The unexplained Vela Incident

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• published: 07 Jun 2016
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On 22 September 1979, sometime around 3:00am local time, a US Atomic Energy Detection System satellite recorded a pattern of intense flashes in a remote portion of the Indian Ocean. Moments later an unusual, fast-moving ionospheric disturbance was detected by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and at about the same time a distant, muffled thud was overheard by the US Navy’s undersea Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). Evidently something violent and explosive had transpired in the ocean off the southern tip of Africa.On July 16, 1945 the first nuclear weapon was tested near Alamogordo, New Mexico. After the end of World War II, many countries were determined to gain nuclear technology. In 1949, the Soviet Union detonated its first fission weapon. The United Kingdom followed on October 2, 1952, France on February 13, 1960, and China on October 16, 1964. These five powers are permitted to possess nuclear weapons under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There are four recognized sovereign states that are not parties to the treaty, including India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea. India, Pakistan and North Korea have openly tested and declared that they possess nuclear weapons, while Israel has a policy of opacity regarding its nuclear weapons program. There have been over 2,000 nuclear tests conducted since 1945. In 1963, many states signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, pledging to refrain from testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, underwater, or in outer space. After adopting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, world powers pledged to discontinue all nuclear testing. When a nuclear explosion occurs, it creates intense light, heat, and incredible explosive force. Many national defense programs have released satellites into the atmosphere that have sensors designed specifically to detect nuclear explosions.On September 22, 1979, a “double flash” was detected by the American Vela Hotel satellite. World specialists who examined the data speculated that the double flash was characteristic of a nuclear explosion and may have been the result of a nuclear weapons test. The satellite reported the characteristic double flash of an atmospheric nuclear explosion. It was detected in the Indian Ocean between Bouvet Island and the Prince Edward Islands, which belongs to South Africa. The recording was labeled the Vela Incident.There has been much doubt as to whether the satellite’s observations were accurate. South Africa has declared that they made no such nuclear test. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 418 of November 4, 1977 introduced a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa, which also required all states to refrain from “any co-operation with South Africa in the manufacture and development of nuclear weapons.” The conclusions of the Presidential panel suggested that the most likely explanation of the Vela detection was a meteoroid hitting the satellite. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency was convinced that a nuclear explosion was detected by the satellite. No evidence of an explosion was found, such as the presence of nuclear wastes in the air. Several passes were made by military planes from all over the world. The planes were specifically designed to detect airborne radioactive dust. However, Low levels of iodine-131 were reportedly found in the thyroid glands of sheep in the Australian States of Victoria and Tasmania soon after the “detection” of the light flashes. Studies of wind patterns confirm that fall-out from an explosion in the southern Indian Ocean could have been carried to southwestern Australia.An observation station in Puerto Rico detected an anomalous ionospheric wave during the morning of September 22, 1979, which moved from the southeast to the northwest. The Republic of South Africa did have a nuclear weapons program during the 1970s. However, since the fall of apartheid, South Africa has disclosed most of the information on its nuclear weapons program, and according to international inspections there was no mention of the incident. In February 1994, Commodore Dieter Gerhardt, a convicted Soviet spy and the commander of South Africa’s Simon’s Town naval base at the time, talked about the incident upon his release from prison. He is quoted as saying “Although I was not directly involved in planning or carrying out the operation, I learned unofficially that the flash was produced by an Israeli-South African test, code-named Operation Phoenix. The explosion was clean and was not supposed to be detected. But they were not as smart as they thought, and the weather changed, so the Americans were able to pick it up.” It remains uncertain whether the South Atlantic flash in September 1979 was a nuclear detonation and, if so, to whom it belonged.