Five Air Force officer volunteers, and one cameraman who didn’t volunteer, stand 10,000 feet below the test firing of a nuclear air-to-air missile in July of 1957. The purpose of the film was to show how “safe” it was on the ground.
For more info, check this NPR article out.
Oh, and never volunteer.
What they don’t say is that the following week, three of those men, mutated to 100 feet tall, stomped through New Mexico and the army had to stop them. One developed the power to shoot lasers out of his eyes and took over a small island, and the fifth died of every known form of cancer.
Well that wouldn’t have made for good propaganda now would it? Maybe an X-Men origin story…?