By RUSS BYNUM
Associated Press Writer
September 30, 2004, 12:43 PM EDT
SAVANNAH, Ga. -- The U.S. government is sending a team of 20 scientists to check out a report of unusual radiation readings that could be coming from a hydrogen bomb that was lost off the Georgia coast in 1958.
A crippled B-47 bomber dumped the H-bomb into the Atlantic Ocean 46 years ago after the plane collided with a fighter jet during a training flight. Navy divers searched the shallow, murky waters near Tybee Island for nearly 10 weeks before declaring the bomb irretrievably lost.
Derek Duke, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who has been looking for the 7,600-pound bomb for five years, claimed recently that he found a football field-size area off the coast with higher-than-normal radiation levels. He suspects it marks the burial spot of the lost Mark-15 bomb.
The scientists from the Pentagon and the National Labs met with Duke on Wednesday and plan to examine the area on Thursday.
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