Tourist chaos in the desert after “Oppenheimer”: “Like a circus”

TRINITY SITE, NEW MEXICO. A cloud of radioactive ash exploded over the desert valley – changing the world forever.

After the Oppenheimer film, the site of the first nuclear explosion has become a tourist magnet, with shot glasses and hotdogs for sale.

– They treat it like a circus, says Tina Cordova, 63.

“WARNING. Radioactive material.”

A young guy stands next to the yellow warning sign. He smiles and gives a thumbs up. His friend snaps a picture, then they switch places.
Next door, there is a carnival atmosphere, where families with children crowd to spray ketchup on sausages and burgers. Further into the area, the queues to buy souvenirs grow. Shot glasses with radioactive symbols or t-shirts with the famous quote that the father of nuclear weapons shouted when his experiment was successful:
“Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Thousands make the pilgrimage to the desolate patch of New Mexico desert this morning.
Trinity site – here the world’s first nuclear weapon went off.

For two days a year, the detonation point inside the military base is transformed into a bizarre theme park, where the password for the Wi-Fi is “atomic bomb”.
At the end of October, the gates opened to the public for the first time since the Hollywood film about the American physicist Robert Oppenheimer was a hit.

When the hordes of tourists are chowing down on sausages, it’s hard to imagine the fifteen-kilometer-high pillar of fire that cleaved the sky in the same place 78 years earlier.

Queuing for hours

Husbands Bill Coffran, 68, and Sam Coffran, 57, of Vegas, arrive hand in hand in matching t-shirts with the text
“It’s DA BOMB”.
A double meaning: “It’s the bomb” and “It’s fantastic”.

– We have been waiting all morning to get in. It’s worth it, says Bill, who got the shirts well in advance.

– He really loves history, says Sam and rolls his eyes.

The caravan to Trinity started before dawn. Some have been queuing since four. Getting in was no guarantee, 5,000 vehicles were given a chance at the exclusive display.

“Emotional”

The film Oppenheimer depicts how the American scientists waged a battle against the clock during World War II. The Nazis couldn’t make it first. For several years, they built a secret city and laboratory in Los Alamos, and gathered forces to build the first nuclear weapon in the so-called Manhattan Project.

Finally, at 05:29, on July 16, 1945, the mushroom cloud swelled, in the middle of the wasteland. The world changed forever. Some believe that in that second the chain reaction that could be our downfall started.

Today, a black stone pillar marks the zero point.

– I actually got a little emotional. How can you not? This place changed everything. Think an atomic bomb went off here!, says Bill Coffran, looking up into the sky.
Nearby, tourists inspect the remains of the 30-meter-high scaffolding that held up the bomb. Only a stone and metal stubs remain after the mega bang.
On a table some distance away, visitors can test the radioactivity in green shimmering stones. Glass, from when the desert sand melted in the first nuclear test. They contain particles of plutonium, encapsulated in sand.

The machine clicks louder and louder, the meter vibrates like crazy.

– It is low radioactivity, which is no longer dangerous to health. But I would wash my hands before eating, warns one of the instructors.

The entire area is still radioactive, although the amount of radiation has decreased. According to experts, you are exposed to three times as much radiation during a long flight.

When two tourists collect ice cubes from the ground, to ask if they are also radioactive, the instructor becomes upset.

– You may not pick up new material! You are absolutely not allowed to bring anything from here.

Despite the fact that it is now forbidden to put rocks in your pocket, a couple of the radioactive glass lumps, trinitite, are being sold online. For $99 each.

“It’s worrying”

Visitor Rob Cedric, 32, comes walking in a t-shirt with the text “Nukes y’all”.
– I am very interested in history. The Oppemheimer film really spurred me to come here. The renewed interest, he says.

In recent years, he feels that the threat of nuclear weapons has escalated. With Russian President Putin rattling nuclear weapons, US ex-President Trump turning his big nuclear button.
– It is worrying. You read the news and think “Will we be safe? Will the world leaders make good decisions?”. I hope so. It is beyond my control. I try to focus on the world around me, rather than being afraid. But it’s there in the back of my mind.

Further afield, tourists can visit The McDonald Ranch House, a simple cabin, which the US Army took over from a family during World War II to train soldiers. Despite promises that the family would be allowed to return, the military kept the house.

In the first room hangs the sign “assembly room plutonium”.

The world’s first atomic bomb was assembled here. It was called: the Gadget.

Inside the Spartan walls, the plutonium core was rigged, and driven the last kilometers to the detonation site in an old Buick.
– We saw the movie Oppenheimer recently, and being here makes me think about it more, understand the history behind it more than from the school lessons. It’s a lot to take in, says Heather Winter, 25, from Tennessee.

Her boyfriend JP Nelms, 26, agrees.

– I knew it would be crazy here today, because of the film hype.

He does not think that the world has been changed for the worse by Oppenheimer’s deadly invention.
– It would have happened sooner or later. It was just a matter of which superpower would catch up first. I think the US uses that power responsibly, we want to keep it out of the wrong hands.
The impact was bigger than Oppenheimer expected. The equivalent of 25,000 tons of explosives, according to estimates. A large fireball – many times hotter than the surface of the sun – was visible far away, and with a shock wave that reached 10 miles away.
The residents did not know what had exploded until three weeks later. Only when the USA dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was it made public what was going on in their own backyard.

“The world’s deadliest weapon was developed near Santa Fe,” they could read in the local newspaper.

Japan surrendered. It put an end to World War II. 120,000 – 230,000 died instantly. Many more have died of cancer from radiation since then.

To this day, it is the only time nuclear weapons have been used in war.

During the Cold War, Russia and the United States jointly succeeded in reducing the number of nuclear weapons. That trend has today been broken. Iran has ambitions. China is expanding its arsenal. Russia has left the disarmament treaty.

Geopolitical tensions are increasing.

Certainly there is a fear that nuclear weapons will be used again, says Trinity visitor JP Nelms.
– It’s always there in the background. I’m worried, but I’m sure we can handle it. You have to stop thinking about the fear so much and work towards a brighter future.

In the middle of the tourist rush is also a white replica of the Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. More selfies.

“They treat it like a circus”

The tourist horde is surrounded by miles of desert, rugged mountains. Morning fog that wraps the stones in a romantic veil.

The location was chosen for its desolation. It was close to rail and highways for the research team. The problem was: It wasn’t completely deserted.

Half a million people lived in villages and ranches within a 25-mile radius of the blast. Plutonium dust rained down on them. Landed in the soils, in the water. Many have been plagued by cancer for generations.
As the tourists leave Trinity Square, they are met by protesters.

Japan was not the first victim – we were, they say.
“Sick and dying”, says a sign.
“Trinity = cancer for New Mexicans”

A woman has hung up her cancer medication in a transparent garbage bag.

They call themselves “downwinders”, a group of local residents who fight for vindication.

63-year-old Tina Cordova leads the group. Many of the eyewitnesses are now gone. Die of cancer, or old age. But the excess mortality in the area lives on.

She belongs to the fourth generation in her family to be diagnosed with cancer. Together, all the “downwinders” demand compensation for having been exposed to the atomic experiment in the desert.
– We heard that they drive tourist buses here, for 250 dollars per person. We had no idea. We want it to close it. This is not a tourist attraction, she says.

– They treat it like a circus. Sells hamburgers, hotdogs, t-shirts. It’s not a safe place, I mean: there are radiation warning signs everywhere.

Got a promise from Biden

For 18 years, she has fought for victims in the area. She is furious at how the US government has treated them.

When President Joe Biden came to New Mexico in August, she got the chance to meet him. Then he promised help and money to the survivors after the atomic test.
– I said, the clock is ticking and people are dying. He said “I’m on board”.
That promise has filled her with hope. She believes they are closer to their goal than ever.

When Cordova saw the Oppenheimer film, she cried.
– It was a tremendous disappointment. You don’t see a single person from New Mexico in the film. It’s as if the Trinity test took place in a vacuum. But we are the ones who made all the dirt. Built roads, bridges, facilities. You don’t see any of that.

Tina Cordova contacted the filmmakers during production. She asked them to at least add a text at the end about the sacrifices of the locals. How they slowly died because of the top secret experiment.

The filmmakers refused, she says.

– They should be ashamed.