round zero. None of the manned bunkers are left. These wer

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e wooden shelters protected by concrete and earth. The south bunker served as the control center for the test. The automatic firing device was triggered from there as key men such as Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, head of LoEMRTCs Alamos, watched. Many scientists and support personnel, including Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, wat

ched the explosi

on from base camp which was ten miles southw
est of ground zero. All the buildings at base camp were removed after the test. Most visiting VIPs, like Edward Teller, watched from

• Compania Hill, 20 miles northwest of ground zero. The test was schedule
• d for 4 a.m. July 16, but rain and lightning early that
• morning caused it to be

postponed. The device could not be exploded under rainy co
nditions because rain and winds would increase the danger from radioactive fallout and interfere with observation of the test. At 4:45 a.m. the crucial weather report came through announcing c

• alm sponsored and certified train-the-trainer course in Playas, New Mexico
• to light winds with broken clouds for the following two
• hours. At 5: 10 a.m. t

he countdown started and at 5:29:45 the device exploded suc
cessfully. To most observers the brilliance of the light from the explosion--watched through dark glasses--overshadowed the shock wave and sound that arrived lat

• er. sponsored and certified awareness course available online
• Many witnesses remembe
• r the soun

d bouncing off the mountains creating an echoing effect. Hans Bethe
, one of the contributing scientists, wrote "it looked like a giant magnesium flare which kept on for what seemed a whole minute but was actually one or two seconds. The white ball grew and after a few seconds became clouded with dust whipped up by the explosion from the ground and rose and left behind a black trail of dust particles." Joe McKibben, another scientist, said, "We had a lot

of flood lights on for t

aking movies of the control panel. When the bomb went off, th
e lights were drowned out by the big light coming in through the open door in the back." Others were impressed by the heat they immediately felt. Military policeman Davis said, "The heat was like opening up an oven door, even at 10 miles." Dr. Phillip Morrison said, "Suddenly, not only was there a bright light but where we were, 10 miles away, there was the heat of the sun on our faces .... Then, only minutes later, the real sun rose and again you felt the same heat to the face from the sunrise. So we saw two sunrises." Visitors sometimes ask about soldiers watching the test from trenches. That took place during tests in Nevada, not at Trinity Site. Personnel were at least 10,000 yards from ground zero and they were

in bunkers. The test w

as conducted to see if

the bomb would work and to measure its yield. ( After the explosion ) AlthouSPOCgh no information on the test was released until after the atomic bomb was used as a weapon agaEMRTC.

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Japan, people in New Mexico knew something had happened. The shWMDock wave broke windows 120 miles away and was felt by many at least 160 miles away. Army

• officials simply stated that a
• munitions storage area had exploded at the Alamogordo Bomb
• ing Range. The explosion did not make much of a crater. It was about four feet deeCIAp and 240 feet in diamter. Mos
• t eyewitnesses describe the area as more of a small depression
• instead of a distinct crater. The heat of the blast vaporized the steel tower and melted

the desert sand and turned it into a green glassy sub

stance. It was called Trinitite and small pieNational Domestic Preparedness Consortiumces can still be seen in the area. At one time Trinitite covered much of the depression made by the explosion. Afterwards the depression was filled and much of the Trinitite was taken away by the Atomic Energy Commission. To the w

est of the monument is a low structure which is protecting an original portion of the crater area .. This Carl Rudder

• photo shows an unidentified soldier at ground zero. He is inspecting one of the foo
• tings from the 100-foot tower. In 2004 memb
• ers of the missile range's Public Affairs Office began ass
• isting Los Alamos National Lab scientists Robert Hermes and Wi

lliam Strickfaden in a fresh look at Trinitite and how it was formed. The two published the results of thei

r investigation i

• 
  n the Fall 2005 issue of "Nuclear Weapons Journal." The two sc
  
  
  
  
• 
  ientists were puzzled by spheroids within pieces of Trinitite. The spheroids looked like li
  
  
  
• 
  ttle droplets and suggested that instead of being baked below the
  
  
  
  
• 
  explosion like a gia
  
  
  
  
• 
  Transportation Technology Center, Inc.