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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Radioactive sheep bolster nuclear weapon test claim against Israel, researchers say
2018-08-14
[FoxNews] Newly discovered data from radioactive sheep provides strong evidence
...not proof, though..
that a mysterious “double flash” detected almost 39 years ago near a remote island group was a nuclear explosion.

Ever since the flash was observed by a U.S. “Vela” satellite orbiting above Earth in September 1979, there’s been speculation that it was produced from a nuclear weapon test by Israel.
Speculation.
International researchers in the journal Science & Global Security analyzed previously unpublished results of radiation testing at a U.S. lab of thyroid organs from sheep in southeastern Australia in order to make their determination.

The flash was located in the area of Marion and Prince Edward islands, which are in the South Indian Ocean about halfway between Africa and Antarctica.

“A new publication sheds further light on the Vela Incident of 1979,” said Professor Nick Wilson, of Otago University at Wellington, who highlighted the findings but was not involved with the study itself. “[The research] adds to the evidence base that this was an illegal nuclear weapons test,
...adds to the evidence...
very likely
..but not definitely...
to have been conducted by Israel with assistance from the apartheid regime in South Africa.”

Wilson, an epidemiologist and member of the Australia-based Medical Association for the Prevention of War, said the test would have violated the Limited Test Ban Treaty signed in 1963
Israel has not ratified the thing, and is therefore not bound by it, according to Wikipedia. She does not stand alone in this — China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States have signed but not ratified the Treaty; India, North Korea and Pakistan have not signed it — which means the entire treaty is not in force anywhere.
and urged the United Nations to mount a full inquiry.

The researchers conclude that iodine-131, which is an unstable radioactive form of the element iodine found in the thyroids of some Australian sheep, “would be consistent with them having grazed in the path of a potential radioactive fallout plume from a [September 22, 1979] low-yield nuclear test in the Southern Indian Ocean.”

Thyroid samples from sheep killed in Melbourne were regularly sent to the U.S. for testing—monthly in 1979 but also in the 1950s and 1980s, researchers say.

According to a report in the New Zealand Herald, the sheep had been grazing in an area hit by rain four days after the flash incident was observed, which would have been in the downwind path from the suspected explosion site.

Researcher also said the detection of a “hydroacoustic signal” from underwater listening devices at the time is another piece of evidence pointing to a nuclear test.

Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of a nuclear program, dismissed the claim that it was responsible for the 1979 incident.

Israel’s Ambassador to New Zealand, Itzhak Gerberg, told the Herald, when asked if Israel was responsible for the explosion: “Simply a ridiculous assumption that does not hold water.”

However, the country's former Knesset Speaker, Avrum Burg, told a conference in 2013 that “Israel has nuclear and chemical weapons” and called for public discussion.

Commenting on the findings, U.S. nuclear weapons expert Leonard Weiss of Stanford University said in the online Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that the “important” new evidence “removes virtually all doubt”
...virtually does not prove Israel dunnit, guys...
that the flash was a small-yield nuclear explosion.

Weiss added that there was “growing circumstantial evidence” that it was conducted by Israel.
Or possibly not Israel, circumstantial evidence being so very dreadfully circumstantial.
“Israel was the only country that had the technical ability and policy motivation to carry out such a clandestine test,” he said.
Prove it, Expert Weiss. All you people have done so far is claim a thing appears to have happened, and use a good deal of handwavium to support your contention that therefore it was Israel.
Posted by:Skidmark

#7  I have been wrong more than occasionally, and 3dc provides good arguments that I am wrong on the historical facts (thanks for posting those links here, Skidmark!). But the bottom line is that Israel is not subject to the treaty, and therefore the UN has no business investigating.

Interesting, too, that Taiwan is not mentioned...
Posted by: trailing wife   2018-08-14 13:04  

#6  Atlas World Press Review started it's long down hill slide shortly after that article. A hindu swami who preached levitation bought the magazine and moved it to a small college he bought in Iowa and credibility tumbled. The remnant of the magazine still exists as a the poorly updated and maintained neo-left web site: www.worldpress.org
Posted by: 3dc   2018-08-14 10:29  

#5  At the time the magazine "Atlas World Press Review" made quite a few claims about it. Even in the day few read that magazine. It had regular articles from the likes of Kissinger and even Brezhnev. The Atlas article suspected that it was a 3 way test involving the 3 shunned countries (Taiwan, South Africa & Israel). The Atlas article claimed Taiwan did the test monitoring electronics, South Africa supplied the ships, planes and test infrastructure and Israel the hi-tech bomb. The authors believed the bomb was hi-tech because of it's particular traces and indicators suggested an enhanced radiation device like a neutron bomb. It was pointed out that this fit quite well with the needs of both Israel and South Africa both who might need to deal with large concentration of hostile internal populations close to citizens and not particularly well with Taiwan's strategic needs. The belief was that Taiwan was more of a technically interested observer as they really needed something more destructive in their tool kit.

All this is neither here nor there and good luck finding online or in a paper a copy of the Atlas article. They never had a large distribution and I threw my copy away a month or 2 after it came out.
Posted by: 3dc   2018-08-14 10:09  

#4  Maybe they were testing the population-control possibilities of radioactive sheep.
Posted by: Bobby   2018-08-14 09:01  

#3  If a nuclear test had been done in the Marion and Prince Edward islands, we could test it in these islands now.
Posted by: bernardz   2018-08-14 05:31  

#2  Glow in the dark sheep - Arabs rubbing their hands with glee...
Posted by: Raj   2018-08-14 02:54  

#1  Declassified documents indicate Israel and South Africa conducted nuclear test in 1979

The Vela Incident: South Atlantic Mystery Flash in September 1979 Raised Questions about Nuclear Test

TW approved links courtesy of 3DC.
Posted by: Skidmark   2018-08-14 02:20  

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