Atomic Artifacts

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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So a few years back, I woke up in the middle of the night to my wife saying, Lulu, get out, fire, fire. And I looked through the window and in front of me was just a blaze of orange. The apartment building one over from us was on fire. And I had that moment. What do you take? I grabbed my kid, my computer, and this journal I was making of my kid's footprints and photos and stuff. And that was it. I didn't even get my wallet. I didn't even put on my shoes. And now I know that's what I would take.
Luckily, in my story, nobody was hurt. But the episode we're about to play for you is about this question of what to take if something much, much more destructive were headed our way. Figuring that out was a real project that the most powerful people in our country were grappling with. But it's a project you probably have never heard about before because it was kept entirely secret. We first released this story back in 2020 But with our big 4th of July, 250 years celebration around the corner, I listened back and thought it was a strange, but ultimately profound reflection on what this whole American national identity actually is.
So without further ado, here we go.

**Jad Abumrad** (2:21)
Wait, you're listening.

**Garrett Graff** (2:22)
Okay, all right.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:30)
Radiolab, from WNYC, Rewind.

**Jad Abumrad** (2:39)
This is Radiolab, I'm Jad Abumrad. This story begins, I guess you could say, with a mystery.

**Garrett Graff** (2:45)
Hi, it's Garrett.

**Simon Adler** (2:46)
Hey, Garrett, Simon here. How are you?

**Garrett Graff** (2:48)
I'm well, sorry I'm late.

**Jad Abumrad** (2:49)
And it comes from producer Simon Adler.

**Simon Adler** (2:52)
Yeah, so this mystery all started just a couple years back when this guy...

**Garrett Graff** (2:57)
I'm Garrett Graff. I'm a historian, journalist, author, etc., etc...

**Simon Adler** (3:01)
.was handed an ID badge.

**Garrett Graff** (3:03)
So I was working at Washingtonian Magazine at the time, and one of my colleagues found a government ID badge as he was commuting in one day.

**Simon Adler** (3:12)
Garrett says his colleague was just walking down the street when he saw on the ground this ID. And the colleague pretty immediately realized that this was not just any ID.
It belonged to somebody with a pretty high security clearance.

**Garrett Graff** (3:26)
He brought it in to me and he goes, hey, you cover this stuff. You can probably figure out how to get this badge back to this guy. So I'm looking at the badge and trying to figure out where this guy works. And it's clear it's for someone who works in the intelligence community.
And when I turned the badge over, it had two sets of driving directions on the back. One labeled short-term, one labeled long-term.

**Jad Abumrad** (3:55)
Driving directions on the back of the ID?

**Simon Adler** (3:57)
Yeah.

**Jad Abumrad** (3:58)
To where?

**Garrett Graff** (3:59)
The short-term instructions obviously led to an office building in Arlington, Virginia. But the long-term directions, you know, I didn't know what they would lead to or sort of just how dramatic it would end up looking like.

**Simon Adler** (4:13)
So Garrett shuffled over to his computer.

**Garrett Graff** (4:15)
I get on Google Maps, Google Satellite and follow the directions.

**Simon Adler** (4:20)
You're just like clicking along?

**Garrett Graff** (4:22)
That is absolutely what I was doing. Like sort of turn left here.

**Simon Adler** (4:26)
Continue straight for 10 miles. Keep right at the fork in the road.