00:02This week, we're going to be looking at the Vela incident.
00:06What is the Vela incident?
00:07Well, on September 22nd, 1979, something very strange and a little disconcerting was detected
00:13over the South Atlantic Ocean because a constellation of satellites known as the Vela
00:17satellite, specifically this was Vela 6911, it detected a very unusual flash of light.
00:24And what was primarily concerning about this to U.S. officials at the time is that there
00:28was a distinctive double flash, and that's essentially consistent with a nuclear explosion.
00:34So naturally, we were worried that somebody was testing a nuclear weapon in space.
00:38The next question would be, who did it?
00:40Who's been engaged in illicit nuclear testing?
00:43What could this mean?
00:44Do we have an issue?
00:46In other words, it's going to cause a international security concern.
Comments