The Simon test produced unexpected radioactive fallout that contaminated New York's Capital District and was suppressed by the AEC for decades.
Key Facts
- Test date
- 25 April 1953, 04:30 local time
- Yield
- 43 kilotons
- Detonation height
- 300 feet (91 m tower)
- Fallout impact area
- Washington and Rensselaer counties, New York
- Radiation anomaly
- Hundreds of thousands of times above normal
- Disclosure agent
- Congressman Samuel S. Stratton
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
As part of Operation Upshot–Knothole, the United States detonated the Simon device to test the TX-17/24 thermonuclear weapon design at the Nevada Test Site. The mushroom cloud's radioactive material failed to disperse normally, remaining concentrated as it drifted eastward across the country over several days.
On 25 April 1953, a 43-kiloton nuclear device was detonated on a 300-foot tower at Nevada Test Site Area 1. The radioactive cloud traveled east and, days later, was swept into a severe thunderstorm over New York's Capital District, depositing concentrated fallout primarily over Washington and Rensselaer counties.
Students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York detected radiation levels hundreds of thousands of times above normal. Professor Herbert Clark reported findings to the Atomic Energy Commission, which dismissed and then suppressed the information under threat of arrest for treason. The incident remained concealed for decades until Congressman Samuel S. Stratton exposed it.