Talk:Port Chicago disaster

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[edit] Linking

Currently Port Chicago mutiny is redirected to Port Chicago disaster. Ive edited the link to the mutiny out.Madcynic 12:56, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conspiracy theory

I shored up this page a bit. I must admit I favor the Navy version of the story more than the crazy-ass "I bet it was a nuclear weapon" version of the story which I find to be patently ridiculous for the following reasons: 1. there is OVERWHELMING evidence to suggest that there was not enough fissionable material in 1944 for a self-sustaining chain reaction, 2. the only source for such a crazy notion is one guy's "web-based book" on the subject.

The entire connection to the Manhattan Project on the website seems to be based around a document purportedly smuggled out of Los Alamos which mentions that an atomic bomb would produce a "ball of fire mushroom out at 18,000 ft in a typical Port Chicago fashion." Which might look insiduous if you hadn't ever bothered to read any literature on the Manhattan Project: the scientists and military engineers looked at the results of many similar incidents for the purposes of gauging exactly what a few kilotons of TNT would do to a town. Explosions of that size were not common in military use and had only occurred in a few freakish accidents like that which happened at Port Chicago. They are simply referring to the Port Chicago explosion to give reference to something close to the size of an atomic bomb explosion (still, Port Chicago was, at best, a 5 kt explosion; compared to Hiroshima which was over twice that value).

But to insinuate that the Port Chicago explosion itself was caused by an atomic bomb not only flies in the face of all scholarly history and archival information, but also raises the lovely question of, "if it was an atomic bomb, then why were there 320 people loading 5 tons of explosives on the dock?" which is well documented not only in terms of records, but body count. It just doesn't make any sense, any way you slice it. --Fastfission 19:34, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC) (basic front for the first Atomic Bomb test, would be to have people actually loading munitions, giving the needed cover story)

I've put back the "conspiracy theory" notes. I don't much believe it either, but there are some people out there who wonder why there was a white flash, and why the Navy was supposedly filming the explosion. Let the reader decide if they believe the nuclear bomb theory or not. 128.230.205.232
I edited it a bit. From what I can tell, the only guy who thinks this is Peter Vogel, and his work is not even published by a vanity press. Let's not give this nutty theory more attention that it deserves. This is nonsense on so many levels, anybody with the slightest idea about the history of nuclear weapons or their effects can tell you. --Fastfission 23:49, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I also reinserted a lot of the cut copy, which had more information about the incident (and less typos). If you want to create a page on the Port Chicago nuclear bomb theory, go for it (such as how Apollo_Moon_landing has a separate page for the silliness at Apollo_moon_landing_hoax_accusations). But the Port Chicago disaster incident needs to focus on the explosion and the mutiny, I think, not a couple tin-foil hatters misguided attempt at atomic history. --Fastfission 00:05, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
You all have been more than fair to the "journalist" who has dedicated himself to making a living off of his dubious claims of nuclear explosions in regard to this disaster. The best way to "bury" his evanescent accusations is to more fully develop the main article related to the disaster: i.e. give more details and testimony. There are more than enough sources to justify a longer, more detailed article. Cla68 00:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peter Vogel's comments?

I moved the following to this Talk page for what should be obvious reasons. --Fastfission 21:29, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

SUBMITTED BY PETER VOGEL, PVOGEL@TOGETHER.NET
This was posted yesterday, Friday, with a few follow-ups, at:
http://www.sciscoop.com/story/2004/7/16/94228/2111
Details of the findings are posted at:
http://www.kluft.com/~ikluft/pc44/
By ikluft, Section News
Posted on Fri Jul 16th, 2004 at 02:36:33 PM PST
A year and a half ago when the Port Chicago debate erupted on SciScoop and Slashdot, the question came up, "Where's the radiation?" Trying to settle the urban legend one way or the other before the 60th anniversary of the accident (July 17), a friend and I drove there with an electronic geiger counter mounted outside my truck and my Linux Laptop inside, logging the data. What we found was startling.
There is a 2-mile wide swath of higher-than-background (13-17 uR/hr measured from the road) radiation directly across the bay from Port Chicago on Grizzly Island. It gets less noticeable further inland, even with sensitive instruments. It's a wildlife area, so maybe that's why no one noticed. But the unexplained radiation is definitely there. And the shape is facing Port Chicago from across the bay.
I posted my findings including instructions and source code so you can duplicate my experiment. Time to get the media to exercise their FOIA expertise and pester members of Congress for info.
SUBMITTED BY:
Peter Vogel
pvogel@together.net

Personally I think this is just nonsense -- even if it HAD been an atomic bomb at Port Chicago (which I still find a ridiculous and unsupported suggestion), I doubt there would still be a "radiation plume" 50 years later (and frankly even if there WERE "highter-than-background" levels on Grizzly Island, to jump to the conclusion that this supports the otherwise crazy Port Chicago bomb theory is not warranted). And for the record, ANYONE can file a FOIA, not just the media. If I were to really suspect something for radiological contamination, it would not be a hypothetical and highly unlikely atomic bomb blast, but something related to one of the nearby reactors (Vallecitos?), national laboratories (Berkeley, Livermore?), or Cold War atomic research that took place at Hunter's Point (which was home to the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory from the 1940s until 1969). But anyway, this sort of original not peer-reviewed research doesn't belong on Wikipedia, which is the real reason to move it to the Talk page, not just the fact that I find it to be a bit tin-foil hat. --Fastfission 21:35, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from The Port Chicago 50

The Port Chicago 50 is a basically just a poorer quality version of this article; I don't see any reason it shouldn't just redirect here, with any worthwhile new bits merged. Pimlottc 21:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The Port Chicago 50 was submiited to discuss the individuals involved vice the actual incident. Then intent is to provide a discussion about the individual sailors. I would be willing to see a merge done if the the article was broadened to discussed the people.
Absolon S. Kent 15:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I think these should be merged. Port Chicago Mutiny is a redirects to Port Chicago disaster, even though more logically it should be a redirect to The Port Chicago 50. But changing the redirect would point to a brief article that glosses over the mutiny itself. Improving The Port Chicago 50 would just create a lot of duplication between the two articles. Merge'em. — Randall Bart (talk) 21:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that they should be merged. Unless someone was going to put lots more details about the 50 soldiers convicted of mutiny (and there are not that many details available on most of them), the other article is just not that helpful. Especially since there aren't any real details there now. Anything there could be moved here. I am reading the rerelease of the Allen book (rereleased in 2006). Pretty interesting. --Tinned Elk 01:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Information merged on 30 August 2007 and redirect page created.
Absolon S. Kent 14:04, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:FRINGE

The atomic explosion "speculation" is used as an example in WP:FRINGE at [1]. DGG (talk) 06:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Right, but that's just because the guy who wrote the first draft of FRINGE is someone who worked on this page. It's not exactly an ironclad rule. --69.110.41.71 (talk) 08:31, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The quotes around "mutiny"

I have removed the quotes around the word "mutiny". Mutiny is when two or more men conspire to disobey orders, so the word is correctly used. That their gripes were legitimate and that they were later pardoned doesn't change that fact.  Randall Bart   Talk  19:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Crackpot nuclear theory

Perhaps there should be a section on the crackpot nuclear theory. Proper cites were provided. I agree there shouldn't be an uncommented link to http://www.portchicago.org, but we shouldn't be censoring loonies who provide cites.  Randall Bart   Talk  17:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Just because they provide citations doesn't mean they can be included. The question is whether anyone cites them. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I think WP:Undue weight applies, and would suggest we not include it. --Falcorian (talk) 05:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Isn't it just one self-published, independent journalist who is advancing the nuclear explosion theory? Even if that is true, if any independent sources have discussed his claims, it's ok to have a small section about it in the article. The way to give it an NPOV treatment in the appropriate context is to say something like, "Independent researcher ________ (whatever his/her name is) has claimed that the explosion was caused by the accidental detonation of a nuclear advice. He further claims that the Navy covered this up by..." then add the citations. If done this way, it isn't giving undue weight to the theory, because the section is making it clear that it's a theory being promoted by only one person, although it has gained some publicity. Cla68 (talk) 06:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
As far as I know he's gotten an occasional mention in mainstream news (that didn't bother to really do any critical assessment of it) and has been totally ignored by actual historians, specialists, etc. It has not been taken seriously as a real theory (his work is nothing but innuendo and his own misunderstanding of certain historical documents—check out his chapter on Teller, if you dare, to see exactly how unrigorous his reasoning and research is and how much of his book is mostly just fluff padding out a weak thesis), nobody has bothered to even debunk it, which to me means that it probably violates NPOV. The reason for this is quite simple: it would be very undue weight if we wrote about it without pointing out it was completely nonsensical, but that would require us to do the debunking, which would violate NOR. If not violating NPOV means we'd violate NOR, that's the concise definition of a fringe theory, in my opinion.
(As for debunking it, it is clearly based on a misunderstanding of a document. He saw references to the Port Chicago explosion among Manhattan Project documents and incorrectly inferred that 1. the Port Chicago explosion must have been nuclear and 2. there was a huge conspiracy to eradicate all evidence of such by Project leadership. The more logically simple interpretation is that they used the Port Chicago explosion as a way to understand the effects of large, relatively concentrated explosions on populated areas—something necessary for their strategic planning relating to the atomic bomb—and as it happened during the war it was an event that they could actually get live data from immediately after the fact. This answer doesn't involve shadowy conspiracies, doesn't contradict known technical capabilities, and doesn't lead one into such bizarre ideas as having a left-winger, anti-racist like Oppenheimer blowing up Black soldiers just to get his jollies off). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with 98's view. It's such a fringe theory that including it is inherently either A) NPOV or B) violates OR. --Falcorian (talk) 23:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I would suggest that whenever someone tries to add this theory to the article that we leave a note on the editor's talk page with a link to this discussion. Cla68 (talk) 01:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like an excellent idea. --Falcorian (talk) 01:42, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


You arn't going to put wikipedia high up on the credibility scale if you denounce a perectlay credible theory as 'Crackpot'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.201.118 (talk) 09:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not credible by our definitions though, as described above, and which concern mainly WP:RS. --Falcorian (talk) 18:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't matter whether any one of us thinks it is "credible" (I don't think it's perfectly credible in the slightest—there isn't one shred of direct evidence for it). It's a question of whether its inclusion or not violates Wikipedia content policies. If you don't understand the distinction, then you aren't going to get very far editing on Wikipedia. As for whether someone on the talk page call it crackpot or not, that's their own opinion, not "Wikipedia's". --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I think this should be mentioned - not in so much as that it is editorially judged to be a possible explanation though. There is a certain amount of reaction to Vogel's claims which should be worth a sentence or two. San Jose mercury, Sacramento bee, The Voice in the UK have all run stories on the subject. I don't think two sentences would be undue weight, and their inclusion does not amount to any endorsement of the theory. 78.86.18.55 (talk) 02:05, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Fortunately, that's not a danger in this case. Argyriou (talk) 05:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't mind somebody adding Vogel's idiot theory (with newspaper citations) so long as it's clear from a bald statement of facts that Vogel's waaay off base. For instance, it would have to be mentioned that the first nuclear test was AFTER the Port Chicago explosion. It's hard enough to get an experimental nuclear device to explode when hundreds of scientists and technicians have to be there to make sure all the parts are working as planned. To have a notional device explode accidentally BEFORE the first-ever test is preposterous. If Vogel is injected into this article, he should be hoisted on his own petard. And briefly; no undue weight. Binksternet (talk) 18:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)