Vintage U.S. nuclear test films declassified and publicized

Declassified videos offer glimpse at nuclear tests Now-declassified videos offer a terrifying glimpse into the world of nuclear testing from 1945 to 1962, at the height of the Cold War.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- From the deserts of southern New Mexico and Nevada to islands in the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. government conducted dozens of nuclear weapons tests from the 1940s until the early 1960s.

Some of the blasts sent incredible mushroom clouds into the sky and massive fireballs across the landscape.

A team from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has now published more than five dozen vintage films salvaged from high-security vaults across the U.S. where they sat idle for decades.

Lab physicist Greg Spriggs says the films were in danger of decomposing and being lost to history.

Spriggs and his team have located about 6,500 films.

Only a fraction have been analyzed and declassified.

Spriggs says scientists are learning new information about the detonations as they review the original films.