A code name Trinity, the bomb test early on July 16, 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico was the first large-scale atomic weapon test in the history.
At the almost same time more than 1900 miles away from Alamogordo, in Rochester, New York (the headquarters of Kodak, a flood of complaints came in from (business) customers who had recently purchased sensitive X-ray film from the company.
What a beauty! Photo by: Jack Aeby
We all know that nuclear bomb testing is shady business... yes?
If you are behind the curtain and sworn to secrecy... you are not going to go there.
This pretty much sums it up:
The fogging of Kodak's film and the Trinity test in New Mexico were eerily connected, revealing some chilling secrets about the nuclear age.
It all started when Kodak had a problem with its packaging. X-ray film is highly sensitive and subject to ruin due to dirt, scratches, light exposure and almost anything. Proper packaging and protection is essential to make sure the films get from manufacturing plants to the customer safely.
According to an article Webb wrote in 1949 for the American Physical Society:
The paper and cardboard used for packaging in the '40s were often salvaged from wartime manufacturing plants where radium-based instruments were also produced.
All they knew at first was that the films were ruined for sure. They were trying to figure it out in the middle of the chaotic situation. After ruling out that the films were not contaminated from the manufacturing plants or any common source, a shocking discovery was made:
One of these mills was located along the Wabash River in Vincennes, Indiana; it specialized in producing strawboard, used as a stiffener board between sheets of film. When Webb investigated the mysterious fogging in 1945, he found that it originated not from the X-ray film itself but the packaging, which he tracked to this particular mill, and specifically, the production run of strawboard from August 6, 1945. After testing the radioactive material on the strawboard, he discovered—rather alarmingly—that the spots on the film were not caused by radium nor any other naturally occurring radioactive material, but "a new type radioactive containment not hitherto encountered." What was this unknown radioactive material, he must have wondered, and what was it doing in southwest Indiana?
...and so on it goes :) Read the end and the whole story here:
What a beauty... Photo by: Samat Jain
Source: