Great video so far! Keep up the good work, love to listen while I do homework, or just watch them generally. Thanks for all the effort put into these

Realy love the hlh series, waiting for the next one!

Love the series! It is not only a grim reminder of how dangerous nuclear material is, but also what it is able to achieve if documented and disposed of properly.

This is amazing

The serious tone and style of editing is brilliant and something I always look forward to watching and listening to. Awesome series, and awesome video my dude.

Jeez. Good i dont go out in the sun too often.

​@@bzqp2true. Melanoma is no joke.

rule #1 of human survival instinct... if it appears to be unnatural, it'll probably kill you.

​​@@bzqp2 I cover up all skin when out in the sun, even a light fabric will do the job to prevent tons of radiation from damaging your cells

@@bzqp2 Sunlight can indeed cause cancer and it will destroy the Earth in a few billion years.

Imagine how many of them are in the ex USSR territory.

Not those RtG:s, there is only two missing in wild, as it was stated in video. Those 300 was about orphan sources in general.

@@MeltedMask Was referring to Orphan Sources when I said that, sorry for the confusion.

@@thecityissleeping edit: ah damn, I should watch the whole vid first, now i'm redundant... /e the ussr built a bunch of automated arctic lighthouses with rtg's. A significant percentage of those lighthouses are lost- noone even knows where they were built any longer. Their rtg's are lost, too. (no sources, look it up yourself if you want more than my spotty memory 😅)

The discovery and retrieval of this sources defiinenly needs its own video

They aren’t terrifying if handled correctly, like in Soviet lighthouses for decades. Obviously if you abandon it it becomes dangerous, that’s like 90% of volatile materials.

@@yourfriend8052 While they can be useful and safe if handled correctly, that doesn't stop them from being terrifying to think about.

kinda meh in my opinion, I think there is a better alternative, a variable power rtg that changes neutron flux over time, with a isotope that decays at the same rate the nuclear fuel is decaying creating more moderation, increasing the flux, so a stable energy output is expected. In normal rtgs energy output decays and nuclear fuel isnt used to the maximum

I find the thought of the sun and its fission and fusion terrifying. I wish it didn’t exist so close!🤔😉

@@1998diegox cool story nerd

Almost Lovecraftian. They're such a perfect model of a cursed artifact, I almost wish people were a little more superstitious just so they'd be more reluctant to mess around with stuff they don't understand.

This is literally a nuclear battery from Fallout

A lot of post Soviet states have installations that are basically lost to history, I am surprised that this was the only incident

​@@eyesofthecervino3366 Even in history there were people who would visit places and objects that were "cursed". And they often died horribly for their trouble.

These RTGs were also used extensively along the north coast of Russia, to power unmanned lighthouses warding ships away from shore (remember, no GPS back then). A lot of those were also hit by looters after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Straight up facts^^

1000% agree. Most of the stories have some sort of sad element but they show that Radiation ain't nothin to f$%k with.

favorite series period. All of Kyle’s content. All of KZfaq for that matter. A true masterwork.

SAME. Kyle has me so addicted to learning about it. Such a cool guy.

Half life is easily my favourite game series, nuclear science and crowbar is really neat ..... sorry😅

Thank you. It's a very deliberate choice to change my presentation and voice for these more serious stories. They don't need to be dramatized. And people dying doesn't need a KZfaqr thumbnail.

@@kylehill I've heard from other people who also watch but may not comment that they really appreciate the same thing. Thanks for replying!

But did patient 2s wife hold hands with the nuclear device, behind her husbands back, and is she now pregnant with it's baby, like Samantha said? Find out more after these messages!

As long as the yt board doesn't hit you with the "No PAY" or "COPYWRONG" stick, this series will continue, not just for love but also on generation mentality. Something sadly corporations already have beachhead on and will immediately shoot regardless of friend or foe.

@@kylehill I appreciate how you present these stories. It’s not a war so there is no grandeur, it’s almost like a psa that though nuclear is powerful and safe if handled responsibly it’s also a serious and dangerous situation if those responsibilities are voided. You don’t pick sides when telling these stories you don’t call out incompetency or anything like that, you tell exactly what happened as if reading from a transcript and you explain the details of the consequences of mishandling these very serious tools.

They definitely need to be paid more, no doubt they got paid pennies compared to the danger they put themselves in. They're not just risking death, they're risking a slow and painful death. They're absolutely heroes.

To save lives without regard for one’s own.

@@dsandoval9396 Definitely. And it's also a prime example of how to do risk management right, with how they took the information available into account to calculate a maximum time limit each worker may participate, and as you see they adhere to it so strictly that when they reach that limit, they drop everything and run.

The sucky part is, that nobody knows about this situation. And nobody knows their names:( so no. They're not seen as heroes. And its a shame

I’m really sorry to ask but could you explain the difference to me? I can understand if you’re tired of explaining it though haha

@@languid-4535 Well, as we need to be able to protect ourselves from CBRN (Chemical, Bacteriological, Radioactive, Nuclear) hazards we need to know what are them. The nuclear hazard is essentially caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon, and it can leads obviously to the radioactive hazard. On the other hand the radioactive hazard is caused by the exposition to radioactive material. So what I often try to explain is that when we’re talking nuclear, we’re trying to protect ourselves from the effect of a nuclear explosion as it happens (the mechanical effects, thermal effects, EMPs,…) The radioactive part in CBRN is protecting ourselves from the exposure to ionizing radiation coming from either radioactive material just like orphan sources or caused by the fallout of a nuclear explosion.

@@ENGR889 thank you so much!!

I Must ask what is the difference I am a probationary FF and looking to do Hazmat and want to know as much as possible

@@bloodravensterminator8594 I’ve explained it in one of my reply. Let me sum it up for you: Nuclear hazard it’s when a nuclear explosion is happening and you need to protect yourself from the immediate effect of it. On the other hand the radioactive hazard is related to the exposure of radioactive material (from orphan sources for example, or the by product coming from a nuclear explosion). The subtlety of these two is that in a way they are related so you can confuse them.

@Don't Read My Profile Picture deez

New Band name

@@thejuggernautofspades9453 YES

Name of the raddest punk rock album never released

Sounds like a metal band

Yeah if you ever find metal or rock that feels warm without reasonable explanation. Drop that crap.

​@@wonder_platypus8337 That's terrible advice. I would recommend rubbing it on your testicles.

​@@wonder_platypus8337hell don't even pick it up and stay the fuck away from it

Drop it in your vodka for real Fire Water

@@wonder_platypus8337 Yeah kinda a shame we don't at least teach that at minimum in schools. Instead understanding of radiation is something you only learn on your own or in university, and those people are far less likely to be fiddling around with a metal bucket they find in the woods.

Also, mark the area and notify authorities without approaching it.

Ah yes, Plainly Difficult. A man who taught me Britain almost beat the Soviets to the first Chernobyl…except some mad lad climbed up a coolant stack to manually aim a hose pipe down it. They don’t make Brits like they used too lol.

@@KingOhmni Could you link that video or post the title so I can give it a watch?

@@byronbass3014 The incident was called the Windscale Fire

Could be worse ... could be a tall black monolith!

I'm so proud of you William. I'm honored and humbled to be a small part of your educational journey. Study hard! Stay nerdy.

Im not advocating much, but the US navy sub force is entirely nuclear and will train you as well, not to mention pay for your college, but a single enlistment (5 years) as a nuc (nuclear trained person) will land a job at just about any nuclear power plant.

Hey William! I'm a second year Chemical Engineer an NC State who's taken some nuclear classes for fun. Reach out if you want! I can connect you to some good resources in the Nuclear Department or if you just want to chat about State. Congrats on your accpetance!

Good for you! Best of luck in your studies.

Congrats!

Nice to know the Russians leave lots of radiation easter eggs - surprise comrad

I think it's a sign of why some basic understanding of radiation should be taught in school. People just see a metal bucket making heat and think it's a good idea to use it. Radiation is so poorly understood by the average person that there was literally that case people played with glowing blue powder because it looked pretty. I really think at least the basics should be taught that if it glows in the dark, if it emits heat from seemingly nowhere, and you don't know what it is, stay away from it. Right now the understanding people have on radiation is "that bad" and it kinda ends there. It takes understanding to prevent a disaster, and the problem is it's a topic only explained to those who go to university, and those are unlikely to be the people accidently finding and playing with radiation sources.

modern phones should have radiation detectors, so this never happen to another human by mistake again

@@monad_tcp Yeah unless you make a phone 5 bigger in volume that any current smartphone to accommodate all necessary electronics for the rad scan funcionality...

@@monad_tcp even some tiny device that can detect only huge jumps in radiation would do, really.

Those guys deserve a lot of respect.I don’t think I’d have the cojones to do that regardless of safety measures.

That's the Human way, man! We just a bunch of clever apes that love socializing riding the high of gamebreaking intelligence to its assorted conclusions. When we solve practical problems as a moderately large group we tend to be at our happiest, because that's literally what our instincts evolved to do.

Makes me want to see a collapsed civilization/postapocalypse story with a throwaway shot of kids playing games like this.

@@IronianKnight Nah Speak for yourself , a lot of people including myself don't see ourselves as a cleaver ape's , we are Human

@@Dracula.25 Impressive detachment, my friend!

Wouldn't the pain-sensing nerve cells also be dead?

@@tsovloj6510 I was referencing after the event.

@@tsovloj6510human beings aren’t that lucky to be intelligently designed.

@@Puppy_Puppingtonif their pain sensing nerves were gone it would be a lot worse because they’d have no idea their body was decaying.

@@James-il1znexactly, theres a premise on house md where a girl who cant feel pain has a tapeworm killing her and she doesnt know

Don’t try it, fake Kyle Hill

I have a strong stomach, but that last image of the burn on the back of the guy who died nearly made me lose my lunch

Well said...some ppl have no life and small 🍆

​@@haunteddestiny312 ?

@@blindmansstaff6416 a fake Kyle hill prize bot commented, reply has been deleted

"Clearly radioactive" can mean many different things, depending on how much someone knows about radioactivity.

Well, you have to put into account that they were mostly found by people with low degree of education or just common people who didn't know what they had found and didn't know how to deal with it.

Knowing how desperate in the cold and dark and unknowledgable they were in terms of anything radioactive, this was unfortunate yet inevitable at the time

@@YavorM-Yash They are, that's what the entirety of the bottom of their comment is.

I think we have the benefit of hindsight here. I doubt anyone expects to ever encounter an orphan source in their life and because of that they may not connect the dots in time, even if they know about radiation. I just can't help to feel sadness. No one deserves two excruciating years fighting radiation burns just because they wanted to stay warm after an exhausting day of gathering wood.

What's the name 👀

Come on, no title?

Kyle is one of the most well educated and well *educating* and entertaining YTP out there, not to mention his excellent articulation and he's an aries so he's fire and he's hardheaded AND he's got "the autistic vigor," which is more of a huge benefit than the curse a lot of us think we have.

THANKS for saying 💯

I wish I could like this comment more

"Should"? This is free content. You are free to make requests but no one is obligated to provide anything for free

​@@NadiaSeesIt I am not saying Kyle ought to put the time and money, only that I think it's a shame if a series of such quality and public importance were to be locked behind a language barrier. Mostly I mourn the ability for mere viewers like us to contribute freely to such projects as captioning in different languages, and given the opportunity, I would be happy to volunteer my own time for part of it!

@@NadiaSeesIt Why are you being obtuse? All they said is that its a shame that community captions arent a thing so everyone is able to enjoy this educational content

@@NadiaSeesIt Ok peko

@@felixmervamee7834 at least there is auto tranlated subs not the best but good youtube has them

well, considering what they were dealing with, i would not expect less. still great job at dealing with something I'd avoid entirely.

Their professionalism, and the amount of balls the operation took. I can't imagine the line for doing this job was very long.

It shows that its not always the equipment that matters its the brains that matter.

@@themenacingpenguin.7152 It probably helped that they had the equipment they needed to do their job safely.

@@shadowldrago well i mean the quality of the equipment, it does look rather simple and i wouldn't trust it but it gets the good enough seal of approval which means I approve it.

Happens when a country collapses

And just imagine- it seems like we as a species have less and less appreciation for our jobs as the years go on. And we trust emotional human beings with all of our nuclear technology. At any given time, if certain people felt slighted enough, all they’d have to do is throw a monkey wrench in the system and blow up the factory they work at. I appreciate what nuclear energy can do for us………. But man, humans should not be trusted with it…… Look at Chernobyl. 😐

Just don't mix soviets with atoms

@@kenetickups6146 and when they lied about the amount they had to begin with

"missing" or strategically hidden away for later use, then forgotten about / lost to time and secrecy

Absolutely it would be one of the worst ways to go. Your body is almost burning from the inside out and the risk of cancer, blood changes, future sickness is so high that each year would be a roulette of survival and pain

@Druid of Scosglen the guy in SG1 was Daniel but the incidence is basically modeled after the Slotin accident. Slotin recieved a higher dose (21 Sv) than even Hisashi Ouchi (17 Sv) and that one already fell appart while still technically alive but was kept alive for 83 days even tho there was no way he could survive

I read Sadako and the thousand paper cranes as a youngin and it was very scary. I agree that it's a hard fear to handle, but I've done a lot of research on how to avoid/minimize. Scary stuff!

Strangely enough your comment reminded me of something my dad told me many years ago. He said he'd want to be right in the kill zone in case of a nuclear event, or far enough away that it wouldn't have much effect. He did talk about distances but it's too early in the morning for my brain to function. I thought he was crazy at the time, but seeing these videos and the pain people endure I think he was probably on the right path with his thoughts on it.

​@@alfonzo7822 That's exactly why I tell people who "don't want to survive nuclear war" that should the nightmare scenario occur, they should absolutely take shelter anyway. Once the immediate radiological hazards are over, they should then go find a gun or other means and end it that way. We're not certain enough of the accuracy and aim points to be sure of where ground zero will be (so there is no way to insure that one will be incinerated -- not even on a military base or in a major city), and the zone of immediate death is smaller than people imagine it to be. Exposing oneself to a nuclear blast is more likely to result in the horrible, lingering, death that no one wants than in a quick end.

I’m more concerned about chemical hazards tbh. Radiological ones like these can be mitigated with rudimentary education of what radioactivity is and looks like when it’s _this_ dangerous. It’s also very easy to detect; anyone can use a radiation meter and know to walk away when it starts making angry noises. Chemical contaminants can go undetected and often need a lab and chemistry degree to detect and identify.

The Soviets were absolutely insane when it came to radioactive hazards, but that's not a common attitude around the globe, thankfully. Even the Russians are far more careful with radioactive hazards when compared to the Soviets.

EOD techs say that the day you AREN'T scared of going to work is the day you have to retire because if you don't do it voluntarily, you'll do it involuntarily. Better to be scared of a thing than let it kill you.

i could be 100% wrong but i feel like chemicals are also harder to clean up than an orphan source or something like this.

What I've learned from studying nuclear energy (both physics and history), is that radiation is nowhere near as dangerous as the media presents it. If you follow a few basic rules, it's safer than many things we routinely do in our everyday life. Like driving. Even if you drive responsibly, other drives can still kill you, while a radioactive source won't. And if you drive irresponsibly, you are far more likely to die in an accident than from exposure to high levels of radiation. Take this story for example. Those men spent an entire night with their backs directly touching the RTGs to get a lethal dose. Knowing nothing more than highschool physics and the fact those men got to the hospital alive, I wouldn't have been too afraid of those cylinders. The hard part of the recovery was the weight, not the radiation.

I’d say many of the orphaned sources are probably Ge68 which has a half life of 271 days. They are used for calibrating some medial imaging scanners and are usually no more than 5-10 millicuries when new. They are usually replaced when they are below 1 millicurie.

They might actually also consider undisposed smoke detectors to be orphan sources. These are pretty common and not THAT dangerous.

Me either! When I found it I was really excited

One of the only orphan sources I have found are dumped smoke detectors.

it seems a great idea to bring a geiger counter- however, uranium/vasoline glass is largely safe and you don't have to be too afraid of it :)

Uranium glass is largely safe, just don't break it or drink from it. The clocks though? 🫠

Orphan *

@@rosehirstius Uranium glass is, under certain precautions, even safe to drink from. You must make sure that there are no visible cracks or signs of abrasion. In short, you're fine as long as you don't swallow or breathe in particles of glass.

That’s the thing I appreciate about Kyle the most is he truly researches each video to the highest standard! Never puts out content he doesn’t understand

zd same

@@mizzshortie907 Never.

@@kylehill Never. You are genuinely one of the best channels I have found. I love your content way too much, and always enjoy the videos. Have a good day!

@@mizzshortie907 I appreciate Kyle as well, but honestly it doesn't take much research to present this story. It's on Wikipedia, the IAEA report is linked on Wikipedia, and the video of the recovery is floating around on KZfaq, so it doesn't take much research aside from what me or you could do in a hour or so.

from the video these guys clearly knew exactly what they were doing and would know exactly what to expect and the associated risks. their 40 second hard limit on time was probably the absolute minimum they could do while being able to do anything at all and their prep was clearly very well rehearsed. with all those precautions in place, its not a scary I think as being faced with a burning building but still the invisible nature of it is just something us humans find very unsettling

Dang, im gonna look more into that. Hope Kyle sees your suggestion!

@KyleHill

Bruuuuuuuuuuuuh

How?😮

they planed and exoculated the retrieval perfectly and the total dosage was so minimal. truly amazing!

I love reading comments like these after the video ends.

The Soviet ones were Sr90 which emit beta particles vs the Martian was Pu238 which emits alpha particles. Alphas are easily stopped by a piece of paper where betas require more shielding.

As it often is.

It's interesting how more and more conspiracy stuff is actually turning out true, example the varus came from a lab that had/has ties to fauci

What new?

That's kinda how I initially heard about it, and I thought it was just old Cold War conspiracy theory leftovers. Then I found out that it was real, but not a whole lot of details beyond the discovery and recovery.

@@DaellusKnights what you need to realise is that cold war fossils are the ones in charge of most of the west and they still think in that cold war fossil's idealogical thoughts and any information received is heavily edited to suit those fossils agenda

How to airplane pilots and crew deal with it?

@@dubstepXpower Pilots and flight attendants are subject to mandatory monitoring if they are likely to receive an effective dose of more than 1 millisievert within a calendar year due to cosmic radiation during flights.

That's so cool! I had looked into that as a career but it wasn't financially viable for me. I've broken a few bones and getting to see x-rays of myself was always so exciting, and some of the better x-rays allowed me to see a previous fracture from several years before next to the most recent one. I had one nurse practitioner who told me a toe I was concerned about looked fine after barely visually examining it even though I told him the shape was off and I'd been experiencing pain since the time I'd injured it about a month earlier. I went for a second opinion and the NP I saw then agreed that the injured toe looked different from the other one and sent me to get an x-ray. The radiographer was kind enough to let me come look at the x-rays he took when I mentioned how interesting I find them and they were the most beautiful x-rays I've ever seen, the contrast and exposure were perfect and you could clearly see the small piece of bone that was just kind of floating due to the avulsion fracture I was diagnosed with. I know the legally radiographers can't give a diagnosis, but I also know that they're pretty good at knowing what they're looking at since their whole job revolves around getting the best imaging possible for diagnoses. When I went back for my next visit with the first NP and I told him that he had been wrong and my toe was broken as well as how excited I was to be shown the x-ray and what great quality it was, the NP asked if the radiographer told me it was an avulsion fracture because he was only looking at the most recent image where it looked like the bones had rejoined and refused to look at the original image even though he could easily access it in his system. I understand the reason why a practitioner would want to clarify who made the diagnosis but I was still offended on behalf of the guy who took that x-ray and pissed off that this nurse practitioner was trying to gaslight me. I'd been going to appointments to track progress on another fracture that had delayed healing but I was so mad after that last appointment that I just never went back. TL;DR: X-rays and the people who image them are cool and so is seeing your bones.

Very well said! Would be disappointed if this Half life series was no more

I knew what RTGs were because I'm a space nut. They're the reason that Voyager 2 is still capable of sending data back to Earth today, 35 years after launch. Meager data, in part because there's not much to see out there, but also because neutron radiation from the lump of radioactive material inside(plutonium glass, I think?) has severely damaged the thermocouples that convert heat to electricity and they lack the power capacity to turn most sensors on.

​@@CptJistuce Also because the decay has reduced the energy output.

@@TheOz91 As I understand it, that's not actually much of a problem, and they could keep V'Ger running at full power for another century if the thermocouples weren't degrading so rapidly.

@@CptJistuce Yeah. Hopefully, more advanced thermoelectric generators will be more efficient. I was actually sad when NASA canceled the Stirling engine RTG program. The only thing that would reduce power to a free piston Stirling is that the working fluid would eventually dissipate (it is helium, after all.)

How the hell do you lose 300 of them?

​@@owgdj when scientists have to sell oranges on street market in order to survive and new owners of a building don't give a shit, such things can happen.

@@ShaLun42 Or when you just don't care about the population of a country and leave your mess to be their problem instead. That's basically the USSR and Russia in a nutshell.

​@@Ragedaonenlonely or private companies that don't want to pay to properly store/dispose of these things properly, like what happened in the Goiânia event.

This is a beautiful comment. Glad you and the bobcats were able to come to an understanding, too many people kill them out of immediate fear. They're really interesting, beautiful critters.

@@radishfest Maybe should be most glad for whomever made the call.🙂

Well it's like when you go out to eat wanting to get a nice burger then you look at the menu and see a beautiful steak. The armadillo was the burger and you were the steak. But someone called and it ruined their date night.

i am definitely integrating that into an npc childhood for my cthulu mythos ttrpg this sound like you answered the call of the abyss

A bobcat? 😂

It's extremely impressive, given the unbelievable danger of the material they're in the process of handling. It's one thing to train for it, another entirely to be out there in the field and see the radioactive material literally melting snow in the environment. To be able to stand up and just go out and do that is fascinating, and legitimately heroic.

NC State FTW!! Im a Junior rn, but it’s my first choice and I plan to major in mechanical with a minor and nuclear.

yeah, its pretty obvious that this type of stuff needs to be registered and tracked.

Right??

Nightmare fuel, for real.

I was disappointed that none of the IAEA emergency workers wore a light blue hazmat suit or said "Balls."

Yeah we are bound to cover the same historical events while doing these kinds of videos. I will point out, however, that I started the series without knowing that channel existed, and developed the style on my own.

​@@kylehill It has happened in the past with the Goiana incident too I believe. But all the merrier. It's interesting to see both of your takes on the same events, though I personally prefer your videos on it and I'm always looking forward to seeing you cover it. You do it in such an informative and succinct way that's equal parts interesting and terrifying.

@@kylehill I've seen a lot of overlap in incidents between your channel, Plainly Difficult, and a number of other channels that tend to focus on engineering issues; every time there's overlap, I learn something new about the situation that wasn't brought up in someone else's video. So I say, the more the merrier!

It's pretty impossible to be the only channel to ever talk about an event so I think it's not worth mentioning

So is air polution

@@michalkolacek8032 air pollution don't kill you within 3 second of contact :)

@@michalkolacek8032 but you got a point though, properly managed nuclear waste is much much batter than releasing it for the people to breath in

@@Leviathan0707 true

That's what vodka leads you to ig

Yes, it's very atmospheric. I absolutely love it.

I agree. I think a lot of the eeriness is due to so many incidents occurring in the former Soviet Union, a place almost inconceivably foreign to us westerners. The "Iron Curtain" prevented us from knowing much about the culture there. Time, the internet and these amazing videos have shed light on very dark incidents that occurred. I'd add the atmosphere of the historical videos contributes a great deal, as well. Take one word like "Chernobyl" and the images it conjures up are terrifying.

The eerie feeling is true horror. Not the typical scary movie stuff. But gut wrenching, core of humanity horror. It’s the macabre. The sense of thrill that comes from something so terrifying, yet informative. The fact that these things have happened and will continue to happen. The descriptions of things we humans have created and done to ourselves and fellow humans. Horror. But as an observer.

Yeah. I was watching this going "Thank god they didn't load the damn things into the truck and drive home with them!"

Might I suggest Plainly Difficult?

it was not old but a new reactor. a real tragedy

@@Hamstray Yes correct! I ment old as in, build some time ago, but indeed, it was never commissioned

Pay for the fun, get the cancer and radiation sickness for free.

@@christianheichel That's not slightly funny and not remotely true. The place is active and looks cool.

Yeah lol why is it always cylinders causing this issue. Popular shape I guess!

300 found out of 1000 left unshielded, unmarked, and unaccounted for when the Soviet Union collapsed!

@@CptJistuce I think it was more than that found. While not all have been accounted for, those 300 were just the ones found in Georgia after this.