Project Seal
Encyclopedia
Project Seal was a programme by the New Zealand
military to develop a weapon
that could create destructive tsunami
s. This weapon was tested in Whangaparaoa off the coast of Auckland
between 1944-1945. The experiments were conducted by Professor Thomas Leech. British and US defence chiefs were eager to see it developed and it was considered as important as the atomic bomb. It was expected to cause massive damage to coastal cities; it could have even been used with a nuclear charge. The weapon was only tested using small explosions and never on a full scale. After 4000 test explosions over a seven-month period, none of which generated an appreciable tsunami, the project was closed down when it was determined that there were errors in the theoretical basis of the plan. The top secret documents on Project Seal were only declassified in 1999. A copy of the declassified report is available to the public at the Scripps Institution Of Oceanography Library in San Diego, California. Portions of the report can be downloaded from the Center for UFO Truth in the Shared Documents section
.
A 1968 research report sponsored by the US Office of Naval Research addressed this hypothesis of coastal damage due to large explosion-generated waves, and found theoretical and experimental evidence showing it to be relatively inefficient in wave making potential, with most wave energy dissipated by breaking on the continental shelf before reaching shore .
Carrion suggests that the goals of this deception operation could have been one or more of the following:
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
military to develop a weapon
Tectonic weapon
A tectonic weapon is a hypothetical device or system by which a nation could create earthquakes, volcanoes, or similar events in specified locations by interference with the earth's geological processes...
that could create destructive tsunami
Tsunami
A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
s. This weapon was tested in Whangaparaoa off the coast of Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
between 1944-1945. The experiments were conducted by Professor Thomas Leech. British and US defence chiefs were eager to see it developed and it was considered as important as the atomic bomb. It was expected to cause massive damage to coastal cities; it could have even been used with a nuclear charge. The weapon was only tested using small explosions and never on a full scale. After 4000 test explosions over a seven-month period, none of which generated an appreciable tsunami, the project was closed down when it was determined that there were errors in the theoretical basis of the plan. The top secret documents on Project Seal were only declassified in 1999. A copy of the declassified report is available to the public at the Scripps Institution Of Oceanography Library in San Diego, California. Portions of the report can be downloaded from the Center for UFO Truth in the Shared Documents section
.
A 1968 research report sponsored by the US Office of Naval Research addressed this hypothesis of coastal damage due to large explosion-generated waves, and found theoretical and experimental evidence showing it to be relatively inefficient in wave making potential, with most wave energy dissipated by breaking on the continental shelf before reaching shore .
Alleged U.S. deception operation
James Carrion, associated with MUFON and involved in discussion about alleged unidentified flying objects (UFOs), speculated that Project Seal may have been used as part of an elaborate deception program to convince the Soviet Union in 1947 that UFOs were a secret American weapons project, and also ferret out Communist agents within the US . The Project was terminated in January 1945, but information leaked to the press in 1947 by both Thomas Leech, Director of Project Seal, and James Marion Snodgrass, an American scientist who collaborated on the project in its infancy, promoted it as an ongoing top secret research project. Carrion quotes press and military reports showing that there was speculation on what the weapon could be and, based on Thomas Leech being an expert in aerodynamics, that it was an airborne weapon.Carrion suggests that the goals of this deception operation could have been one or more of the following:
- Deterrence – Make the Soviets believe the United States had a weapon greater than the atomic bomb to forestall a feared Soviet attack.
- Code-breaking – Control the stories leaked to the press. If you control the plain text, and this plain text is encoded for transmission back to Moscow, you can attempt to break the code.
- Unmasking of spies (through watching for people expressing an interest in UFOs or through springing a canary trapCanary trapA canary trap is a method for exposing an information leak, which involves giving different versions of a sensitive document to each of several suspects and seeing which version gets leaked....
, a method for exposing an information leak, which involves giving different versions of a sensitive document to each of several suspects and seeing which version gets leaked). - Tying up Soviet Research and Development efforts on chasing a non-existent program.
- Discrediting Soviet officials who were (obviously) not going to be able to come up with any details of a non-existent program.