For the first time, television viewers witness the detonation of an atomic bomb live, as KTLA in Los Angeles broadcasts the blinding light produced by a nuclear device dropped on Frenchman Flat, Nevada.
One of a hundred aboveground nuclear tests conducted between 1951 and 1962 in the Nevada desert, this A-bomb test found its way into history when a camera crew that had secretly taken position on top of a Las Vegas hotel focused on the blast. The images were relayed to the station’s transmitter on Mount Wilson Observatory about two hundred miles away, and early-bird viewers saw their television screens fill with white light at 5:30 in the morning.
Witnessing the blast firsthand was KTLA reporter Stan Chambers. In a YouTube (see here) interview, Chambers described how station manager Klaus Landsberg pulled off the unauthorized broadcast: “We couldn’t get near the field, because it was all top secret. Klaus sent a crew to Las Vegas and put them on top of one of the hotels…. They kept the camera open for the flash of light that would come on when the blast went off.” Los Angeles viewers tuned in for the one-off event. “We had a rating that was very large for 5:30 in the morning,” Chambers recalled. “That one flash. You just see this blinding white light. It didn’t seem real. We didn’t have videotape. You couldn’t say, ‘Let’s look at it again.’ ”
In 1952, KTLA set up the first live national feed for a Nevada atomic bomb explosion. That one was carried by the major networks. The tests became so commonplace that watching mushroom clouds turned into a Las Vegas tourist attraction.—HH