In October of 1947, a navy reserve pilot named George Earle IV received strange orders: He was to pick up several 55-gallon barrels at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, fly out 100 miles southeast of Atlantic City, and then dump them into the ocean — all in secret, in the dead of night. Earle would repeat the mission twice more without ever being told what he was dumping. But he had a clue. Before leaving, scientists would swarm Earle and his cargo using Geiger counters to measure radiation. This told Earle one thing: Whatever he was dumping was radioactive, and probably dangerous. It would be another three decades before Earle revealed the secret missions to the public, and even longer before anyone knew the origins of his cargo. On this episode, we unfold the never-before-told story of Earle and the classified operation that he was a part of and explore the remnants of the atomic age and the waste it has left behind. We hear about the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated by the U.S. — and the devastation it wrought on a tiny island country; the Navajo people's fight to seal hundreds of uranium mines scarring their land; why nuclear power plants need a new solution to house their waste; and why the future of nuclear energy could look very different.
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