Association between transients and atmospheric nuclear tests

Determine whether the occurrence of fast transient events in the APPLAUSE Doppel-Reflektor dataset is statistically correlated with dates of atmospheric nuclear tests, or whether the observed coincidences are consistent with chance.

Background

The paper notes temporal proximity of several detected transients to known atmospheric nuclear tests (e.g., Operation Ranger in early 1951 and Operation Upshot-Knothole in 1953), an association previously suggested in analyses of POSS data.

Due to small sample size and non-uniform coverage, the present study cannot evaluate the significance of this potential correlation, motivating a dedicated statistical assessment with appropriate controls.

References

Several events in the presented sample occurred within days or weeks of atmospheric nuclear tests. Whether this reflects a genuine correlation, or a chance coincidence, cannot be assessed with the present sample.

— Fast Astronomical Transients in Archival Photographic Plates: Using optical aberrations as a tool for discerning real images, from plate artifacts  (2606.08319 - Busko, 6 Jun 2026) in Section Results