“The Last Human Will See What We Saw”: the Test of the World's First Atomic Bomb Left Its Observers Stupefied

In the North 10,000 photography bunker, Berlyn Brixner was listening to the countdown on a loudspeaker, his head inside a turret loaded with cameras and film. He was one of the only people instructed to look toward the blast—through his welder's glasses—ready to follow the path of the fire-ball as it launched into the sky. The two Mitchell movie cameras at his station would deliver the best footage to come out of the Trinity test, used by Los Alamos scientists to make some of the first measurements of the effects of a nuclear explosion.