Mystery of America's first fatal nuclear disaster - with rumors still rife over 60 years later that explosion in remote Idaho town was triggered by one man's murderous rage amid LOVE TRIANGLE

The SL-1 accident is the only fatal nuclear reactor event to ever occur on US soil.

An earth-shattering explosion at the Stationary Low-Power Plant Number 1 (SL-1) in January 1961 saw all three technicians on staff killed during what was meant to be routine maintenance of the government lab's nuclear reactor.

Following a painstaking operation, the men's bodies were retrieved - at the cost of 790 others being exposed to radiation out in Idaho's Lost River desert.

The three men were then wrapped in hundred pounds of lead, interned in steel coffins and buried under a slab of concrete to prevent any further spread. The lab was also considered lost and was buried a few hundred yards away.

But rumors surrounding the incident still swirl today, with some speculating the disaster was in fact a murder-suicide triggered by a sordid squabble after one of the crew members engaged in an affair with another's wife. 

Indeed, one report claims that the man responsible for the explosion had received a phone call from his wife asking for a divorce just minutes earlier - while the co-worker accused of sleeping with his wife was later found pinned to the ceiling directly above the blown reactor.

The explosion occurred at the Stationary Low-Power Plant Number 1 (SL-1) in January 1961, and saw three technicians on staff killed. A subsequent report from the United States Atomic Energy Commission suggested the meltdown may not have been the result of an error

Army Specialists Jack Byrnes, 22, and Richard McKinley, 26, and Navy Seabee Richard Legg, 26 were tasked with manning the remote laboratory's desolate halls, and all died in the blast. AEC special investigator Leo Miazga implied Legg was sleeping with Byrnes' wife

Pictured, an explosion triggered by scientists at the National Reactor Testing Station during their investigation, at the same station where SL-1 had been

To this day, more than six decades later, it is the only time American lives have been lost while synthesizing nuclear energy.

SL-1 had opened in May 1961, with Army Specialists Jack Byrnes, 22, and Richard McKinley, 26, and Navy Seabee Richard Legg, 26, tasked with manning the remote laboratory's desolate halls. 

They would eventually become victims of America's first (and only) fatal nuclear meltdown - 15 years after uranium-based Little Boy, was detonated above the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and after plutonium-based Fat Man hit nearby Nagasaki. 

The then-Soviet Union would look to steal the spotlight with detonations of their own to keep up with the Oppenheimer-led US, successfully testing its first fission bomb in 1949.

An increasingly contentious arms race followed, during which a litany of labs opened across the far-flung deserts of Nevada, Utah, and Idaho.

The latter is where SL-1 was erected, in a little-known locale literally called Atomic City.

Originally 'Midway' until 1950, the town earned the moniker for housing another nuclear lab, Experimental Breeder Reactor, the world's first electricity-powered plant with nuclear capabilities. 

Air view of the national reactor testing station of the Atomic Energy Commission near Idaho Falls, Idaho in 1957. The explosion on January 3, 1961, occurred minutes after Byrnes received a call from his wife asking for a divorce, Miazga found

Following a painstaking operation, the men's bodies were retrieved - at the cost of 790 others being exposed to radiation out in Idaho 's Lost River desert

The rescuers thus rotated trips inside to reduce risks to their safety - rushing in with hazmat suits in 65-second intervals

The reactor vessel is seen being removed from the reactor building on November 29, 1961, nearly a year after the disaster.  The 60-ton crane had a 5.25-inch steel shield with a 9-inch thick lead window to protect the operator. The three story silo contained much of the radiation

Army volunteers from a special Chemical Radiological Unit are seen practicing with the crane to insert a stretcher into into the SL-1 reactor building, to collect the body of the Legg, who ended up pinned to the ceiling just above the reactor vessel by debris propelled in the blast

The Stationary Low-Power Plant was constructed more than a decade later, at the National Reactor Testing Station, now known as Idaho National Laboratory, some 40 miles west of Idaho Falls.

Eight miles south was the aptly named Atomic City, which today boasts a population of around 40, despite - and perhaps due - to its hazardous history.

That said, intentions from the scientists at SL-1 were somewhat benign given the nature of the energy they were dealing with, tasked with providing electrical power and heat for small, remote military facilities such as those near the Arctic Circle. 

As such, reactors were designed to be small, lightweight, and easy to maintain - capable of operating for three years without refueling.

But these reactors - powered by boiling water - incorporated several new technologies, many of which required regular maintenance. 

New practices at the plant included the use of enriched uranium fuel and burnable poison strips (BPS) to prolong core life, and five control rods from the typical 20 to 50 to simplify maintenance.

Inadequately tested technologies commonly exhibited operational malfunctions, NASA scientists wrote in a 2007 report  - citing a phenomenon known as control rod 'stickiness' in particular.

The toxic spewing event of 1961 occurred after an 11-day maintenance shutdown at the lab over the Christmas holiday, only a half a year into its lifetime. 

It is believed the explosion was triggered when technicians attempted a manual rod travel exercise after a control rod exhibited 'stickiness' - a term that refers to when a rod catches more neutrons than usual, creating less energy.

Diagram of Stationary Low Power Reactor - an experimental design that has not been used since

An outside view of the plant, located eight miles outside of Atomic City and 40 miles from Idaho Falls

This is due to the fact that nuclear reactors can be compared to big sticks of bags of bouncy balls, with the balls being wandering neutrons from split atoms.

If you hit a bag of balls with another ball, the bag splits open, making balls bounce everywhere, creating a process known as nuclear fission.

During nuclear fission, a neutron collides with a uranium atom and splits it, releasing a large amount of energy.

This comes in the form of either heat and radiation, and  to turn the reactor off, one would put in more control rods to catch more neutrons.

Fewer rods, however, means more bags of balls splitting - a theory that unfortunately became a reality for the three men on duty the night of January 3, 1961.

While performing a basic maintenance procedure - attaching the control rods to the control rod drive mechanism -  Byrnes was tasked with manually lifting the control rod about four inches before attaching it to the mechanism.

However, the young technician is said to have raised the central rod to a height of 20 inches in 0.5 seconds - causing the reactor to go 'supercritical' in just four milliseconds. 

A video from the US Atomic Energy Commission shows what the workers had been doing when the reactor went supercritical. It is believed the explosion occurred when technicians attempted a manual rod travel exercise after a control rod exhibited 'stickiness' - a term that refers to when a rod catches more neutrons than usual, creating less energy

This is due to the fact that nuclear reactors can be compared to big sticks of bags of bouncy balls, with the balls being wandering neutrons from split atoms. If you hit a bag of balls with another ball, the bag splits open, making balls bounce everywhere, creating a process known as nuclear fission

During nuclear fission, a neutron collides with a uranium atom and splits it, releasing a large amount of energy. This comes in the form of either heat and radiation, and to turn the reactor off, one would put in more control rods to catch more neutrons

Fewer rods, however, means more bags of balls splitting - a theory that unfortunately became a reality for the three men on duty the night of the disaster

While performing a basic maintenance procedure - attaching the control rods to the control rod drive mechanism - Byrnes was tasked with manually lifting the control rod about 4 inches before attaching it to the mechanism 

However, the young technician is said to have raised the central rod to a height of 20 inches in 0.5 seconds - causing the reactor to go 'supercritical' in just 4 milliseconds. The reactor already had fewer rods than usual, paving the way for an enormous burst of energy

The core power level surged to 20,000 megawatts - 6,000 times the rated power output.

The heat generated by the power surge vaporized the water powering core and keeping it cool, while hammering steam into the top of the reactor.

This caused an explosion of colossal proportions, and the 26,000-pound reactor to lift nine feet off the ground. 

Photos from the investigation that followed show the control rod lodged in the ceiling of the SL-1 Reactor building - now buried in the Idaho desert.

Autopsies showed that Byrnes and Legg died instantly, while McKinley - whose wife was pregnant at the time-  exhibited signs of diffuse bleeding within his scalp, indicating he survived for some two hours before succumbing to his wounds.

Legg, meanwhile, had been impaled by a heavy shield plug propelled by the blast with a velocity of 85 feet per second, with officials finding both him and the debris pinned to the ceiling. 

All three men died of physical trauma - all of which was incurred from a chain reaction in the uranium fuel that caused temperatures to soar to more than 3,600 degrees.

Scientists at the National Reactor Testing Station created the explosion by removing the control rod from a nuclear reactor buried under the earthen mound, simulating the explosion that occurred behind closed doors

This photo shows the AEC and U. S. Army Corps of Engineers detonating a high explosive charge in southwestern Idaho, not far from the since-buried plant

A rescue operation was eventually launched, though with the highly toxic core exposed, another crisis akin the one seen a quarter century later in Chernobyl was also occurring.

Unaware, first responders responding to an alarm at first thought nothing was afoot - because, at first glance, the reactor building’s exterior looked normal.

There had also been two false alarms tripped earlier in the day, further quelling suspicions.

That quickly changed when they entered the building - after which their radiation detectors immediately went off.

Levels of 25 roentgens (r) were recorded, causing an evacuation - despite whole body doses of 1,000r typically being considered a death sentence.

Still, any whole-body radiation dose can increase a person's lifetime risk of fatal cancer, and the levels left lingering were roughly the equivalent of undergoing 5,000 consecutive chest X-rays.

The rescuers thus rotated trips inside to reduce risks to their safety - rushing in with hazmat suits in 65-second intervals.

Eventually, the men’s bodies were recovered, but they remained highly radioactive.

Photos show the reactor room after the explosion, which caused temperatures to soar to more than 3,600 degrees

Levels of 25 roentgens (r) were recorded, causing an evacuation - despite whole body doses of 1,000r of typically being considered a death sentence

Such radiation can take centuries to dissipate - so the military men's especially stricken parts, their hands and organs, had to be removed and buried along with wreckage from the lab site.

The rest of the remains were shipped off to their families, and like the debris, were buried in lead-lined coffins beneath layers of concrete in each of their hometowns.

Byrnes, a recently wed twenty-something, was interned in hometown Utica, in Upstate New York.

Legg, a sturdily built twenty-five-year-old, was returned to rural Michigan, two years after starting work as an electrician for the Navy, before eventually being assigned to SL-1.

Unlike Byrnes - who married his high school sweetheart at 17 - Legg arrived without a partner.

Once in Idaho, however, he married a teenage testing-station stenographer named Judith Cole.

Both men soon became fathers - children they would sadly leave behind.

Eight miles south was the aptly named Atomic City, which today boasts a population of around 40, despite - and perhaps due - to its hazardous history

United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) special investigator Leo Miazga painted a bleak picture of the dynamic between the two once assigned to SL-1.

In a report carried out after the disaster, the official framed both Byrnes - who brought his wife to Idaho with him - and Legg as hapless philanderers.

According to Miazga, Byrnes regularly ignored his family, courted strippers and threw tantrums at work - often capped by hurling tools. 

Legg, on the other hand, was a known prankster, as well as lazy and often unprofessional, people who knew him said.

For one on-site prank, Legg allegedly once turned off a fan that cooled critical instruments, and on at least one instance, was found sleeping in his car in the parking lot when he should have been overseeing the reactor.

Legg is also accused of once flubbing the time card of a friend tasked with manning the power station - leading Byrnes to be brought in to fill his spot. 

The two had never worked together, but already had a history. 

According to Miazgam, the two got drunk at a strip club in Idaho halls in May 1960, with Byrnes introducing his future coworker and others to a prostitute named Mitzi. 

The Burial Grounds of the destroyed reactor, which was buried along some of the most radioactive parts of the three workers, who had to be dismembered

The rest of the remains were shipped off to their families, and like the debris, were buried in lead-lined coffins beneath layers of concrete in each of their hometowns. A a retrospective look at the destruction found inside the SL-1 reactor core is seen here

She soon joined the group for tequila and whiskey at a sergeant’s house, before allegedly offering them sex for twenty dollars a piece. 

The men reportedly talked her down to $2, and Byrnes took her into a back room.

Once the deed was done, Legg started a fight with Brynes, Miazga found - while receiving conflicting accounts as to why.

A sergeant who broke it up later told him Legg was either scolding Byrnes - for being unfaithful - or teasing him about his stamina. 

However, a journalist who dug up the report in 2003 suggests another possibility:  Byrnes was sleeping with Legg’s wife.

William McKeown outlines this theory in 'Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America’s First Nuclear Accident' - the first book to ever detail Miazga's previously unseen report.

Specifically, he honed in on Byrnes’ allegedly crumbling marriage, and his alleged fragile state of mind the night of the disaster. 

He also cites the New Yorker's volatile relationship with Legg, who had been promoted over him, and surfaced as a sort of workplace rival.

Legg had also regularly taunted Byrnes, Miazga found - specifically about him cheating on his wife.

The night of the explosion, the pair and trainee McKinley were tasked with reconnected the reactor's control rods to the drive rack that moved them up and down.

Atomic City as it looks today. The initial cleanup took 18 months and consisted primarily of burying irradiated and contaminated materials

The facility was purposefully located in a remote part of the Idaho desert, limiting public exposure. The immediate plume of radiation quickly dissipated, so that no harmful amounts reached the nearby community

Today it boasts just one bar, and a host of residents who believe the blast was not a mistake

This, as mentioned, required one of them to physically lift one of the hundred pound rods about four inches, without causing a reaction.

An hour into their shift, a patrolman passed by the plant housing the reactor, noticed that the men were busy and went on his way.

Three hours in, an operator transferred an external call to SL-1's control room, and on the other line was Byrnes’s wife, Arlene.

The operator patched the call through, after which the couple spoke briefly.

Through interviews, Miazga found that during the call, the pair decided to end their marriage - after which an unidentified woman tried calling back several times, never making it through.

In his report, the high-ranking energy official theorized that the explosion that followed was an act of self-sabotage - one laid against one of the other two men as a result of a 'lover’s triangle.'

He implied Legg had been sleeping with Byrnes’ wife, but produced no evidence to support this.

As a result, Byrnes’s response to the untimely phone call remains shrouded in mystery.

What is known, thanks to officials' autopsy report, is that the man standing directly over the central control rod before the reactor blew was Byrnes.

McKinley, the AEC inspector suggested, was just collateral damage.

The type of reactor seen at SL-1 - the first of its kind - has not been used since. As for Atomic City, it still stands today.