Nuclear Testing?

Question

About 6 years ago I flew to San Francisco International from the UK.

I'm almost sure that as we passed over Utah I could see what could only be described as underground Nuclear Test "sinkholes".

The sort of depression in the earth that occurs when a nuclear explosion occurs underground, so that the earth appears to have been sucked down.

Is this possible, I always thought that the nuclear tests were conducted in Arizona in the desert.

Having done some further research myself, I suspect that it was the Nevada Test Site, near Beatty, Nevada.

Not that I know the exact flightplan, but, I remember where we were when I thought I saw what I saw.

As this site has conducted over 900 atmoshperic and underground tests, so I suspect that I might have seen some of the numerous sinkholes.

Using Google Earth, I also discovered where Area 51 was as well.

Answer 1

they are conducted in Nevada.There was a very secure area ,called''Area 51''.It is now thought to be closed,but it is to be relocated to another area further north.The US military needs to keep locations and projects very secret.In todays world, with Google Earth and GPS it's very hard to keep locations secret.

Answer 2

The first test of a nuclear weapon was in the atmosphere on July 16, 1945, in a remote part of New Mexico on what was then the Alamogordo Bombing Range, and is now the White Sands Missile Range. The site is 55 miles northwest of Alamogordo, New Mexico. At various times between June 1946 and November 1962, atmospheric and underground tests were conducted by the United States in the Marshall Islands (known as the Pacific Proving Grounds or PPG), Christmas Island, Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, and over the South Atlantic Ocean. Between January 1951 and July 1962, atmospheric and underground nuclear tests were conducted in Nevada at the Nevada Test Site (NTS, originally called the Nevada Proving Grounds or NPG).

Since July 1962, all nuclear tests conducted in the United States have been underground, and most of them have been at the NTS. Some tests were conducted on the Nellis Air Force Range (NAFR); in central and northwestern Nevada; in Colorado, New Mexico, and Mississippi; and on Amchitka, one of the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska.

Answer 3

Google Earth is not realtime or even near time photography. Much of Google Earth is based on photo surveys taken several years ago.

What appears as bowls or indentations could simply be tailing piles of mines. There are several Open Pit mines through that area as well. these are likely visible from altitude.

Much of the Nevada, AZ, Utah are is strewn with large tailing piles.
The Nuclear testing area was a geographically fairly small. While it's my guess if you knew an exact coordinate of the testing area, you could perhaps detect visible signs of that testing but the probability is unlikely.

Answer 4

Sinkholes can form naturally. They are formed by the dissolution of salts in salt-rich sediments (like paleolakes). So you can check this out, maybe the ones you saw are naturally formed and not associated to a test site. They occur frequently in desertic areas. Some sinkholes may have other origins as well like over-exploitation of ground water that reduces the support of the overlying ground producing a collapse.

Answer 5

Not in the Arizona deserts, nor in Utah, but in Nevada. Kinda tough to tell precisely where you are out there from the air -- no state borders painted on the ground! 8^)

However, there are several other instrumented test sites in Utah -- at Dugway Proving Ground, to be exact -- that might give the impression of being nuke test sites.