Long Lost Nuke Potentially Found Off Coast of Canada
The Canadian government believes a legendary lost nuclear weapon has finally been found over sixty years after it went missing. The weapon was discovered by a commercial diver looking for sea cucumbers off the north coast of British Columbia.
Using a diver propulsion vehicle (DPV), Sean Smyrichinsky went about twenty-five feet underwater off the coast of Pitt Island, a small island near Alaska. Hoping to harvest the sea cucumbers there, he came across what he took to be an odd rock formation. It was perfectly round. It was so perfect, in fact, that a closer inspection revealed there was no way it was natural.
Smyrichinsky was puzzled by what he found, with odd, precise marking and bowls "the size of basketballs" cut into it, he tells the Washington Post. He thought he had found a UFO, and drew a picture of it to show his friends. They were skeptical.
But then they went to a local pub and continued their conversations. Locals overheard them, and eventually an older fisherman guessed that "Hey, maybe you found that old bomb they lost."
The missing bomb was from a U.S. Air Force B-36 bomber that had crashed over British Columbia in 1950. While en route from Alaska to Texas, the crew faced multiple engine fires and were forced to abandon the plane. Before they did so, they reportedly tossed out a Mark IV nuclear bomb, capable of up to a 31-kiloton explosion. A redesign of the Fat Man bomb, the Mark IV was the first assembly-line produced nuclear bomb.
Had worse come to worse, the Mark IV could have killed thousands. It's later been claimed that the Mark IV aboard was a "dummy capsule" incapable of launching. Until it's found there's no way to know for sure, but a recent book called "Lost Nuke: The Last Flight of Bomber 075," by Dirk Septer is dedicated to the mystery .
After the tip off from a local fisherman, Smyrichinsky called the Canadian military. Needless to say, they were very interested in his descriptions of the weapon. The Royal Canadian Navy has since sent a ship to explore. "I think every diver wants to find a pot of gold," Smyrichinsky tell the Post. "But you never expect to see this or something like this."
Source: BBC, Washington Post
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