"The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our way of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."

-- Albert Einstein, in 1946, writing about the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs.

photo: Rocky Flats/DOE, 1988

Rocky Flats workers in Building 707 plutonium storage area.

Welcome to the Rocky Flats Virtual Exhibit. This experimental, multimedia exhibit seeks to educate and intrigue visitors. It examines a dramatic event at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.

Rocky Flats, located just 16 miles northwest of Denver, Colo., built plutonium bombs from 1952-1989 and is now being turned into a national wildlife refuge. Its controversial legacy resides in human memory, in the environment, and in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Plutonium bombs manufactured at Rocky Flats are used as detonators for thousands of U.S. hydrogen bombs.

Our exhibit tells the story of a 1969 plutonium fire that could have radioactively contaminated the Denver area.