Lost Nuclear Weapons

Don't panic. We repeat don't panic over these lost nuclear weapons. This isn't a new thing. It's just an interesting factoid that there are 8 nuclear warheads that the United States (the Soviets lost more, but it's not a competition) has lost throughout the years. You can panic now. Now that you know the United States and presumably other nuclear powers of the world have had incidents where they've just "misplaced" a nuclear weapon or two...or eight.The term for lost nuclear weapons is a "Broken Arrow" (imagine that Hollywood sorta got something right) and the crazy thing is, it happens, or happened more than we're all really comfortable with. The first incident took place in 1950. Like we haven't had these new toys for 5 years and we're already losing them. What the hell guys? Then again in 1956, we lost two more. Maybe, just maybe we should start putting some controls in place. At this rate, it seems like we're losing nuclear weapons like we lose our house keys.

In 1961 a B-52 carrying two 24 megaton bombs crashed in North Carolina swamps, one of the weapons was never to be found again. Then another was lost in 1965 off the coast of Japan when a plane crashed into the ocean. Japan, given the history of the United States and nuclear weapons, was justifiably pissed off. Then again in 1968...a nuclear attack submarine sank off the coast of the Azores containing two nuclear payloads equaling 250 kilotons were lost with the submarine and crew.

This is just the United States alone, but don't worry (or do, this isn't exactly comforting information), the Soviet Union wasn't exactly super responsible with their nuclear weapons either and the two superpowers have lost at least 30 nuclear weapons. The governments assure us that all but six have been recovered, but these are also the governments that lost over 30 nuclear weapons so...