A while back I found two 8X10 glossies in an antique store. The owners had no information on the photos; they had come in a box of photos from an estate sale, the rest of the photos being completely unrelated. The store owners thought that the photos showed a test of a beam weapon of some kind. Not unreasonable for people not familiar with actual beam weapons or ballistic missiles. The photos are certainly evocative of death beams zapping targets in the sky. But what they actually show are missile warheads coming *down,* screaming towards the ground at incredible speed. When the photos were taken, I’ve no idea. *Where,* almost certainly somewhere in the South Pacific… most likely Kwajalein Atoll, a common target for ICBMs and SLBMs. *What* missile was tested, I’m also uncertain. One photo shows a single re-entry vehicle; the other shows three. The Minuteman III lobbed three warheads; the Peacekeeper, up to ten; the Trident, up to 14. This *probably* shows a Minuteman III… assuming that is actually a single test.
I’ve uploaded the full resolution scans of these photos to the 2020-09 APR Extras Dropbox folder for Patrons and Subscribers at the $4 level and above.
