I stood on top of a nuclear warhead
Yes.... let me explain and tell you the story.
My daughter is doing research for her history masters degree. Her topic was on a BROKEN ARROW event that occurred in NC back in 1961.
It was a January night in 1961.
A B-52 SAC bomber took off for it's normal 24hr+ SAC mission from Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro NC. Back then in the cold war, we kept multiple bombers in the air constantly, loaded with live nukes. This one, designated as KEEP 19, had two 3.8megaton atomic bombs in it's bomb bays, complete with plutonium cores.
Soon after takeoff, and fully loaded with fuel, the B-52 developed a series of problems included a major fuel leak in it's wings. The B-52 was plagued with this problem. The plane circled over the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Wilmington in an attempt to burn off fuel and in the course of this holding pattern, several of the engines caught fire and were shut down. The plane was commanded to return to base due to the problems, and the weather, which was becoming increasingly bad.
Along with the fuel leaks and the shut down engines, there was also a wing structural crack that had developed. Somewhere in this unfolding tragedy, a large section of the tail was lost. With full flaps, wheels down, spoilers open, and crippled in this manner, the pilot ordered a bail out command and to jettison the "cargo". The bombs were fitted with parachutes and they were dropped. Bomb one, fell clear and the chute deployed bringing the heavy bomb safely down in the woods. Turbulence likely hit as the second bomb was dropped and the chute caught on the bomb doors and ripped away. The second bomb free fell several thousand feet. At this time, as the plane was attempting a turn to correct it's approach to the runway, the wing structural crack gave way and the wing folded up. The plane broke apart in mid air, and fell to earth landing in a fire ball from all the fuel still in the tanks. It landed in the center of the road near the town of Faro NC. 3 crew members died, several ejected safely. Debris from the plane was scattered over several miles.
The second bomb, the one that free fell from the plane, hit the ground 420 feet from the road at close to the speed of sound according to estimates. It burrowed in as it broke apart. The USAF dug down to attempt recovery. They found and removed some of the parts. The problem with the recovery was that the water table is only about 24 inches down. This is land in the Nahunta swamp. It was about 30 feet above the surface water in the swamp nearby. As they dug, the hole filled with water. 7 wells and pumps were used to try to remove the water but it came in faster than they could remove it. For every foot they dug down, they had to dig 4 feet wide to keep the pit walls from collapsing. Somewhere around 60 feet they punched through a layer of clay and hit the east coast aquifer. Water rushed in at an even greater rate. They were quickly approaching a graveyard that was in the field and as a result of the historic graveyard and the battle they were loosing with the water and mud, they called it quits and filled in the hole. The plutonium core sank deeper into the mud and water as they tried to get closer to it. Physicists from the state college engineering dept estimated that the core of the bomb could be 180 feet deep or more.
The govt filled the hole back in and to this day keeps an easement to the land. They allow the farmers to plant the field but no digging is permitted there that exceeds 5 feet in depth.
In looking for the exact spot, which is not marked in any way, we stopped at a farmhouse near where we thought the site was located. A lady we spoke to, pointed across the raod to a field and said, "thats where it all happened". She lived several hundreed yards from the scene. She recounted the events of that night to us, and told us it lit up the area like it was day time. She was 6 years old at the time.
In the picture below, the cemetery is the clump of trees on the left side.... the core is located in the field between there and where I stood to take this picture.
It was common practice to drop the core with the bomb in this sort of emergency. The core was protected by a cage around it. This was a better option than having the core in the plane and having it explode raining plutonium over the country side.
In a related story, found in microfilm, my daughter discovered that her grandfather, my wife's father actually saw the plane as is was breaking up, and saw the bomb #1 come down and went to the site. He had gotten off work and was driving home from the plant where he worked when he saw this event happen. He never said a word to any of us about this. We discovered this as a result of my daughter's research into it.
I read, or skimmed several of her books while she was here, and discovered that there were quite a few Broken Arrow events in this country. This one however, was the most hair raising of the bunch due to several factors. The second bomb casing was found with the safety switch set to the ARMED position. Inside, it was on SAFE. Had the bomb detonated, the crater would have been 350 feet deep and 3500 feet across. Eastern NC would likely be much like Chernobyl and Fukashima. A deadly no-go zone due to radiation. It could also have triggered a nuclear war with Russia. This was during the cold war, tensions were high, the missions were fairly secret, and the explosion would have been near a major SAC base. Retaliation would have been a knee jerk response and quick because at that time, Generals in the military could initiate a nuclear strike. That has since been changed and now the president has that say.
If this intreagues you any, look up the other US soil Broken Arrow events. One in Florence SC did explode..... not nuclear, but with a large conventional explosion that destroyed a farmer's barns and left a huge crater on his farm which is still there as a pond. They even changed the name of the road to Crater Road..... scary stuff.
One last tid bit on the Goldsboro Broken Arrow. They never recovered the plutonium core. It's still down there in the mud and water with the metal protective casing rusting by now. 180' down. It lies inside the east coast aquifer that supplies water to the east coast. If the plutonium leaks into the water, the radiation plume could extend for dozens of miles now. They monitor the wells in the area, but they are all shallow wells. They claim the water is good, and that the radiation levels of the water don't exceed the "natural" levels of radiation. The lady we spoke with named off a list of people on that road and locally who have all died of cancer.
have a nice day