@Lois Winters The tiny "mantles" used for illumination in typical camping lanterns are dipped in Thorium Oxide, which has a very high melting point, and glows with a bright white light. They emit Radon gas while heated and in operation, a known dangerous human carcinogen. During past decades, it has been determined that thousands of occupied buildings which contain building materials containing earth materials (rock, gravel, sand, cement) which were obtained from Radium-containing ores, many from mining tailings re-use (gotta keep wind-blown dust down, ya know!) are potentially poisoning occupants with Radon. Frank
Geiger Counters cannot detect Alpha and Gamma radiation a distances of more then a few feet, but Scintillators can detect that type of radiation at hundreds of meters distant. I have a Gieger Counter and a lab sample of a radioactive mineral. Hal
If your boyfriend worked on the Manhattan Project, I'm surprised that he could give you any information regarding personnel and technical data...was he a contact of Klaus Fuchs? Hal
Physicist Klaus Fuchs was a British spy, slipping A-Bomb secrets to a Russian agent while working on top-secret projects at Los Alamos. His activities enabled Russia to detonate its first A-bomb as early as 1949. Hal
I know who he was, Hal, but I did not understand your comment since I certainly did not have a boyfriend who worked on the Manhattan Project.
A few years ago I was asked to help plan a kayak adventure camping trip to Tybee Island, GA. I flatly refused and the planned trip was relocated to Cumberland Island instead. The reason being was that there still was a missing warhead in the shallows off Tybee dropped there during a scramble in 1958. As luck would have it there was a government shutdown which prevented us from setting up camp on Cumberland Island after we had toured the abandoned mansion and made friends with the wild horses that were there. So instead we bolted to Tybee Island and its glowing bioluminescent beaches. Some time this year I believe, a couple from Canada came across the bomb while diving but the news of that was surely squelched.