" It was pitch shameful at night , could n’t see a hand in front of your face , " said Cecil Cole , " and at that second , the whole Pacific fall up like a flash bulb , just like an electronic newsflash , bright — bright as daytime . If you could imagine night turn into mid - day for just a rip second . And then the sky turned green for about a second . Was n’t anticipate that , either . "
As Cole continue to learn , the silent lightness show flash from green to shine cherry and then slowly faded aside . " It was a breathtaking view , " said Cole during aninterview with NPR .
But it was n’t New Year ’s Eve , and it was n’t the Fourth of July . It was the summer of 1962 during the tense year of the Cold War , when the U.S. war machine exploded a 1.4 megatonhydrogen bomb250 miles ( 402.3 kilometers ) over the Pacific Ocean and created thelargest human - drive sluttish show in story .
For nearly an hr , attestant from localization as far - vagabond as New Zealand and Hawaii see the night sky morph from color to color — and sometimes exhibit rainbow grade insignia — as the after - effects of a thermonuclear warhead 100 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima ripped through the atmosphere . The project , code - namedStarfish Prime , aim the dud to detonate within theVan Allen radiation belt , magnetized zone circling the solid ground which had been discovered only a few years sooner . These " bang " are formed by strong magnetized fields that hold eminent - get-up-and-go particles in place .
The radiation unloosen by the atomic number 1 bomb ’s blowup create an extension of the Van Allen belts that resulted incolorful sky . The explosion free electrons that collided with particles in the Earth ’s atmosphere . As the negatron collided with atomic number 7 , for example , the encroachment created blue and purple . Collisions with oxygen made yellow and green .
The July 9 , 1962 , attack was n’t the first metre a atomic number 1 or nuclear bomb had been explode in the Earth ’s standard atmosphere to canvass the effects .
The U.S. and Russian militaries had been exploding bombs of various potentiality in the domain ’s sky since 1958 , and the news that another would explode over the Pacific Ocean on July 9 , 1962 , launched responses that ranged from protests to viewing party . hotel in Hawaii plan rooftop " rainbow look on party " to view the blast , while citizens in Great Britain tone " No more tests ! " outside the U.S. embassy .
When the July flack occurred , its radiation snuffed out about seven satellite in Earth ’s orbit . The detonation also make anelectromagnetic pulsethat disrupted electricity and telephone set overhaul in Hawaii , which was nearly 1,000 mile ( 1,609.3 klick ) away from blast key .
The 1962 release also left a hold up impact on Cecil Cole , a research scientist sour for the U. S. government who take in the impact from his post on a remote Pacific Island .
" I realize when I saw that affair go off that there really was n’t a safe place on Earth to try those thing , " he said in the 2010 NPR interview , " and I really did n’t want to participate in that anymore . "
Not long after the explosion , Cole quit his position to become a university professor . By mid - November 1962 , both the U.S. and Soviet governments had ceasedhigh - altitude atomic testing , and citizenry in the ' 60s had to create their own psychedelic light display .
