J.A. Terranson wrote:
On Sun, 12 Sep 2004, Thomas Shaddack wrote:The forest fire claim sounds more plausible in this regard. An existing cloud could be used for masking, though.
Wait a minute: since when does a forest fire create explosions? Or have enough ground force to push up a mushroom cloud?
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That of course brings us full circle: how many fuels can produce a blast which results in a 2+ mile mushroom? That's a *lot* of explosive force.
Doesn't have to work like that. The mushroom cloud is not "pushed up" by blast, it's carried up by hot air rising, which is replaced by cooler air rushing in below.
There was a visible mushroom cloud at Hamburg in 1943 - I'm not sure but I suspect that that may have been the event that put the phrase into the language.
FWIW the BBC is now saying that the NKs are claiming it was a civil engineering explosion connected with a hydro project.
As with other list members I assume that if the explosion was nuclear someone would have detected EM from it immediately & radioactive particles soon after.
And I also assume, perhaps with less justification, that at least some of those someones would have made the knowledge public - it must include at least military early warning organisation of China, Russia & the US, and very possibly Japan, SK, UK & maybe other countries as well, and also probably a number of space agencies and academic researchers. Would they all conspire to suppress knowledge of NK nuclear explosion?
And if there was such a test, how long before China stomped all over them. Last thing they want is a looney dictator with nukes on their borders (If only to pre-empt Russia, US, or Japan intervening). Even if both the Chinese state capitalists and the North Korean absolute divine monarchy still use the locally redundant word "Communist" when describing themselves to us Western barbarians.
Sometimes my friend's enemy isn't my enemy's friend.
