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Genghis Kahn Victim of US Fallout?: by Brandon Ballengée

"Please, God, don't let us have killed John Wayne" quote from a scientist from The Defense Nuclear Agency People magazine October 11, 1980

Early dawn in the Nevada desert is marked by the reawakening of the sun. Nocturnal creatures begin their slumbering descent into cool caverns, sleeping through the dayís scorching heat. Other life forms emerge seeking an appropriate area to bath in the morning light. Joshua trees randomly decorate, silhouetted by distant mountains. Small towns scattered throughout the desert begin there concentric bustle.

On the morning of January 27, 1951, a large flash alarmed ranchers as far away as Utah, a tremendous sound like thunder followed--- breaking windows as far away as Arizona. In the aftermath a pink cloud formed. A cloud alive with debris carrying radioactive energy. Energy that would subtly drift across military lines, geographic markers, and eventually thousands of homes. Casually the cloud made itís way east until, captured by gravity and rain, it is returned to earth in the form of fallout.

Sadly the journey did not end. Instead active radio-nuclides continued to produce energy for many and in some cases thousands of years. Fallout inadvertently enters the environment in many forms. Strontium 90 is often misread by the body as calcium. Dairy cows grazing on fallout contaminated grass produce radioactive milk. In our own bodies milk with trace elements of strontium finds it home into our teeth and bones inevitably releasing alpha particles past the duration of our life.

The first pink cloud would be followed by many over the next twelve years. The United States Military detonated 126 atomic bombs into the atmosphere at the 1,350 square mile Nevada Test Site. High levels of fallout, comparable to the levels released by the explosion of the Chernobyl Nuclear reactor, contaminated large areas of the US. continent. In 1953, scientists recorded high radioactive readings from fallout as far away as Troy, New York. The total amount of radiation released from fallout from the Nevada Test Site is not known. The number of medical problems that have arisen from the tests is also a mystery.

1954: THE CONQUEROR
The Last Film Produced by Howard Hughes

The Conqueror, directed by Dick Powell starred John Wayne as Genghis Khan, and co-starred Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead. Powell searched multiple locations to shoot Gobi Desert Scenes. After looking at eight states, Powell found Snow Canyon, Utah. The area was a state park and perfect for the part.

The movie had many action scenes and hired Native Americans from a nearby reservation to act as Kahnís Mongolian army. The sets were extensive and the crew consisted of 220 people. Large fans were used to simulate sand storms. What Powell did not know about Snow Canyon may have killed him and many of his crew.

The park is located 137 miles northeast of the Nevada Test Site, in an area near St. George that had received large amounts of fallout over the past three years. When simulating the wind-storms Powell unknowingly resuspended much of the lethal fallout. In addition, at the end of shooting on site the crew removed 60 tons of contaminated soil. The sand was used for weeks to shoot the remaining staged scenes.

By 1980, 91 of the 220 person crew had contracted or died from cancer. The types were wide-spread and the connection between fallout and the cases has never been legally proven. Powell, Wayne, Hayward, and Moorehead all died from cancer.