The Origin Of Weird: Atomic Bombs Fall on North Carolina, 1961 Goldsboro Incident

A midnight breakup over rural North Carolina. Two hydrogen bombs sheared from a disintegrating B-52. And one small switch that kept the East Coast from waking to a mushroom cloud. We dive into the Goldsboro incident of 1961, where a routine Cold War alert flight turned into one of the closest brushes with accidental nuclear detonation in U.S. history.

We walk through the tense chain of events: the fuel leak, the low-altitude emergency approach, and the violent structural failure that scattered wreckage across fields near Faro. You’ll hear the gripping survival stories—parachutes failing and restarting, a pilot climbing out a cockpit window mid-breakup—and the surreal aftermath where a soot-covered airman was briefly arrested at his own base. Then we unpack how the Mark 39 thermonuclear bombs behaved once torn free: one drifting under a parachute and completing every step of its arming sequence but the last, the other plummeting into mud before its timer could finish. The difference between devastation and a close call came down to a single arm/safe switch that stayed on safe.

From there, we examine the recovery: EOD teams combing the crater, securing the plutonium core, and digging more than 70 feet in search of a missing uranium secondary stage that remains buried to this day under a cotton field. We connect the technical dots—arming logic, failed redundancies, and Parker F. Jones’s blunt assessment that one low-voltage switch separated the United States from catastrophe—and trace how Goldsboro, along with accidents in Spain and Greenland, helped bring Operation Chrome Dome to an end in 1968. Along the way, we confront the uneasy truth about nuclear safety: complex systems can fail in complex ways, and deterrence carries its own hidden risks.

If stories like this fascinate you, stick with us for more strange origins and forgotten close calls. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend who loves Cold War history, and leave a review to help others find the show. Got a burning question or a wild historical theory? Hit us up on YouTube, X, Instagram, or Facebook, or email us at historybuffoonspodcast@gmail.com.

Transcript

Cold Open And Banter

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Oh, hey there.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Oh, hey there. How's it going today? Good. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:20

I'm well. We are uh the history of buffoons, and this is another origin of weird.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Number 31.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Yeah, I am Bradley. I am Kate. Yeah. How are you today? I think I might have asked that.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

I'm doing pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Awesome, awesome.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

It's cold outside.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

It is frigid outside. Frigid. And you know how much I don't mind cold? This is fucking cold.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

I mean, you're bald and you wear a hat, which is a first. A first. You're bald and you don't wear a hat.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Normally, no, never.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Today I saw you with a hat and I was like, oh shit, it must be really cold outside.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

My uh my boss yesterday at work said he came up to me and it almost sounded like he was joking, but he's like, make sure you wear something tomorrow. I'm like, okay. He's like, no, really. Seriously. I don't I don't normally wear I wear a polo in my my work pants, and that's usually what I wear for work. Even when it's like 12 degrees out, that's all I wear. Yeah. I don't wear I bring a sweatshirt with me just in case. Yeah. But literally, just a sweatshirt. So, anyways, it's fucking cold. It is. So, what do you got for us today on the origin of weird?

Introducing The Goldsboro Incident

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So, we are going to talk about the night that two atomic bombs fell on North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Okay. That happened?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

That happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

What year are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

We are talking about 1961.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

And actually, there was quite a few of these instances. Um, not this one in America, and then there's been a couple others, not in America.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Isn't that the year JFK was inaugurated?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

I believe that's right.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Could be. Anyways.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

I know enough just enough about JFK, but I don't I don't do numbers, so I don't do all of years.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Oh, I'm well aware of that. That that is uh very, very true on your part for saying that. So thank you for being transparent.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

You can see right through me. You can't see anyway John Cena.

Operation Chrome Dome Explained

SPEAKER_01 2:26

In the early hours of January 24th, 1961, a B-52G Strato Fortress bomber was flying a routine mission over Goldsboro, Goldsboro, North Carolina, as a part of the Operation Chrome Dome. Chrome Dome? Like me? Kind of, only shinier.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Only chrome year?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Chrome year.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

You know what's really weird? Okay. Transparency.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

The day we're recording this, the anniversary is 65 years tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Oh shit, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Wait a way to put that together. Wow. Like she said, she doesn't do numbers.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Like I said. But Operation Chrome Done was a Cold War program.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

That kept armed nuclear bombers at the ready. At the ready, in the air, flying 24-7. They did it for about eight years.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

24-7.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

That is weird that they would be like that. I mean, shit was tense back then. I mean, so I get it, but Jesus Christ. Yeah. Eight fucking.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

And then between North Carolina and then the other places that had these incidences that I'm going to talk about, we're like, maybe let's not do chrome dumb anymore.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Maybe we should shut that operation down.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

So it had a crew

Fuel Leak And Midair Breakup

SPEAKER_01 3:54

of eight, and they had been airborne for about 12 hours.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

When they noticed that their plane was starting to leak fuel.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

So they were carrying two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs, and Mark 39 is just like their serial number type of thing. Sure. So Mark 39 hydrogen bombs, each with a yield of about 3.8 megatons.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Roughly 250 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

That would have fucked some shit up.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Damn. So the B-52 was ordered back to base for an emergency landing, which is also in North Carolina. The base is also in North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

I figured as much, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Captain Walter Tullock, the aircraft commander, initially wanted to burn off fuel before landing to reduce the risk of an explosive landing. But as the bomber descended to about 5,000 feet on approach to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. Seymour Johnson. That's his name is funny. Um, things took a little bit of a turn. Yeah. The structural stress on the fuel weakened wing proved too much. And the B-52 started to break apart in mid-air.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Oh, damn.

Crew Ejections And Survival Stories

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Literally break apart, just disintegrate.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Yeah, I got that.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

So inside the aircraft, Tuluk sounded the bailout alarm as the plane began disintegrating. And of the eight crew members, five managed to eject and parachute down safely.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

What happened to the other three?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

One crewman ejected, uh, did not survive the landing. Oh shit. And two never managed to escape the plane.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's sad.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Yeah. So Lieutenant William R. Wilson, one of the survivors, described parachuting in the dark, um, saying, I don't know how it happened. I don't, I know when I landed in the field, I felt awfully good. Like I wanted to run. He was running on pure adrenaline at this point.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Oh, could you imagine? Yeah. Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

He wandered to a nearby fire um nope farmhouse for help.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

And when he told the owner homeowners he jumped out of an airplane, he said, quote, they thought at first I was a prowler. I must have been bad looking.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Oh, geez. Well, I mean, yeah, you get some random guy in a farmhouse, especially in the middle of nowhere. He was like, um, where'd you come from? Right, son? I I I jumped out of a plane. Say what now?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Another crewman, uh, Major Richard Dick Rarden, came down in a tree and then started hiking back through the rural back roads.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

One pilot, Captain Adam Maddox, survived without an ejection seat by literally climbing out of the cockpit window as the B-52 broke up.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

But he had no seat. He just literally crawled his way out.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Opened the window.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Sayonara.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Pretty much. Wow. So Maddox nearly didn't make it. His parachute initially failed to open.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

And the shock wave of the plane's explosion collapsed it briefly, but he did eventually get it to work and he obviously lived to tell the tale.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Clearly, yeah. Yes. That's crazy though. That would be fucking just like people are like, oh, go skydiving. It's in general. I'm like, no, go fuck yourself. I don't, I don't, I don't need to watch myself splat into the ground and then I'm pretty sure that my sister-in-law Lisa gave my brother a 30-year birthday gift of flying out of a plane.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yeah. I think he I think she gave him skydiving. It's his 30th birthday. I got a cake on mine.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

If if Sarah gave me that for a present, I'd file for divorce. Because I clearly you don't know me. Because fuck that. I I am not a huge heights person to begin with. And the older I get, the less heights I like. Yeah. Like I love going up in the mountains, but even like I don't walk as far to the edge as I used to when I was younger.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

And uh well, you don't have the balance anymore.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

What are you saying?

Bombs Separate And Fall

SPEAKER_02 8:15

I'll just have a beer. Um but uh I know there's nothing could I mean maybe a certain dollar amount, but it have to be pretty high, would get me up in a plane, but nothing else would. Yeah, literally nothing else would. Fuck that.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

I hear about too many people bouncing off the ground. And obviously you don't live.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

So in a weird twist, guards at the gate at the Air Force Base gate arrested um Captain Adam Maddox on the spot. Why? They thought this disheveled individual must have stolen a parachute from the Air Force.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Did he have no insignia, nameplate, nothing on his on this person?

SPEAKER_01 9:00

I would assume he did. Eventually he was completely cleared.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

We're like, oh yeah, you're one. Oh, dude, I know you. Oh, dude, I didn't see you with that that shit on your face or you know, soot or something, but fuck that would be like really, dude, guys, it's me.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah. Dude, it's Maddie. Natug.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

So when you said Richard Dick, whatever the last kind of is, did he go by Dick then? Okay, because I'm like, what kind of asshole parents would name their kid Richard Dick and then answer last name here?

SPEAKER_01 9:36

So while the surviving crew um were having like the craziest night of their lives, the B-52's broken pieces rained down across farms and woods near the little community of Pharaoh.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Pharaoh?

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Flaming wreckage set fields on fire, which is what a local farmer saw when he looked out of his window at his land.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

It's like, honey, come look at this.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah, he's like, it looked like a roaming candle flying through the sky and just landing in like in the dirt.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

So after crash, the cra if excuse me, as if a crashing bomber wasn't enough, there was another terrifying element to this story. The hydrogen bombs. The plane's two nuclear bombs were torn loose as the aircraft disintegrated. Oh boy. The centrifugal forces of the spinning bomber pulled, pulled, like it's got hands, pulled a release lanyard in the cockpit. Oh god. Exactly as it was designed to do if the crew had intentionally released the weapons.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

So the bombs didn't just fall out. The B-52 accidentally dropped its nuclear bombs as it broke apart because the system assumed that if the bomber was coming apart, these

On-The-Ground Recovery Efforts

SPEAKER_01 10:58

bombs were meant to be deployed.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

So bombs, as one weapons engineer said, are relatively dumb.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

They sort of think that if you drop the bomb out of the bomb bay, you must have intended to do that.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

So the two Mark 39 thermonu nuclear devices separated from the aircraft as if they were being intentionally used in war. Each bomb weighed over six tons and was nearly 12 feet long.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

That is insane.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

As they plummeted downward, one of the bombs, we'll call it number one.

SPEAKER_03 11:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Um, miraculo miraculously deployed its parachute. Oh. Mm-hmm. The mechanism sensed it had been released and did what it was supposed to do. Right. The first bomb drifted down relatively gently and lodged into the soft ground of a field. Sure. Coming to rest with its parachute um tangled in the trees.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

The bomb number two was not so kind.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

The parachute failed to deploy.

SPEAKER_03 12:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Weapon two fell like a rock straight down at nearly the speed of sound.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Oh, geez. I mean, I suppose, I mean, would you say 12 tons? No. Two two, twelve feet. Six tons. Six tons.

unknown 12:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

It slammed into a muddy field about half a mile from the other bomb and buried itself deep in the ground on impact.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Did it say how far deep it went?

SPEAKER_01 12:32

About five to ten feet deep, which five to ten seems like a kind of a wide range. I know it's only feet, but still I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Either way.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Yeah. Um, the bomb literally disintegrated into pieces and it scattered debris over like a huge area. So how did they not like detonate? Oh, I'll tell you. Oh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Do tell.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

So emergency teams from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and Exclusive Ordnance Disposal, the EOD units, rushed to the scene that night. Sure. Um, they found and they were trying to find and secure the two lost hydrogen bombs.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

So the fires from the crash and the chaos of scattered wreckage complicated a little bit of efforts. Um, but it was at night, and you know, which obviously didn't help. But by daybreak, they did locate both of the bombs. Okay. The first bomb hanging by its parachute was easy to spot, swinging from the trees with its nose poking into the dirt.

The One Switch That Saved Goldsboro

SPEAKER_01 13:31

The second bomb had driven itself deeply into a muddy field, leaving bits of high explosive and components strewn around a crater.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

EOD personnel carefully combed the site, recovering what they could. Incredibly, they found the central primary sphere of the second bomb, the plutonium-containing core of the weapon, intact. That's impressive. And unexploded, not too far away.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Not too far down. Sorry. Not too far down. Huge relief as any detonation of the conventional explosives could have scattered radioactive material.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

The Air Force announced that this nuclear core had been safely recovered and assured the public that both bombs were unarmed and had never posed a serious threat.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

So these were never armed to begin with. That's why they didn't technically do what they were supposed to do. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yeah. So on the surface, it appeared that aside from the tragic loss of the three crewmen in some smashed-up farmland, Goldsboro had dodged literally a nuclear bullet. Residents were told there was no risk of radiation, and curious onlookers who flocked to the crash sites were kept at bay due to the remaining high explosive hazards. Right. So behind the scenes, however, the Air Force and bomb experts were nervously examining the weapons to answer a critical question. Just how close were they to creating a nuclear detonation?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Yeah. How close? It was close. Like really close. Really close. Like a couple inches close.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Like a toggle.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

That's really close.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Like a light switch toggle. I don't know if you can see the light switch, but I mean it will be edited out. Light switch toggle.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

That was pure cinema.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Cinematic, I don't. When weapons specialists inspected bomb number one, they discovered the bomb had gone fully gone through its arming sequence in mid-air. The B-52 broke up and the bomb was flung free. It behaved exactly as a nuclear bomb would if deliberately dropped on a target.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

I guess I never knew that new nuclear bombs could behave.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

If they're engineered that way.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

But they're they're talking about it like it's a person or something.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Because the person from ChatGPT is a person. Whose name is Chippy.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Anyways.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

So the pulling of that lanyard initiated a sequence. Yeah. Internal switches were energized, the weapons triggers engaged, and a timer started taking down.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Okay. How long is the timer for, did it say?

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Yes. So by the time bomb

Bomb Two’s Impact And False Alarm

SPEAKER_01 16:20

number one hit the ground, it was ready to detonate. It even sent an electrical firing signal to ignite its nuclear core. The only thing that prevented a mushroom cloud from appearing over North Carolina was literally one switch, toggle, if you will, being in the safe position instead of armed.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

That's fucking wild.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

And I will get to that how many, how long it takes. I will get to that. The single saving grace was the bomb's arm safe switch. A low voltage trigger that remained, thankfully, in safe mode. And that last switch, if that last switch had flipped over to ARM, either by the breakup or an electrical short, we would have had a nuclear explosion on U.S. soil. The blast could have easily devastated a wide region of eastern North Carolina and dumped radioactive fallout over many downwind miles.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

And it's funny the way you worded that, it's not like we've never had a nuclear explosion in U.S. soil, but they did it in Nevada all the time.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Because, you know, that's where they tested a lot of shit. Like, hey, we'll go to the desert.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

But I mean, even back then, if it's farmland, but fuck.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Those are my crops.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

My cows got pulverized.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

The Air Force Initial Internal Report after the accident confirmed that bomb number one underwent a normal release sequence. Full operation of this weapon was prevented by the MC772 ARM safe switch. That's wild. The primary safe safety or safetying device. Sure. Meanwhile, other safety features that should have um added redundancy had failed or been bypassed by the accident.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Even safety, every safety mechanism except for one had failed. Just that one switch.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Could you imagine like wow, that would just be wild? Because I mean that would have blown a big ass fucking hole in North Carolina. How far are we talking from like um like Charlotte? Charlotte's in North Carolina, right? Yeah, Charlotte's in North, correct.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Let me let me see.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Because I'm just curious like what the distance would kind of be.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Because good lord. I mean, still again. Um farmland, but fucking hell. Because at least that radiation fallout could have, you know, the wind

What Went Missing Underground

SPEAKER_02 19:00

pick up. Fuck that would fuck a lot of people up.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

It would.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

It would.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

So my computer is effing up right now because it's using Yahoo and not Google, and it's I don't have the time. We'll look at it later. That's fine. No problem.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

I was just curious.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

But because it defaults to Yahoo, and I can't go to Google Maps because it's Yahoo. So like it would take too much time just to get there. Okay. So bomb number two, that same one that slammed into the ground at high speed. That one turned out to be less likely to detonate purely because it was destroyed by the impact so quickly.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

So its parachute never opened.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Yeah, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

So it didn't have time to complete the full arming sequence before before it buried itself in the mud.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

The timer on bomb number two had only run 12 seconds, and here's your answer out of a required 42. Second sequence before the crash interrupted everything.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

So if it would have hit 42, I would have exploded. Yes. If the safety triggers weren't in place and all that. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

So how how far was number one then?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Was that like so um I don't know? It might have counted down and it still was in that switch position.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Because the safety switch that one safety switch was on.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

So also bomb number two's arm safe switch stayed in safe as it fell.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

That's crazy that both of them did that. I mean, kind of designed for that, I guess. Yeah. But okay. Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

So initially, recovery crews feared that the conventional explosives in beer number two pri build beer bomb number two's primary might have detonated on impact. Um, but later analysis found no detonation occurred and no re radioactive contamination was released. But as as the bomb came down, it created a massive crater.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Oh, I'm sure it did. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

So they were like, oh crap, it was a did it go off. Yeah, did it go off? So that said, bomb number two gave everyone a scare.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

After days of digging in the muddy water, the EOD team finally

Public Reassurance And Later Revelations

SPEAKER_01 21:15

found the weapons arm safe switch hardware.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

And initially they thought that it was in the safe position.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

But it wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Upon further review, Lieutenant Jack Ravel said that no, it's on ARM. They looked again even closer because apparently it's just hard to decipher right away. I don't know what the situation was. Maybe it got muddy. I don't know. You can't tell. Sure. But the switch was physically stuck in between both positions.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

So the impact truck had knocked it askew, making it look like it was set to arm when in fact it was never completed. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Right, right, right. Wow. What a fucking close call.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

So is it because of this incident that they stopped Operation Chrome Dome?

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Um, I don't remember. No, I don't even I don't even think this was the last crash when they're like, okay, we should start.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Oh, because you said there was other ones, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

I want to say, yeah. They did this for eight years. And I I don't know. This this was, I think it was 1960 to 68 or something.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Oh, so this would have been earlier. Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

But don't quote me on that, but that's something that I read. So hopefully it's right. But quoted. Um, in the weeks and years after the Goldsboro incident, more information did trickle out.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

In 1963, just two years after the crash. The crash.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

It's like a a combination between crash and crotch. Yeah, the crotch.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Um, Goldsboro had a um a meeting acknowledging how, despite all safeguards, sheer chance prevented a disaster. So at this point, they're starting to be like, oh, it wasn't just it was good luck that we that it didn't go off.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

That's what it sounds like. Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

So in 1983, it was publicly admitted that one of the bombs had gone through all but one of the six or seven steps to detonate. Jesus. Confirming um what many had already long suspected. Sure. Nuclear weapons engineers like Parker F. Jones at Sandia Labs, who studied the incident in detail, was a little bit more blunt. Jesus. He said um, in an internal report in 1969, it was titled How I Learned to Mistrust the H-Bomb, said that the NK-39 mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert

Chrome Dome’s End And Wider Risks

SPEAKER_01 24:05

role in the B-52. So he noted that one simple dynamo technology low voltage switch stood between the United States and master catastrophe. Major catastrophe.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Master catastrophe.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

I love that. In the immediate aftermath of the crash, the U.S. Air Force worked quickly to clean up the wreckage, recover the weapons, and reassure the public. The Goldsboro incident was splashed across um the headlines, often with um two atomic bombs fell on North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

I mean, yes, but also you're making it seem like they detonated them. No, no. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

The military cornered off the area not only to manage the recovery, but also keep curious civilians and potentially souvenir hunters away from any sensitive debris. Yeah. Just two days after the crash, nearby Seymour Johnson Air Force Base officials publicly urged anyone who had picked up pieces of the wreck to please return them officially so they can determine the cause of the accident. Despite an intensive excavation effort, one major part of bomb two was never recovered. Oh wow. The mom the bomb had broken apart upon impact, and while the primary plutonium core was intact, found intact, the uranium secondary stage was nowhere to be seen. It's believed that that chunk of the bomb drilled itself so deep into the waterlogged soil that it essentially vanished underground. The crews dug over 50 feet into the crater, um, battling like high water tables that kept flooding the pit.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

They brought in pumps and heavy equipment and kept at it for weeks, but they never found it.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

By mid-February 1961, after reaching depths of 70 feet, with still no sign of the missing uranium component, the recovery operation was called off.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

The government quietly decided to leave the

Landmarks, Fallout Fears, And Wrap-Up

SPEAKER_01 26:10

secondary buried rather than excavate half of North Carolina to find it.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

To ensure that lost nuclear material stayed out and posed no, sorry, stayed put and posed no um public hazard. The Air Force later bought permanent rights to the land, essentially purchasing an easement for the crass crash site and the surround crash site crash site and the surrounding radius so that no one could dig too deep or build there.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

So they filled the crater back in, and today that patch of ground is just an ordinary cotton field. Um in multiple tests over the years had found no radiation leakage, no contamination in the area. That's weird. The plutonium and uranium are encased far underground, and the soil itself shields any radiation.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Plutonium has a 24,000-year half-life and it will be decaying underneath the ground for that long.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Locals continue to farm the land with a rule that they aren't allowed to dig more than five feet deep when plowing. There's even a North Carolina highway historical marker nearby that matter-of-factly commemorates the event, noting where two atomic bombs fell in 1961.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

I mean, you gotta make some tourist money somehow, I suppose. Yeah. Hey, come visit the atomic bomb site site. So yeah, it's really too bad that the three people died, obviously. That's really sad. Um it's just wild that they had hovering fucking bomb atomic bombs at the ready during that.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

I know, isn't it crazy?

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Yeah. Because what the the Cuban missile crisis was then the next year or two, 63? 63, right? Or 60. It's I know because it was around JFK, so I mean, I get it.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Because holy shit, but that's just crazy. Like uh, hey Martha, we almost blew up. I know it. Okay, so I don't do impressions, I'm not good at North Carolina.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

I was just gonna let it pass. Um, but um, so Faro is near um Raleigh. Oh, sure, okay. Um, and it's approximately um an hour, just

Outro And Calls To Action

SPEAKER_01 28:40

an hour away by car.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Okay. So pretty close.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

The only thing in the area that that is kind of a landmark other than that sign on the highway, yeah, is like a group of trees. Oh. And the group of trees just kind of tells you north of this site.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

North of the trees is where it is.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Fair enough. Yeah. Oh, that's weird. Yeah, I'm really glad they didn't explode. I know, isn't that crazy? Yeah, because just could you imagine like the fallout, like how long it would take for it to clear out? I'm not even sure how long that would be, but I feel like it would be a long time. I mean, it's probably no Chernobyl, but who knows? I I don't know. I'm not, I'm not sure on how that all works, but yeah. Oh, that is really weird. Yeah, I didn't know that we dropped atomic bombs on North Carolina. Yeah in an accidental way. Isn't that crazy? That's really weird.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Isn't that a good story though?

SPEAKER_02 29:35

Yeah, and I've never, never, ever heard of that before. So that's pretty cool. But yeah, no, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

So Operation Chrome Dome began in 1960 and went to 1968.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Oh, so yeah, you got that right though.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Um, it officially ended in 68 after near misses and accidents happened, Goldsboro in 1961. Yeah, um, a crash in Spain in 1966, and in Greenland in 1968. And at that point, the Pentagon was like, Maybe we should let's rein it in a little.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Let's let's pull this operation. It's just bleeding money.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Yeah, isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_02 30:15

It is crazy. That's fucking weird. I mean, no, I mean, just think how close some people were to just literally getting obliterated. Obliterated, and who knows how populous it was there, but yeah, one person, 20,000 people, doesn't matter. Yeah, that would have been fucked up.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Did you hear grandpa got blown up by an atomic bomb? Welp, I suppose. All right, buffoons. That's it for today's episode.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Buckle up because we've got another historical adventure waiting for you next time. Feeling hungry for more buffoonery? Or maybe you have a burning question or a wild historical theory for us to explore?

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Hit us up on social media. We're History Buffoons Podcast on YouTube, X, Instagram, and Facebook. You can also email us at history buffoonspodcast at gmail.com. We are Bradley and Kate, music by Corey Akers.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

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SPEAKER_02 31:12

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SPEAKER_01 31:16

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