“Unraveling the Mysteries: How Fire, Ice, and Plutonium Could Redefine Our Understanding of the Universe”

“…the total radiation dose for representative persons in the Thule area for plutonium contamination resulting from the 1968 Thule accident is lower than the recommended reference level, even under extreme conditions and situations.”

But the workers and their representatives are not convinced, with Jens Zieglersen, head of the Association of Former Thule Workers, stating:

“I think it’s a cover-up. We are getting older and the Danish authorities and the Danish government will wait and keep their mouths sealed for another 15, 20 years; then there’s no-one left that remembers and who was a part of the accident back in the days of ’68.”

But perhaps the worst-affected by the 1968 Thule Crash were the Greenland Inuit who live around the Air Base, and who rendered such valuable service during the cleanup operations. Despite the claims of the Danish and American governments, the Inuit have noticed higher rates of cancers and other radiation-related illnesses among their people and the animals they subsist on, with local hunter Ussaaqqak Qujaukitsoq stating:

“There were two times when I hunted, when the seal’s insides were dried out. Something must have happened to them…If we think about the walruses and the other birds that have eating grounds on the bottom of the ocean, we will see the impact of it.”

Sadly, this is but one of many injustices the Greenland Inuit have suffered at the hands of the United States and Danish governments, who in 1957 displaced two of their villages 100 kilometres in order to make way for Thule Air Base – today known as Pituffik Space Base. Due to its strategic location, Pituffik remains as vital as ever to North American Aerospace Defense, with the original BMEWS radars being replaced in 2001 with a far more sophisticated, $40 million AN/FPS-132 Solid State Phased Radar Array System or SSPARS. Though the 1968 Thule Crash was one of the worst nuclear weapons accidents in history in terms of long-term environmental, health, and political impacts, it was far from the only one.

As covered in our previous videos That Time the Moon Nearly Started World War 3 (and Other Silly Cold War Shenanigans), When Dropping a Wrench Almost Cause Armageddon, as well as Did a Scientific Experiment Really Nearly Start WWIII in 1995? over on our sister channel Highlight History, the tense, highly-complex environment of Cold War nuclear brinksmanship resulted in dozens of perilous accidents and near-misses that brought the world within a hair’s breadth of total disaster. It’s a wonder we survived the 20th Century at all.

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