost maybe 30 percent of its cities and infrastructure.

"This is the closest we’ve come to accidental nuclear war,” noted the director of the US Center for Defense Information, concerning the September 26th incident. A quickly escalating nuclear exchange could very well have emptied or destroyed each side’s remaining arsenals.

Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov

On August 29, 1949 at 7 am, the first Soviet nuclear bomb -- named First Lightning -- exploded in the steppe of eastern Kazakhstan, throwing up a huge mushroom cloud and dumping vast amounts of radioactive materials on the 1.5 million people living in the nuclear impact zone, which is the size of Belgium.

Kazakhstan Reels from Impact of Nuclear Tests, 20 Years On

The provincial and otherwise unremarkable town of Semey, whose name was changed four years ago, lies 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of the 18,400 square-kilometre (7,100 square-mile) nuclear testing site where the arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States began.

Although the site has been shut down for 20 years, Kazakhstan is still reeling from the effects of long-term nuclear testing. The Semipalatinsk region around the test site was subjected to the fallout from a total of 616 nuclear explosions over a period of 40 years.

The contamination at the site is scattered and levels have not changed significantly in the last 20 years.

Sitting in her tiny room at a home for the elderly in the eastern Kazakh city of Semey, Matushkina remembers the days when the loud blasts of nuclear tests several hundred kilometres away frightened everyone.

Almost every day, announcements on the radio at noon would say: 'Now there is going to be a test of nuclear weapons.' Everything would shake. The windows in my classroom were shattered by the shockwave from one of the blasts," Matushkina said.

Ahead of nuclear tests, the Soviet military warned the public to shut windows and stay at home or remain inside buildings, witnesses recall.

But one of those who decided to peep out of curiosity was Suakysh Iskakova, 77, a resident at the same home as Matushkina, who says she paid for it with her eye-sight. "When I was blinded from the blast, my uncle took me to see the doctor and the doctor said it was my own fault that I looked at the bright light from the explosion," Iskakova said.