I'm not a conspiracy theory nut - the Vela Incident

 On September the 22nd 1979 a double flash of bright light was dectected by an old US weather satellite named Vela. The Vela Incident sometimes called the South Atlantic Flash is a story of intrique, secret government tests and a desire to keep it all swept firmly under the carpet. I was 12 years old when it happened and within a month of the event I developed a goitre due to thyroid disease. I was not the only one.
You can read about the event here on Wikipedia:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident
 When it took place, Carter was the US President and the Middle East was at flash point (has anything changed?). The signature of the double flash indicated someone was testing atomic weapons in the region of Prince Edward Island - a tiny speck off the South African coast within the Antartic Circle. They wanted to carry out the test under cloud cover and limited wind speed to minimise the fallout. Someone stuffed up the forecast. The US wanted a smoking gun but they also didn't want to attract attention to what they suspected - that the aparthied de Klerk's South Africa and Israel were holding joint testing of nuclear weapons. In the middle of the tension the Middle East Hostage crisis the last thing Carter wanted was to highlight the fact Israel had "the bomb". The joke goes "How does the US know Israel has "the bomb"? "They kept the receipt." It also didn't help that trade with South Africa was under an almost world wide sanctions to protest the aparthied regime and human rights abuses.

The administration consulted with academics - saying the satellite was well past it's use-by date and the reading was probably just a malfunction of dying equipment. Even though, the Carter Administration asked for samples of sheeps' thyroids from Western Australia, Tasmania and Victoria be sent to the University of Tennessee for testing. The thyroids tested positive to low levels of iodine-131. To this day, most Australians have no idea the country was showered with radioactive fall out on the days following the event. I also wondered why the samples were sent to Tennessee? Surely anything to do with radiation testing should have gone to the more appropriate Los Alamos, Fermilab or even Berkley.

Now, anybody who has been to Perth will tell you about the wind. Every afternoon "the Fremantle Doctor" (that is so ironic in this situation) blows cool air up from the Antartic circle and across the Indian Ocean. This weather pattern is one of the most predictable on the planet. It gained it's friendly moniker for cooling the city down in the afternoon on hot summer days.

When I started researching this incident I was struck by one fact. Despite 60 years of making, testing and using nuclear bombs, no one really knows what is a "safe" amount of radioactive exposure. We know fatal levels, imminent cancer causing levels but mid to low range levels require a life time of data collection before anything can be identified let alone proved. One of the most unexpected things to come out of the Chernobyl accident is that few people actually died. Of course the incredible, brave men that went in directly after the accident knew it was a sucide mission. But I'll go back to the research coming out of Chernobyl accident later.

Whenever individuals remain in a radiologically contaminated area, such contamination will lead to an immediate external radiation exposure as well as a possible later internal hazard from inhalation and ingestion of radiocontaminants, such as the short-lived iodine-131, which is accumulated in the thyroid. This is why iodine is given to children exposed. It limits the thyroid from absorbing the radioactive form, iodine-131. Children are especially susceptible to radiation. By the time I was admitted to Princess Margaret Hospital for Children I couldn't do up the top button on my school uniform. The doctors had no idea. Initially they suspected cancer of the thyroid. After two weeks and several tests they diagnosed me with Hashimoto's Disease. It's not incredibly rare but they had never seen it in a 12 year old before. It usually occurs in women during pregnancy or in their mid 30's.

Hashimoto's is an autoimmune condition. Autoimmune means something has gone seriously askew in the body. Simply put, the body's own immune defenses start attacking the body. This manifests as many serious conditions including: Achlorhydra Autoimmune Active Chronic Hepatitis, Addison's Disease, Alopecia Areata, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease), Ankylosing Spondylitis, Anti-GBM Nephritis or anti-TBM Nephritis, Antiphospholipid Syndrome, Aplastic Anemia, Arthritis, Asthma, Atopic Allergy, Atopic Dermatitis, Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease (AIED), Autoimmune Lymphoproliferative Syndrome (ALPS), Balo Disease, Behcet's Disease, Berger's Disease (IgA Nephropathy), Bullous Pemphigoid, Cardiomyopathy, Celiac Disease, Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), Churg Strauss Syndrome, Cicatricial Pemphigoid, Cogan's Syndrome, Cold Agglutunin Disease, Colitis, Cranial Arteritis, CREST Syndrome, Crohn's Disease, Cushing's Syndrome, Dego's Disease, Dermatitis, Dermatomyositis, Devic Disease, Diabetes Type 1, Type 2, Dressler's Syndrome, Discoid Lupus, Eczema, Essential Mixed Cryoglobulinemia, Eosinophilic Fasciitis, Epidermolysis Bullosa Acquisita, Evan's Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Fibromyositis, Fibrosing Alveolitis, Gastritis, Giant Cell Artertis, Glomerulonephritis, Goodpasture's Disease, Grave's Disease, Guillian-Barre Syndrome, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, Hemolytic Anemia, Henoch-Schonlein Purpura, Hepatitis, Hughes Syndrome, Idiopathic Adrenal Atrophy, Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia Purpura, Inflammatory Demylinating Polyneuropathy, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Kawasaki's Disease, Lichen Planus, Lou Gehrig's Disease, Lupoid Hepatitis, Lupus, Lyme Disease, Meniere's Disease, Mixed Connective Tissue Disease, Multiple Myeloma, Multiple Sclerosis, Myasthenia Gravis, Myositis, Ocular Cicatricial Pemphigoid, Osteoporosis, Pars Planitis, Pemphigus Vulgaris, Polyglandular Autoimmune Syndromes, Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR), Polymyositis, Primary Biliary Cirrhois, Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis, Psoriasis, Raynaud's Phenomenon, Reiter's Syndrome, Rheumatic Fever, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Sarcoidosis, Scleritis, Scleroderma, Sjogren's Syndrome, Sticky Blood Syndrome, Still's Disease, Stiff Man Syndrome, Sydenham Chorea, Systemic Lupus Erythmatosis (SLE), Takayasu's Arteritis, Temporal Arteritis, Ulcerative Colitis, Vasculitis, Vitiligo, Wegener's Granulomatosis, Wilson's Syndrome. That's quite a list. If you have ever watched "House" you will know an autoimmune condition is usually the first or second consideration in diagnosis.

I'm not a doctor or had any medical training but I have years of experience as a patient in hospitals. Hashimotos wasn't the only thing happening to my body. I started feeling acute pain in my joints - mainly my feet and toes. Two of my doctors thought it may be the start of some type of arthritis, maybe juvenile rheumatoid arthritis but it was never really investigated. Over the next four years I complained to our family doctor but he decided I was being a hypochondriac. It wasn't until I was 18 that I recieved a correct diagnosis of Psoriatic Arthritis. I had my first hip replacement at 27. By the time I was 33 I had both hips replaced, both knees replaced and my right wrist surgically fused. They were replaced for pain management not mobility. I'm looking at a shoulder decompression and/or replacement in the near future.

I started to suspect something environmental when I noticed virtually every second person in Perth has thyroid disease. I must admit being adopted I didn't have a medical history. You may ask "why didn't doctor's realise there was a cluster?" Well, thyroid and other autoimmune diseases manifest at different rates with certain people more susceptible than others. Also unless someone is actively collecting the data and analysing it, autoimmune diseases are not notifiable. There is no big database with State or Australia wide health records. With such a large area effected by Vela unless you are comparing rates against another similar population of a developed country the statistical anomoly wouldn't be apparent. Certain levels of radiation exposure can be confirmed by testing for DNA damage or mutation. I can't afford to pay for the test unfortunately. Recently, Australian soldiers exposed to radiation at the Maralinga and Montebello weapon facilities are having blood tests to see if they sustained DNA damage.

For over 10 years now I've been routinely looking at the diseases manifesting in the children exposed at Chernobly. The data and diseases are all too familiar to me. Those children are now having children with high rates of asmtha, extreme allergies - anaphylaxis and other autoimmune diseases. These are the conditions that now gain headlines in Australia due to their frequency and severity. My generation who were exposed by Vela as children are having children with similiar problems. I don't believe these problems are all caused by over use of disinfectants and antibacterials - although I certainly think they contribute to the problem.

So I started asking questions. I talked to doctors, nurses, my fellow inpatients, x-ray staff, pathology - I questioned everybody. I asked without letting them know my theory - most people tend to think you are a conspiracy theory nut when you start babbling about secret nuclear testing and weather satellites. I also believe there is a degree of "why didn't we hear about this at the time?". Well it was covered by some news agencies - but it certainly never made it to the front page. I've trawled through the local newspaper archives but I haven't found any initial reports. I do vaguely remember a TV report on it though.

I would love to start collecting more data and anecdotal evidence. If you or someone you know who got sick around September 1979 - please send me an email by clicking HERE. Please give me a few days to reply. If you think some of the issues should be investigated, contact your local the newspaper or TV station. If you are trying to find answers why you got sick or why your children are sick please keep an open mind. I'm not highlighting this to seek restitution or revenge (I think Mossad would come after me - just joking), I think if I'm right and Australians are ill due to the actions of another country they should know why. It could also spur the debate on the global responsibility of countries poisoning past their border, not just their own country or former colonial territory (I'm looking at you France!).

With 30 years passing since the event some people within the joint nuclear testing program have confirmed it was a weapon test. Yet there are still skeptics. The most famous is Israeli, Mordechai Vanunu, who coincidentally converted to Christianity in a church I walked past everyday when I was living in Sydney. Of course he was jailed in Israel for talking about their nuclear weapon capability. Around the same time I was also asked to create the website for a documentary on the well known anti-nuclear advocate, Helen Caldicott. Serendipity or co-incidence? I don't know but it was a bit weird.
Thanks for reading my theory!


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