Operation Argus  Operation Argus was a series of United States low-yield, high-atmosphere nuclear weapons tests and missile tests secretly conducted from 27 August to 9 September 1958 over the South Atlantic Ocean. The tests were performed by the Defense Nuclear Agency. The tests were to study the Christofilos effect, which suggested it was possible to defend against Soviet nuclear missiles by exploding a small number of bombs high over the South Pacific. This would create a disk of electrons over the United States that would fry the electronics on the Soviet warheads as they descended. It was also possible to use the effect to blind Soviet radars, meaning that any Soviet missile-based ABM system would be unable to attack the US counterstrike. The tests demonstrated that the effect did indeed occur, but also revealed that it dissipated too rapidly to be very effective. Papers on the topic were published the next year, focussing on the events as purely scientific endeavors. The tests were proposed by Nicholas Christofilos in an unpublished paper of what was then the Livermore branch of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) as a means to verify the Christofilos effect, which argued that high-altitude nuclear detonations would create a radiation belt in the extreme upper regions of the Earth's atmosphere. Such belts would be similar in effect to the Van Allen radiation belts. "Such radiation belts were viewed as having possible tactical use in war, including degradation of radio and radar transmissions, damage or destruction of the arming and fuzing mechanisms of ICBM warheads, and endangering the crews of orbiting space vehicles that might enter the belt." Prior to Argus, Hardtack Teak had shown disruption of radio communications from a nuclear blast, though this was not due to the creation of radiation belts. "Argus" was implemented rapidly after inception due to forthcoming bans on atmospheric and exoatmospheric testing in October 1958. Consequently, the tests were conducted within a mere half-year of conception (whereas "normal" testing took one to two years). Because nuclear testing during this time was bending the rules, the military borrowed International Geophysical Year equipment to cover up the nuclear tests. Originally "Argus" was designated "Hardtack-Argus", and later "Floral". For reasons of security, both names were dropped in favor of the independent name "Argus". Funding was provided by the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP), the predecessor of today's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).