In 1953, Britain detonated an atomic bomb in Australia, sending a mysterious black mist across the desert before a secret programme began testing children’s bones for radiation

A strange black mist moved across the Australian desert in 1953 after Britain detonated an atomic bomb at Emu Field. The dark cloud was radioactive fallout, but the most disturbing chapter of the nuclear-testing programme would unfold years after the mist had disappeared, when Australian authorities began secretly collecting human bones to measure how much radioactive strontium had entered the population.

The episode grew out of Britain's postwar race to become a nuclear power. With the Cold War intensifying and Britain seeking to develop and refine its own atomic arsenal, Australia agreed to host British nuclear tests on its vast territory. In 1950, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee approached Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies about conducting nuclear tests on Australian soil. Menzies agreed. The arrangement was largely kept from the Australian public until 1952.

Between 1952 and 1963, Britain conducted 12 major nuclear detonations in Australia, alongside hundreds of smaller trials. The tests were presented as military experiments in remote areas, but radioactive fallout travelled beyond the designated sites and Aboriginal people were among those exposed.


The first British atomic test in Australia took place at the Monte Bello Islands off Western Australia in October 1952. A year later, Britain moved its testing programme to Emu Field, a remote site in South Australia.

It was there, on an October morning in 1953, that a strange dark cloud would become one of the most troubling episodes of Australia's nuclear history.

The morning the desert changed

At 7 a.m. on October 15, 1953, Britain detonated Totem 1, a nuclear device with an estimated yield of about 9.1 kilotons, at Emu Field in the Great Victoria Desert. A second test, Totem 2, followed on October 27. The site had been chosen for its remoteness, but the surrounding country was not empty.

Aboriginal people continued to live, travel and hunt across the region, including on traditional lands around the testing area. Some people had not been located or removed before the tests and were unaware of the danger posed by the explosions and radioactive fallout. The National Archives of Australia notes that the testing took place on the traditional lands of the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara peoples without their permission being sought. About 170 kilometres downwind from Emu Field, an Aboriginal group was camped at Wallatinna.

Around five hours after Totem 1 exploded, a phenomenon that would later become known as the “Black Mist” passed through the camp. The Australian Museum records his recollection of a dark fallout cloud moving across his family's camp, followed by sickness among people there, including vomiting, diarrhoea, skin problems and serious eye problems.

What was the Black Mist?

The explanation is less mysterious than its name. A nuclear explosion creates an enormous fireball that vaporises material from the weapon, its surroundings and structures associated with the test. Radioactive substances can then be carried through the atmosphere before settling back onto the ground as fallout.

British meteorologist, Ray Acaster, gave an account of the phenomenon, and its possible causes, in 2002 saying,

“The Black Mist was a process of mist or fog formation at or near the ground at various distances from the explosion point … Radioactive particles from the unusually high concentration in the explosion cloud falling into the mist or fog contributed to the condensation process … The radioactive particles in the mist or fog became moist and deposited as a black, sticky, and radioactive dust, particularly dangerous if taken into the body by ingestion or breathing.”

In the case of Totem 1, radioactive material travelled away from the test site with the atmospheric plume. The Black Mist was therefore contaminated plume and fallout from Totem 1 , rather than being an unexplained natural phenomenon.

The 2016 study published in Radiation Protection Dosimetry attempted to reconstruct the radiation exposure of the people at Wallatinna. Researchers considered several possible pathways, including radiation from the passing plume, inhalation, radioactive material deposited on the ground, and contaminated food and water. They estimated an upper effective dose of about 4 millisieverts for the group.

That figure is important because it adds a necessary qualification to the story.

The Black Mist was a genuine radioactive fallout event, but the available evidence does not allow every illness or death later attributed to the episode to be conclusively linked to radiation from Totem 1. The scientific assessment found the estimated dose was well below levels associated with acute radiation effects.

Children were secretly tested

But the fallout story did not end with the people who saw the Black Mist. Four years after the Emu Field tests, Australian authorities began a nationwide programme to find out how much radioactive material from nuclear testing had entered the human body. One substance they were looking for was strontium-90, a radioactive product of nuclear fission that behaves chemically like calcium. That means the body can absorb it and store it in bones.

From 1957 to 1978, hospitals and pathology services were paid to remove bone samples from about 22,000 people during autopsies, with infants and children particularly targeted because their growing bones could provide useful evidence of radioactive exposure. The samples were reduced to ash and tested for strontium-90; many were sent to Britain for analysis.

The families whose relatives were being sampled were not asked for permission or told about the programme. The scale of the operation only became widely known decades later, after surviving samples and records were uncovered.

A nuclear programme much bigger than two explosions

Totem 1 and Totem 2 were only part of Britain's much larger Australian nuclear programme. Between 1952 and 1963, Britain conducted 12 major nuclear detonations at three Australian locations: the Monte Bello Islands, Emu Field and Maralinga. There were also hundreds of smaller trials involving nuclear-weapons components and radioactive materials.

After the two Totem tests, Britain decided that Emu Field was not suitable as a permanent testing ground and sought another site. That eventually led to Maralinga, where Britain conducted further nuclear tests beginning in 1956.

The consequences of the programme extended far beyond the explosions themselves.

Radioactive contamination remained at former test sites after the programme ended. At Maralinga, early clean-up efforts were later found to have been inadequate. The Australian government established the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia in 1984, amid growing concerns about radiation exposure, safety procedures and the disposal of radioactive material.

The commission's findings helped establish a clearer historical record of what had happened during the testing programme, including the exposure of Aboriginal people to fallout at Emu Field.

The programme eventually ended, but its consequences did not disappear with the final explosion. In 1993, Britain agreed to make an ex gratia payment of £20 million toward further rehabilitation of the Maralinga and Emu sites following a long-running dispute over the clean-up.