Silent Storm is an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

. The documentary was directed and written by Australian documentary film maker Peter Butt

Peter Butt

Peter Butt is an Australian, film producer, director, writer. He produces investigative documentaries for television about 20th century global and Australian history...

.

Synopsis

From 1957 to 1978, scientists secretly removed bone

Bone

Bones are rigid organs that constitute part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue...

 samples from over 21,000 dead Australians as they searched for evidence of the deadly poison

Poison

In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....

, Strontium 90 - a by-product of nuclear testing

Nuclear testing

Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield and explosive capability of nuclear weapons. Throughout the twentieth century, most nations that have developed nuclear weapons have tested them...

. Silent Storm reveals the story behind this astonishing case of officially sanctioned 'body-snatching'. Set against a backdrop of the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, the saga follows celebrated scientist, Hedley Marston

Hedley Marston

Hedley Ralph Marston was an Australian biochemist who worked for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ....

, as he attempts to blow the whistle on radioactive contamination and challenge official claims that British atomic tests posed no threat to the Australian people. Marston's findings are not only disputed, he is targeted as 'a scientist of counter-espionage interest'.

See also

• Britain, Australia and the Bomb
  Britain, Australia and the Bomb
  Britain, Australia and the Bomb: the Nuclear Tests and Their Aftermath is a 2006 book by Lorna Arnold and Mark Smith. It is the second edition of an official history first published in 1987 by HMSO under another title: A Very Special Relationship: British Atomic Weapons Trials in Australia...
  
  
• List of films about nuclear issues
• British nuclear tests at Maralinga
  British nuclear tests at Maralinga
  British nuclear tests at Maralinga occurred between 1955 and 1963 at the Maralinga site, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area, in South Australia. A total of seven major nuclear tests were performed, with approximate yields ranging from 1 to 27 kilotons of TNT equivalent...
  
  
• McClelland Royal Commission
  McClelland Royal Commission
  The McClelland Royal Commission or Royal Commission into British nuclear tests in Australia was an inquiry by the Australian government in 1984-1985 to investigate the conduct of the British in its use, with the then Australian government's permission, of Australian territory and soldiers for...
  
  
• Montebello Islands
  Montebello Islands
  The Montebello Islands, also known as the Monte Bello Islands, are an archipelago of around 174 small islands lying north of Barrow Island and off the Pilbara coast of north-western Australia. Montebello is Italian for "beautiful mountain"...