One may guess that perhaps the “secret ingredients” were hafnium or tantalum isomers, for reasons that will be apparent in a moment.
Note again the crucial requirement of immersion in a reactor for the precise purpose of subjecting the compound to high intensity neutron bombardment. We are now in a position to speculate why the material has such a high alleged density, and why it seems to “decay” after a few months, requiring “refreshing” by re-immersion in a reactor, for the chemical composition may be such that it allows the compound to absorb an excessively high and abnormal number of neutrons, which then slowly decays again. This would explain its extreme density. Likewise readers of my previous book on Nazi secret weapons, Reich of the Black Sun, will also recall mention of the Japanese intercept detailing German research in extremely high density materials such as obtained in certain types of stars, an allusion, perhaps, to precisely such German work with high density radioactive compounds immersed in nuclear reactors.
Finally, if the “recipe” for the confection of Red Mercury sounds a bit familiar, it should, for after all, it was Gerlach who hinted at what the possible inspiration may have been: alchemy.
c. Nuclear Isomers, Spin, GRASERS, and Gerlach
But why isotopes of hafnium and tantalum as the “secret ingredient(s)”? These substances are a strange form of radioactive isotope known as nuclear isomers, and isomers have some very strange properties indeed. Discovered in 1921, isomers are simply metastable or “extremely stable” forms of atoms that are brought about by a state of excitation of protons or neutrons in their nucleus, such that they require a change in their spin before they can release their pent-up energy. We are now a step closer to understanding the Bell, since it now appears that the device, due to the presence of “Xerum 525” was much more than a high-voltage, counterrotating plasma trap as conjectured by Witkowski. It certainly was that, but it was also a kind of reactor as well, designed to release nuclear energy by extremely high stresses brought about by high speed rotation and, in my own speculative reconstruction, by abrupt high voltage direct current pulsations.
Most isomers have unusually short half-lives, but in the case of tantalum-180m, its half life is an extremely long 1015 years, or ten quadrillion years. And oddly enough, tantalum-180m is thought to have some connection to exploding stars, to supernovas.
Hafnium-178-2m is yet another metastable isomer, with a half life of a modest 31 years, but also apparently the isomer with the highest excitation energy, giving for one kilogram approximately a quarter megaton of yield of energy, mostly in the form of gamma rays. As such, it is one substance being investigated by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as a possible ballotechnic explosive, capable not only for use in “pure fusion” bombs but also as a means for pumping a gamma-ray laser, or GRASER, recalling the Mossbauer Effect outlined in the previous chapter.
Note now what we have:
(1) Isomers release their energy through changes in their spin;
(2) Nuclear magnetic spin resonance and gravity are the specialized fields of Prof. Dr. Walther Gerlach, project head of the Bell;
(3) The Bell employed a heavy liquid substance called “Xerum 525”, probably a “salted” compound based in part on mercury;
(4) This compound, since it was “salted”, depended for its creation on immersion over a period of time in a reactor core to subject the material to neutron bombardment, creating a substance of abnormally high density;
(5) World War Two Japanese intercepts refer to Nazi research in extremely high density materials for fusion research;
(6) Descriptions of Red Mercury are eerily similar to “Xerum 525, and Red Mercury is purportedly a “ballotechnic” chemical explosive capable of generating fusion bombs without the need for an atom bomb;
(7) “Xerum 525” was subjected to high velocity counterrotation or stress inside the Bell;
(8) “Xerum 525” may also have been subjected to repeated abrupt extremely high voltage direct current pulses inside the Bell;
(9) Gerlach wrote, nine years before the Nazis took power, of the need for a large scale project to investigate the phenomenon of mercury transmutation when mercury was subjected to precisely such stressing;
(10) Other “occult” and “esoteric” sources have long alleged that some similar such project was conducted in secret, by various secret societies in Germany prior to the Nazi era.
All these things combined tend to corroborate the notion that not only does the Bell represent a project most likely carried out over a long period of time, a project that the Nazis inherited from Weimar Germany and not one that they initiated, but it also corroborates the notion that at least some of this technology, probably in rudimentary form, made its way into the Soviet Union after the war, where it became the basis for the Russians’ own research into ballotechnics and their peculiar properties.
C. Back to the Nazi Atom Bomb: The Implications of the Ohrdruf Test Reconsidered
But all these things not only suggest but require the use of a reactor in the confection of the compound, and this is problematic, since, after all, the Nazis were not supposed to have been successful in building a reactor. After all, even on the most radical reconstruction of their nuclear program, one that would allow them the achievement of a uranium fueled atom bomb, they never had a plutonium bomb because they were unable to synthesize that element in a reactor. No reactor, no plutonium bomb. No reactor, no “ballotechnic”, no ability to “salt” a compound like “Xerum 525” by neutron bombardment – and neutron bombardment and absorption is the only conceivably effective way to achieve anomalously high density materials, highly speculative though these thoughts may be.
All these considerations lead inevitably back to the alleged German test of a small critical mass, high yield atom bomb at or near the Ohrdruf troop parade ground on March 4, 1945.37
1. The Claims for the Ohrdruf Test
In order to appreciate the significance of the Ohrdruf atomic bomb test for the story of the Bell being developed here, it is necessary to reprise some of the remarks I made in my previous book on Nazi secret weapons, Reich of the Black Sun, for readers who may not have read that book, or who may not be familiar with the Ohrdruf story. The test was first brought to the attention of the German researchers Edgar Meyer and Thomas Mehner by an elderly German expatriate in Argentina by the name of Adolf Bernd Freier, who shortly before his death, told of the test of an atom bomb on the troop parade ground near the village of Ohrdruf on March 4, 1945. At this point, it is necessary to cite my remarks from Reich of the Black Sun rather extensively, in order to highlight the problems it poses:
In any case, the most problematical aspect of the alleged test of an atom bomb by the Nazis in the Orhdruf-Three Corners region of Thuringia comes from a rather specific, and rather startling, assertion. According to Freier, the test took place on March 4, 1945 at the old troop parade ground at Ohrdruf. There, a small scaffold about 6 meters high had been erected, at the top of which a small “atomic weapon”38 was placed. The weapon, according to Freier, was “100 g”, a mere one hundred grams!
This is one of the most significant, and highly problematical, allegations regarding the real nature of the Nazi atom bomb project, made by someone supposedly involved in it, for as will be immediately obvious, 100 grams is far short of the 50 or so kilograms of critical mass needed for a uranium-based atom bomb, as has been seen, and it is still well below the amount needed for the critical mass for a typical plutonium bomb. Yet, Freier is insistent upon this point, and moreover alleges that all the “slaves”, the luckless concentration camp victims that were forced to take part in the test, within a circle of 500-600 meters from ground zero were killed.39 This would give an area of approximately 1 to 1.2 kilometers of blast damage, roughly the effect of a modern tactical nuclear bomb. Such a blast radius would require an enormous amount of the then available conventional explosives, and that amount would far exceed the mere 100 grams Freier alleges for the devic
e. These points indicate that the “A-Waffe: or “atomic weapon” was in fact a fully fledged atom bomb. So how does one explain the extraordinarily small critical mass, especially since the Manhattan Project was aiming for a uranium critical mass of around 50 kilograms?
The question deserves serious consideration, for it affords yet another possible clue – if the allegation is to be credited with accuracy – into the real nature of the Nazi atom bomb project. We have seen already that the project was developed under several different and discreet groups for reasons partly due to security, and for reasons partly due to the practical nature of the German program…..The real atom bomb development occurred far from the prying eyes of Allied intelligence, under the auspices of the Reichspost and more importantly, under the direct auspices of the SS.
The second fact of the German atom bomb project we have likewise previously encountered: its emphasis on what was practically achievable during the war. Hence, while the Germans knew of the possibilities of plutonium and a plutonium-based atom bomb, and therefore knew that a functioning reactor used to produce plutonium for bombs would thereby enable Germany to develop more bombs for the same investment of fissile material, they also knew that a major technical hurdle lay across the path: the development of a successful reactor in the first place. Thus, as has been previously argued, they opted to develop a uranium-based bomb only, since uranium could be enriched to weapons grade purity without the necessity of the development of a reactor, and since they already possessed the technologies to do so, if employed en masse. Like its American Manhattan Project counterpart, the SS-run program relied on massive numbers of enrichment units to separate and purify isotope.
Now let us extend this line of reasoning further. Germany was also seeking to be able to deploy such bombs as warheads on its rockets. And that meant, given their limited lift capabilities, that the weight of the warheads had somehow to be reduced by several orders of magnitude for their rockets to be able to carry them. And there is an economic factor. Knowing that their industrial capacity would be strained by the effort, even with the help of tens of thousands of slave laborers from the camps, another problem may have presented itself to the Germans, a problem illumined for them by their own knowledge of the possibilities offered by plutonium-based bombs: How does one get more bang for the Reichsmark without the use of plutonium? Is there a way to rely on less uranium in a critical mass assembly than is conventionally thought?40
And at this point, the reader will recall the history of nuclear weapons generations given earlier in this chapter, for there is such a way, via “boosted fission,” i.e., through the addition of some high neutron emitting source to the atomic fuel to spit extra fast neutrons into the chain reaction than would be caused by the critical mass itself. In short, the Germans were already thinking in terms of second generation nuclear weaponry.41 And one such neutron emitting source is precisely deuterium and tritium;
Thus, “boosted fission” would have afforded the German bomb program a practical way to increase the number of bombs available to them, and a reliable method for achieving an uncontrolled nuclear fission reaction with lower purity of enriched material. It is perhaps quite significant, then, that Freier’s testimony concerning the Three Corners underground weapons factories also mentions the existence of an underground heavy water plant in the facilities, for heavy water, of course, contains atoms of deuterium and tritium (heavy hydrogen atoms with one and two extra neutrons in the nucleus respectively).42
And there I let matters lie, without going into further comment on the scientific and historical implications of Freier’s allegations. That some sort of atomic test did take place in Ohrdruf seems apparent from the physical evidence of the region: old tree stumps are flattened in a radial pattern from a common center, as if blasted away in a huge explosion. And the region also has the highest background radiation of any area of modern Germany, a background radiation that is anomalous.
But let us consider, for a moment, the implication of that 100 grams. If that 100 grams represented plutonium, then it is just barely conceivable that the weapon tested at Ohrdruf was a fully functional “boosted fission” atom bomb, for that is just about the minimum possible amount of plutonium for a conventional modern boosted fission tactical nuclear bomb.
But therein, too, lies the problem, for that very small amount of plutonium would require by the nature of the case a very high purity of plutonium. It would require not only a reactor technology, but a rather well-advanced one, and of course, German failures in building a conventional graphite moderated reactor are well-known, as are Heisenberg’s own clumsy attempts at construction of a heavy-water moderated reactor towards the end of the war.43 What all this leads up to is that a third generation nuclear weapon, not a neutron bomb as alleged by William Lyne, nor a “boosted fission” bomb as I implied in Reich of the Black Sun, but a pure fusion device, a pure hydrogen bomb, may in fact been the type of device tested at Ohrdruf, one relying, not on fission, but on the fusion of heavy hydrogen, to achieve its yield. Only such a device is in keeping with the very small weight and very high yield recorded for it. That the Germans had the technology to produce the heavy water for such a device is known. But to produce a conventional explosive to achieve the extremely high density and fusion energies necessary is another matter, unless, of course, one recalls the Bell and its mysterious “Xerum 525” and its eerily peculiar resemblance to the alleged ballotechnical explosive compound Red Mercury.
But we are still not off the hook yet, for every mention of ballotechnics, from the alleged “Red Mercury” to exotic nuclear isomers, require at some point in the recipe a process of synthesis of the compound by neutron bombardment and absorption in a reactor. In short, one still requires a reactor. So both the Ohrdruf test, and the Bell’s “Xerum 525” point unmistakably to the existence of a well-developed, though still quite hidden and unknown reactor technology inside Nazi Germany. And since their graphite moderated reactors were known to be failures, and since Heisenberg’s heavy water moderated reactors and their “failures” are also well-known proto-Chernobyl “disasters”, what other options were there?
2. The Implied Existence of a Reactor Technology: Hartek and Houtermann’s “Cold” Reactors and the “Recipe”
Oddly enough, it is the physicist Fritz Houtermanns and the nuclear chemist Paul Hartek who point clearly and unequivocally to the existence within Nazi Germany of some very unusual, and even very refined, ideas for reactors with unusual, and very available moderators.
Hartek had early on hit upon the simple expedient of using tons of dry ice as a moderator in a reactor, a solution that avoided the cooling and energy problems of a conventional graphite reactor and moreover served his purposes well: the creation of large amounts of nuclear waste to be dusted over enemy cities.44
More significantly, as outlined in chapter nine of Reich of the Black Sun, Houtermanns pointed the way to a methane cooled and moderated reactor. In any case, in both concepts one sees the same principles and aims at work: the creation of a relatively “cool” reactor that avoided the problems associated with graphite, and the creation of a reactor for the express purpose of creating large quantities of isotopes. Both concepts, in any case, would have leant themselves rather more easily to the insertion of materials for “salting” via neutron bombardment. In other words, both types of reactor, and especially some version of Houtermanns’ methane reactor, would have been ideal designs for creating a ”doped” compound such as Red Mercury or Xerum 525.
The question of whether or not the Nazis would have actually constructed and operated some version of either reactor is a moot one, since the SS-run black projects would have concealed their existence quite successfully, as it did with the uranium enrichment facilities at Auschwitz. Given the nature of this program it is extremely unlikely that the SS would not have attempted from the earliest date feasible to construct and operate a reactor. The existence of the Ohdruf test and the Bell’s mysterious “Xerum 525” po
int clearly, if not entirely conclusively, to the existence of just such a hidden and operational reactor technology inside the Third Reich, a technology that, as the existence of “Xerum 525” indicates, was used in some very exotic materials engineering. The Bell itself may thus be not only related to such technology, but it is also conceivable that it might, to coin a pun, be at its nucleus. Not only may the Germans have discovered some prototypical ballotechnic in “Xerum 525” but they may also have discovered some effect similar to the Mossbauer Effect.
D. Briefly Back to Roswell and MAJIC-12: General Nathan Twining’s “White Hot Intelligence Estimate” Reconsidered
Readers of my previous book Reich of the Black Sun will doubtless be thinking that all this discussion about radioactively “doped” materials such as Red Mercury and “Xerum 525,” as well as all the discussion on high electrical discharges and spin, sounds vaguely familiar. But for those for whom it does not, the following MAJIC-12 document, the “White Hot Intelligence Estimate,” prepared as a technical overview of the craft and technologies recovered at Roswell, is cited just as it was cited in Reich of the Black Sun:
18. The following elements were analyzed and found to exist in the small neutronic power plant that was found inside ULAT-1:45
a. UF6 in metallic form;46
b. Hydrogen-fluoride gas;
c. Water and uranium tetrafluoride;
d. Powdered magnesium and potassium chlorate;
SS Brotherhood of the Bell: The Nazis’ Incredible Secret Technology Page 33