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event is analyzed for nuclear identification and findings are reported to national command authorities through U.S. Air Force Headquarters.
    “Oh crap!” The sensor display now had Robinson's full attention. The high-energy neutron sensors just registered an event in the same vicinity as the gamma ray hit. That confirmed the gamma ray sensor alarm wasn't just a fluke or a stray cosmic ray—something highly irregular was happening southwest of Midland, Texas.
    Naturally this would happen at the end of his shift, a holiday shift at that. Normally, Tech Sergeant Anderson would be manning this console. Instead Anderson was enjoying the day off and he was stuck here. Well, protocol says to call the watch officer. Raising his voice, Robinson called out, “Lieutenant, could you come here please?”
    Lt. Jefferies was in the same position as SrA Robinson, he pulled  holiday duty instead of the Captain—rank hath its privileges, as they say. “What is it Robinson? Not another cosmic ray cascade, I hope. We've had to run down enough false alarms for one day.”
    “No Sir. I've got coincident earthbound events on both gamma ray and neutron detection arrays. Looks to be about 150 kilometers west of Goodfellow Air Force Base.”
    The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy, provides operational sensor payloads for integration onto USAF satellites.  For example, IIF series Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, carry improved nuclear detonation detection instruments built by Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory for the NNSA.
    The sensors look for the tell-tale signs of a nuclear detonation, monitoring optical, electromagnetic pulse (EMP), X-ray, gamma ray and neutron emissions. All are part of the United States Nuclear Detonation Detection System (USNDS) which is designed to detect, locate, and report nuclear detonations (NUDETs) on Earth and in local space in near real-time.
    “Goodfellow? That's in Texas, right?”
    “Yes Sir, right here on the display,” he said, calling up the sensor estimated positions on the overhead map display.
    “What about visual? Double hump?” All nuclear detonations  emitted a characteristic double flash of light. Orbital detection systems that monitor for atmospheric nuclear explosions look for such double flashes. In fact, bomb yield can be determined from the interval between the two flash peaks. If this was a bomb going off on the surface or in the atmosphere, optical sensors should have picked up the telltale ‘ double hump. ’
    “No double hump, Sir, and no EMP either. If it was a NUDET it must have happened underground.”
    “If it was an underground detonation there should be shock waves. What does the seismological monitoring network say?” Maybe some Texas oil men are using nukes for fracking gas wells, the Lieutenant mused.
    “I've got nothing on the seismic net. It must not have been a detonation. Let me search the recent log entries” the airman said, typing furiously on the keyboard in front of him. “Oh wow. There was a similar event logged two days ago, though not as strong, and another one seven days ago. All emanating from the same location. Sir, this cannot be a coincidence.”
    “Christ on a crutch,” Jefferies muttered. “You're right Robinson. I'm going to bounce this upstairs to the Major—let her call the Colonel on his day off and tell him we have a Pinnacle event in West Texas.” Pinnacle was a reporting flagword used in the U.S. National Command Authority structure. The term ‘ Pinnacle ’ denotes an incident of interest to the Major Commands, Department of Defense and National Command Authority.
    Lieutenant Jefferies picked up the phone receiver from the  console and punched speed-dial for the command post. “Major Bledsoe? This is Lt. Jefferies in the monitoring center. We have an unexplained anomalous event, Ma'am...”
     

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