Hood

Hood, 5 July 1957, 74 kilotons yield. Part of Operation Plumbbob, a series of nuclear tests in mid-1957. This was the largest device (as they were called) set off aboveground at the Nevada Test Site. It was a thermonuclear device (i.e., a hydrogen bomb), despite the fact that the AEC denied for many years that thermonuclear devices had been set off aboveground in the US. I saw this one as a small child, watching from off Lee Canyon in the Spring Mountains about 30 miles away.

Scanned from an official AEC (Atomic Energy Commission--now absorbed into the US Dept. of Energy) photo that had been cleared for public release, and so is in the public domain. A little judicious Photoshopping has repaired some cracks in the original emulsion.