The 1950s ‘Project Retro’ Claim: Could the Air Force Really Stop Earth’s Rotation? A striking Cold War story resurfaces every few years: that the U.S. Air Force once examined a wild contingency called “Project Retro”—detonating thousands of nuclear devices (or firing massive rocket arrays) along the equator to momentarily stop Earth’s rotation and throw Soviet ICBMs off-target. Versions of the story have been attributed to Cold War brainstorming and even to anti-nuclear whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, describing an array of Atlas rocket engines that—if fired nearly simultaneously—might “pause” the planet’s spin long enough for incoming warheads to overshoot U.S. targets. Some writeups fold in a more extreme nuclear variant: thousands of warheads detonated across the equator to generate a global counter-torque. So…did this actually happen, and could it ever work? Below we split the legend from the laws of physics, then run the numbers to show why any “stop the Earth” plan would be catastrophic and physically unworkable. What the claim says Concept: Fire enormous rocket arrays (or set off massive nuclear charges) distributed along the equator to apply a torque opposite to Earth’s spin. Intended outcome: Momentarily slow or halt rotation so inbound Soviet ICBMs—flying a predictable inertial path—miss hardened U.S. targets. Status: There’s no public, verifiable documentation of an official USAF program named “Project Retro.” The anecdote appears in secondary/tertiary retellings of Cold War “what-if” scenarios and thought experiments. Bottom line: Treat “Project Retro” as an alleged proposal/brainstorm rather than a documented, funded program. Even if someone floated the idea on a whiteboard, the physics doom it. Physics reality check: the energy is astronomical Earth’s rotation stores a staggering amount of kinetic energy. Using standard geophysical values (mass, radius, and moment of inertia), Earth’s rotational kinetic energy is about: ≈ 2.1 × 1029 joules To compare, 1 megaton of TNT is ≈ 4.184 × 1015 joules. So stopping Earth’s spin would require on the order of: ≈ 5 × 1013 megatons (that’s ~50 million gigatons) For scale, the entire historical human nuclear arsenal is tens of thousands of times smaller than that. Even if you could somehow marshal a non-nuclear rocket solution, you must still obey conservation of angular momentum—which implies ejecting mind-boggling mass at extreme velocities in the opposite direction. We’re nowhere close. Catastrophic side effects if you tried Global winds & oceans go feral: At the equator, the ground moves ~465 m/s (~1,670 km/h) due to rotation. “Stopping” the crust while the atmosphere and oceans keep moving would unleash planet-scale, supersonic winds and mega-tsunamis. Crustal stress & quakes: Re-distributing angular momentum that quickly would torque the lithosphere. Expect massive earthquakes and volcanism. Climate upheaval: A non-rotating Earth would drive extreme day–night temperature contrasts and collapse familiar atmospheric circulation cells. Most present-day biomes would be wiped out. In short: any attempt to alter Earth’s rotation on human timescales is extinction-level engineering. Could rockets do it “just a little”? Even a tiny fractional slowdown—say, milliseconds change in day length—takes energies comparable to our entire global output over long periods. And the moment you try to impart that torque in a hurry (seconds to minutes), you create the destructive effects above. There’s no “gentle” wartime knob to turn here. Where the story came from The equatorial-rocket/nuke idea shows up in Cold War lore, media blogs, and interviews summarizing blue-sky “what if” thinking from the era. The Daily Grail and others have relayed an Ellsberg-attributed anecdote about Atlas engine arrays and NORAD displays—colorful history, but not corroborated by declassified USAF program records under the name “Project Retro.” If firmer documentation turns up (declassified memos, contracting files, or an official program brief), we’ll update this page. Watch: Why stopping Earth’s spin is a doomsday idea Explainer: a quick visual intuition for the energies and destructive side effects. TL;DR Claim: A USAF “Project Retro” would stop Earth’s rotation to foil Soviet ICBMs. Documentation: No verified, declassified record of an official program by that name; treat as anecdotal/legend unless new evidence surfaces. Physics: Requires ~2 × 1029 J—utterly beyond human capability. Any attempt would devastate the planet. Key numbers (for the curious) Earth’s equatorial ground speed: ~465 m/s (~1,670 km/h) Rotational kinetic energy: ~2.1 × 1029 J Energy in megatons TNT: ~5 × 1013 Mt Takeaway: Whether “Project Retro” was ever seriously drafted or just speculative talk, stopping Earth’s rotation is not a viable defense concept. The math and the consequences are overwhelming—and apocalyptic. Tags: Cold War, Project Retro, Earth Rotation, Rockets, Nuclear Weapons, Physics, ICBM, NORAD, Atlas, Daniel Ellsberg, DebunkedThe post The US Air Force Planned to Stop the Earth’s Rotation appeared first on Anomalien.com.