Oskar J. W. Hansen's Mysterious Military Files on Planetary Weapons
This article is the first in a two-part series about Oskar's fascinating U. S. Navy files.
Very early on in my Oskar J. W. Hansen research project, I found a fascinating listing of three Oskar-related items in the collection of the U. S. Navy. The strange nature of these files was one of my early clues that this project was going to be far more complex and interesting than a simple story about an obscure sculptor.
Strange Naval Files
The Navy's Oskar collection listing included:
"The report Atomic Energy and the Ocean Sea. The report discusses Hansen's theory on the use of atomic explosions to produce tidal waves as a weapon of mass destruction."
A "transcript of an interview with Oskar J. W. Hansen... of Mr. Hansen's theories on space, nuclear weapons, and his 'death experience,' which led him to carve the likeness of God on a jewel."
The original reel-to-reel recording of that interview.
The Navy's file classification system lists these Oskar Hansen files under the following subject headings:
Nuclear Weapons.
Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Near-death Experiences--United States.
The National Museum of the U. S. Navy in Washington DC. (Photo courtesy of the United States Navy).
I found it quite interesting that United States Navy would maintain WMD files related to Oskar and also quite interesting that the Navy maintains files on near-death experiences at all.
I reached out to the Navy to request copies of these files and got an email in December 2020 with PDFs of Oskar's report and the TV interview transcript.
The report, dated 1953, was written by Oskar for the Navy's Chief of Naval Operations and outlined some of Oskar's scientific theories about how a nuclear bomb detonated in particular locations in the deep ocean could use the ocean as a directed tidal-wave weapon which would "produce the greatest disaster since the Biblical flood." The report also outlines how nuclear weapons could be used to disrupt ocean currents to deliberately alter the climate in enemy locations.
The transcript is from Oskar's only known TV appearance, from the Richmond, Virginia local CBS affiliate WTVR's weekly public affairs show Viewpoint. Oskar appeared on the show on July 20, 1969, the day of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
In the interview, Oskar discussed:
The role of art and creativity in scientific discovery.
Oskar's near-death experience and his belief that it is divine intervention that prevents nuclear war.
Oskar's work to sculpt religious figures in giant gemstones.
Oskar's feelings about the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
The role of the Earth's core and its magnetic field in repairing damage to the planet.
The importance of the Moon to life on Earth and the risk of the Moon being harnessed as a Soviet weapon.
The fact that the Navy heard about this interview, requested a copy of the recording, then invested in having someone transcribe it seems to indicate that these topics were of some importance and value to our military. If they were just the crackpot ideas of a fringe artist, there would be no reason to go to such effort to collect and preserve them.
The commonality between these two documents is the U. S. Navy's curiosity about Oskar's theories on how nuclear weapons could be used to create planetary-scale weapons.
I'm in the process of researching the validity of these—and some other—Oskar scientific theories and hope to have a better sense of them soon.
The Recording
Once I familiarized myself with the files the Navy sent me, I reached back out to inquire about the original reel-to-reel recording of the TV appearance. The Navy's archives didn't have a reel-to-reel player or digitization system.
Reel-to-reel tape. (Photo courtesy of ComedyNose).
I thought about buying or renting some equipment and flying out to Washington DC to attempt to duplicate it myself.
I reached out to the TV station, WTVR in Richmond, to see if they had any archival recordings, but due to both the age and obscurity of that 1969 appearance, it was a dead end.
Over the last couple of years, I regularly went back and forth with the Naval archivist on possible solutions, and this summer they were able to arrange to send the tape to the Marine Corps' archives, which did have reel-to-reel digitization equipment.
In October, as I sat in the airport on my way to Montana to investigate Oskar's lost Head of Christ sculpture, I got an email from my Navy contact with a download link to the newly digitized recording.
As far as I've so far discovered, this is the only existing recording of Oskar J. W. Hansen's voice, and is the first time anyone has heard him speak in more than 50 years since his death.
Hear the digital audio recording and read the transcript of Oskar’s TV interview here.
