The United States Lost a Hydrogen Bomb... And Never Found It

[00:00:00]The United States lost a hydrogen bomb and nobody knows where it is. In 1958, a US Air Force bomber carrying a hydrogen bomb collided with another aircraft over Georgia.

[00:00:11]>> [music] >> To keep the crew alive, the bomb was released into the ocean below.

[00:00:16]The military searched for more than 2 months. They never found the bomb. The government told the public not to worry.

[00:00:23]Officials claimed the bomb's nuclear core had been removed before the flight.

[00:00:28]Case closed.

[00:00:29]Except decades later, declassified documents revealed something different.

[00:00:34]The bomb may have been [music] complete, fully assembled, and potentially capable of detonating.

[00:00:41]In 2004, the government searched again.

[00:00:44]They still couldn't find it.

[00:00:46]Then they made a surprising decision.

[00:00:49]Stop looking. And this wasn't the only one. The United States has lost multiple nuclear weapons. Some were recovered.

[00:00:57]>> [music] >> Others were not. Which raises a question.

[00:01:01]If these weapons are truly harmless, why did the government spend decades arguing about what's inside them?