Photos Declassified By The US Government

Every day, there are countless events that take place behind closed doors that the general public is not aware of.

The government of the world is constantly involved in confidential schemes and operations that are purposefully hidden from the rest of the world.

But sometimes, the truth manages to come out. Let’s take a look at a few pictures that once were classified by the US government. They are now public but be warned, some of these are quite impressive.

Operation Ivy

Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

Just after the WWII bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US government conducted many nuclear weapon tests. The eighth test they did was called ‘Operation Ivy’.

The government arranged that two bombs were dropped in Elugelab, in the Marshall Islands. In this picture, you can see the first of the explosions, this was also the first test of a hydrogen bomb detonation.

Chemical Weapons

AP Photo

In this picture, you can see two Soviet scientists in protective suits while in a safe house for chemical weapons. This picture was taken in the 1960s, in the middle of the Cold War.

So why didn’t the government show this picture to the public? Because, during the Cold War, the general public was pretty scared of the risk that came with nuclear warfare between America and the USSR.

This creepy picture would’ve only made people more scared and anxious.

FAST

Getty Images

In this picture, we can see the Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, which is known as FAST, or Tianyan, which means “Heaven’s Eye” in Mandarin. 

This radio telescope was built in China and it is used to detect radio signals from all across the Milky Way. It is said that this telescope can detect signals from as far as a thousand light-years away.

They started building it in 2011 and it was only declared fully active in 2020!

Fat Man

Wikimedia Commons / National Archives and Records Administration

What you see right here is known as “The Fat Man”, the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, which was during the last few weeks of WWII. This was the second of the two atomic weapons that have ever been used in history.

The first one was dropped in Hiroshima and it was called “The Little Boy”. These two bombs represented the definite end of WWII as well as a hallmark in the history of warfare.