"It came as a horrifying surprise early one morning in Hawaii: A bright flash lit up the dark sky over Honolulu, and on the horizon, a central cloud climbed higher and higher. "I thought at once it must be a nuclear explosion," a Diamond Head resident told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1958. "I stepped out on the lanai [or porch] and saw what must have been the reflection of the fireball. It turned from light yellow to dark yellow and from orange to red.""
"The blast overwhelmed the police switchboard with over a thousand calls. Some people thought it was another attack on Pearl Harbor. One California visitor in Waikiki phoned the newspaper to ask, "Would you advise me to leave?" Although seemingly close, the explosion occurred some 800 miles away and several miles above Johnston Atoll, a remote group of tiny islands in the central Pacific."
""You've got this atoll that, because of its relative isolation, was used as a repository for nerve gas. Agent Orange was stored there. They had some nuclear tests that went awry, and so it really is a very serious point source for toxicants," Robert Richmond, research professor and director of Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, tells SFGATE."
A sudden bright flash over Honolulu revealed an explosion several miles above Johnston Atoll, roughly 800 miles away, causing widespread alarm and thousands of emergency calls. Johnston Atoll functioned as a remote U.S. military site used for atmospheric nuclear testing and storage of chemical agents, including nerve gas and Agent Orange. Military officials failed to warn Hawaii in advance of tests, provoking political anger. The atoll's isolation made it a repository for hazardous materials and a concentrated source of toxicants. Visitors and researchers on the atoll were required to use protective gear and emergency antidotes when chemical exposure was possible.
Read at SFGATE
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