The Utah Desert Geiger Counter Readings
Field measurements from a 1971 U.S. Geological Survey expedition, suppressed for forty years, showing sustained anomalous radiation across three Salt Lake Valley sites.
The expedition
In the summer of 1971, a USGS geophysics team conducted a routine radiometric survey of the Salt Lake Valley as part of a national mineral-resource assessment. The team used a standard scintillometer at fourteen sites, all on public land.
Three of the fourteen sites — sites 4, 9, and 11 — produced readings between 9 and 14 milliroentgens per hour, approximately 15× the natural background for the region. The team’s report, written by Dr. ██████████ ████, was submitted to the USGS in late 1971 and withdrawn at the request of the Department of Energy in early 1972.
Site locations
- Site 4: A gravel lot on the east bench, then undeveloped, now the parking structure of a regional medical center.
- Site 9: The basement of a building whose address is being withheld pending consultation with legal counsel. The committee has visited the site and can confirm that the basement slab continues to register 7.8 milliroentgens per hour as of January 2026.
- Site 11: A residential lot in the Avenues district. The current owner reports that her cat refuses to enter the back garden.
The DOE suppression
The DOE suppression order, issued under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 § 141.b, has never been formally rescinded. The committee’s FOIA counsel is currently in active litigation to obtain the original report.
A leaked internal USGS memo from 1972, obtained by the committee in 2022, contains the line: “Recommend immediate burial of the Site 9 finding pending further review. The site is, in lay terms, hot.”