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Air Force officials, in designing an atomic plane it knew would not fly, simulated nuclear reactor meltdowns in Utah's west desert during 1950s tests, according to a newspaper.
The eight tests spewed potentially lethal doses of radiation into the night skies above Dugway Proving Ground, the site of dozens of open-air chemical, biological and radioactive tests during the Cold War, according to a copyright story in Sunday's Deseret News.
Documents obtained by the newspaper through the Freedom of Information Act showed radiation clouds were tracked by sensors placed up to 20 miles downwind and across a 210-square-mile area at Dugway.
But the clouds traveled beyond that. When last detected, they were spreading toward U.S. 40 -- now Interstate 80. The town of Knolls, Utah, and Utah-Nevada border community of Wendover may have fallen in their path.
Worse Than TMI: The newspaper estimated, based on government figures, that total amount of radiation released by the tests was 14 times more than the near meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island near Middletown, Pa., in 1979.
"It is large enough to be significant, but...