Radioactive Riches: Project Gasbuggy’s Nuclear Frack

In the 1960s, the U.S. government detonated a nuclear bomb underground in rural New Mexico — not for war, but to frack natural gas.

Project Gasbuggy was part of Operation Plowshare, a Cold War-era initiative to find “peaceful” uses for nuclear weapons. The idea: use an underground atomic blast to fracture shale rock and release untapped gas reserves. What followed was a contaminated gas field, radioactive waste, and a quiet retreat from public memory.

This episode of Unsettled: The Hidden Record unpacks the science, the secrecy, and the radioactive fallout of one of America’s strangest nuclear experiments. How much was extracted? How much was covered up? And what did it mean for those living above ground?

This isn't a sci-fi pitch. This was a real nuclear detonation—conducted in the name of energy exploration.