I've managed to amass quite a bit of info on the Russian Cosmos 954 satellite than crashed in the NWT in the late 70's, thanks to the wonders of the Internet. However, I'm always searching for more info, so if you know any information about this event, please write and share it with me.

Meanwhile, here is what I've put together: (info taken from various web sites and magazines)

Cosmos 954 was a Soviet Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite (RORSAT) which was powered by a nuclear reactor. Previous Soviet missions using such technology would split the reactor from the parent body of the spacecraft and boost the radioactive material into a higher orbit where the reactor would remain for 300-1000 years once the short lifetime of the satellite was over (which was well beyond the life of the radioactive material). Cosmos 954 had a special problem however - it went out of control and the technicians were unable to separate the reactor from the spacecraft's parent body.

The Russians sent out a warning that one of their satellites was going to crash and it was monitored on radar by NORAD. On January 24, 1978, Cosmos 954 deorbited and came crashing into the Great Slave Lake area of the Northwest Territories, disintegrated during reentry into a shower of radioactive debris which spread over some 124,000 square kilometers. A radioactive portion of the craft fell near a trapper's camp. A canoeist travelling through the north found this, looked at the unusual phenomenon and then left it alone. A massive search was begun to locate the debris that was made up of over 200 troops from both the Canadian Air Force and the US military and lasted until October. Around "key" areas of the crash, tight security was present and no civilians were permitted to view the scene(s). The canoeist and his radioactive find were both located and taken back to Yellowknife, where the canoeist was found to be in good health and the reactor pieces were impounded. Some of the debris was flown to Manitoba for testing.

After the clean-up, the Canadian Government sent a $15 million bill to the Soviets. The Soviets paid less than half of this amount and agreed not to take back the spacecraft. The Canadians were happy with the amount they received and were happier still that the Soviets had acknowledged the spacecraft's existence.

Of the thousands of radioactive fragments that reached the earth's surface, some were potentially lethal (i.e., the gamma ray radiation, near contact, was as high as 500 R/h). However, less than 1% of radioactive material was recovered. Think about that - 99% of the radioactive parts of this satellite are now floating around in Great Slave Lake. Keep an eye out for three-eyed trout next time you're out fishing...

As an interesting aside, psychic Earl Curley claims to have been the one who located the crashed satellite (while working in conjunction with DND).

Summary
The Russian nuclear-powered satellite, COSMOS 954, re-entered the earth's atmosphere early on 24 January, 1978, watched first by the tracking instruments of NORAD and then by the startled eyes of a few residents of the NWT. Concern about radioactive debris, whose presence was quickly verified on the frozen surfaces of lakes and land, led to a massive airborne and ground search and recovery program that lasted from re-entry date to the middle of October, 1978, interrupted only by the spring break-up period. The search area extended from Great Slave Lake north-eastward towards Baker Lake.

Only about 65 kg of material were found, although it is probable that the satellite weighed several tons. All fragments but one - itself weighing over 18 kg - were radioactive; many showed clear evidence of melting and explosion.

I can't help out much but I did play a small part following the crash of 954. At the time I worked with the Federal department of Fisheries and Oceans. Because of the perceived risk of widespread radiation contamination across the north, we were asked to collect several hundred fish samples in the area of the East Arm of Great Slave Lake. The samples were to be screened for radioactive contamination. To my knowledge nothing was ever detected and that pretty much ended my small role in the crash of 954 and it's aftermath. I do remember each community in the western arctic (of Canada) was screened as well by teams of technicians who had to walk tight grids through the towns with radiation detectors looking for radioactive particles or debris.

Thought you might be interested in this. Dr Petter Better Tapes "Exposure of the Soviet missile-planting program took away the crucial element of surprise and helped to avert war at that time. Even so, General Brown was soon neutralized as part of a hopeless Rockefeller attempt to restore the former Rockefeller-Soviet alliance, and many Soviet missiles were never removed from American waters. As the immediate crisis over the Soviet underwater missiles died down, Dr. Beter learned that other missiles also were planted under the sea. These had been planted earlier and were not Soviet, but American. In violation of international treaties, the United States had planted mammoth multi-warhead missiles on the ocean floor in the Atlantic and Pacific, targeted on the Soviet Union.

The new Kremlin rulers bided their time, allowing the four Rockefeller brothers to convince themselves that they were succeeding in patching up the former alliance. But they were routing the Bolsheviks out of the Kremlin and out of many other high-level positions of power in Russia. At the same time they were finalizing preparations for a surprise many times more decisive than that of the Underwater Missile Crisis.

As the autumn of 1977 approached, American beam weapons were nearing operational status at a secret military base nestled in Copernicus Crater on the moon. But on the night of the Harvest Moon, September 27, 1977, the base was attacked and put out of action by the Soviet Union. For ten years the Russians had been involved in a crash program to develop a family of particle beam weapons, which fire subatomic particles at a target at virtually the speed of light. A neutron beam weapon, fired from an orbiting, manned satellite, killed all the astronauts at the American moon base. (The Russian satellite was partially disabled during the encounter. This was the nuclear-powered satellite, Cosmos 954, which four months later created a worldwide sensation by coming to earth in northern Canada. It was not a crash, but an emergency landing.)

The silencing of the secret U.S. moon base was the beginning of a lightning military takeover of space by the Soviet Union. During the final months of 1977, the Soviet Union deployed a "space triad" of manned strategic weapons, to which the United States has no counterpart. First came the "cosmos interceptor" killer satellites, which use particle beam weapons to blast other satellites out of existence. These started hunting down and destroying American spy and early-warning satellites, one by one. Within about six months--by tbe spring of 1978--they completed the job. Meanwhile Russia's new rulers were demanding that the United States begin laying down its arms by way of SALT II or risk unspecified dire consequences. These circumstances led to a desperate intelligence mission in April 1978, in which a Korean airliner flew into the most sensitive military airspace in the Soviet Union. Russian jet fighters forced the airliner down, but only after special equipment mounted in the plane radioed vital data on the Soviet military alert status to CIA receivers.

The Russians have long been interested in the works of Nikola Tesla and this satellite had some of his type of device on board-namely a tuned microwave circuit.

The Russians have frequently used beamed microwaves to create resonant standing waves in the various levels of the Ionosphere to study weather phenomena (and supposedly to manipulate weather).As this satellite would have had a more intense localised effect on the Ionosphere due to its proximity to this shell it was sometimes shifted through the various layers to obtain more data.Unfortunately for the Russians (and the Canadians) they botched some of its atmospheric- grazing low -pass orbits and burnt some of their control systems off, thus losing control of the craft.

For further info on these Ionosphere manipulating experiments check out what the Canadians and Americans are doing with HAARP and the possible involvement of the Canadian Whiteshell Nuclear research facility which coincidently examined most of the recovered debris from cosmos 954.

I was working in Northern Sask, Canada for 2 years. On my time off work I enjoy being in the out doors and in the winter time i can be found on my snowmobile. During my time in Northern Sask, i went on several caping trips either on my own, or with friends who also had machines.

There was one occasion where I got lost on the way to a friend's cabin near the Sask/NWT boarder. I found myself on what i now know is "grove lake". on the northern most edge of this lake there is something unusual that I think may be related to radioactive debris left from c954. I came across a chain link, fenced off area that looked to be possibly square in shape each side measuring perhaps approx 100 feet in leingth. This area is in the middle of no ware, the nearest roadway/settlement is hours away by snowmobile. the chain link is aged and coroded and in slight disrepair, from the age of the fence it looks to have been erected at about the same time as the c954 crash. there a few aged signs on the chain link with "Canadian Atomic Energy" or something similer containing those words. I can't remember exactialy what they said.

the snow was very deep and the area around the febnce was overgorwn and there was quight a few trees making it impossible to get inside the fence, or gain excess to the woods around the fence on foot or with a snowmobile.

i made a few passes along the exposed edge of the fence and could see nothing inside. the area inside the fence is wooded, much like the area outside the fence. very bizarre to run accross something lie this in such a remote location. supplies to build this fence would have either been flown in, or trucked until the road stopped then flown in. it would be impossible to erect this fence in the winter time. there is no way of getting heavy equipment in this area in the summertime unless it is flown in. in the winter you can fly things in or take them via some sort of all train vehicle IE - snowmobile or tracked caterpillar.

I have several contacts with the Canadian DND and National Archives. I have explained to them the same things i have explained to you and the one thing they all suggest it may be is possible radioactive bits from the c954 crash in the late 70's. Other possible explanations are a nuclear powered beacon for aircraft, nuclear powered weather station, or possibly UXO that was ditched by an aircraft flying into cold lake.

-- Indian and Northern Affairs and the RCMP may have old pictures from the satellite recovery in their files

-- there was a big front page picture running in the Globe and Mail at the time

-- the Yellowknifer or news/north undoubtedly ran stories on this

Any assistance in finding out more information on this event would be greatly appreciated...