CIA STARGATE release
CIA-RDP96-00788R000500770001-3
Opens with: U.S. Denies Detecting A-Blast
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1 page, machine transcribed from the CIA’s released scan.
Approved For KasLa axHave Beet Menorite 19 FEB 1981 1296-00788R000500770001-3 U.S. Denies Detecting A-Blast By Thomas O Toole Washington Post Statt Writer U.S. government sources yesterday denied published reports that the United States had detected a nuclear explosion last December in the atmo- sphere over the remote regions of the South Atlantic below South Africa. "There is no disagreement about this in what you might call expert cir- cles," one authoritative source said. "There's no question a surveillance satellite saw something, but it was not a clear explosion." The Johannesburg Star reported yesterday that U.S. intelligence ex- perts said a satellite had seen the light flash of a nuclear explosion in the sky over the South Atlantic in the early hours of Dec. 16, 1980. Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak yesterday reported that monitoring devices had detected a similar flash on Dec. 15. Both reports said the flash was seen in the same remote region of the South Atlantic where the light of what most expert sources still believe Approved ForRelease 2000/08/07 waSIA-RDP96-00788MMH Sept. 22, 1979. Expert nuclear weapons sources said yesterday that one night last De- cember a secret infrared satellite de- tected something in the skies south of South Africa. The site is near where on Sept. 22, 1979, a Vela satellite de- tected what most experts think was a clandestine nuclear explosion. Sources said no one believes the December sighting was the heat signature of a nuclear explosion, because it was too weak and too brief. Sources said they are convinced the infrared satellite had seen the heat trail of a meteorite burning up in the atmosphere. The heat signal seen by the satellite, one source said, may even have been a violent lightning storm in the South Atlantic below South Africa. Despite general agreement that last December's sighting was not a nuclear explosion, sources say there still is strong disagreement about the Sep- tember 1979 sighting. Most experts insist a double flash of light that ex- " actly matched the signature of an atomic explosion is what Vela wit- nessed, suggesting that South Africa, R000500770001-3 nuclear weapons testing in the remote regions of the South Atlantic.