Emu Fieldis overshadowed by Maralinga, the larger and much more prominent British atomic test site about 193 kilometres to the south. But Emu Field has its own secrets, and the fact that it was largely forgotten makes it more intriguing. Only at Emu Field did a terrifying black mist speed across the land after an atomic bomb detonation, bringing death and sickness to Aboriginal populations in its path. Emu Field was difficult and inaccessible. So why did the British go there at all, when they knew that they wouldn’t stay? What happened to the air force crew who flew through the atomic clouds? And why is Emu Field considered the ‘Marie Celeste’ of atomic test sites, abandoned quickly after the expense and effort of setting it up? Elizabeth Tynan, the award-winning author of Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story, reveals a story of a cataclysmic collision between an ancient Aboriginal land and the post-war Britain of Winston Churchill and his gung-ho scientific advisor Frederick Lindemann.

Elizabeth Tynan is associate professor in the Graduate Research School at James Cook University Townsville. A former science journalist, her book Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story (NewSouth 2016) won the Prime Minister’s History Award and the CHASS Australia Book Prize in 2017.

Prologue 1 Finding X200 2 Why Emu? 3 Towards a British ‘austerity bomb’ 4 Sound and fury at Emu 5 The unknowable black mist 6 Secrets and safety lies 7 Flying through the clouds 8 The people’s witness 9 Australia’s atomic bargaining chip 10 Marie Celeste 11 The forgetting of Emu