The formidable nuclear arsenal of the US has misplaced some of its weaponry, losing its atomic bombs to the ocean depths – for anyone to discover.

The US has adopted the position that if it cannot locate their missing bombs, or “Broken Arrow” incidents, then their adversaries cannot either. To this day, the US has a total of six missing nuclear warheads out of 32 documented Broken Arrow accidents.

Given that the detonation of any single one of these warheads could annihilate a city and kill millions – it appears this could pose a significant problem.

One incident in 1958 witnessed a B-47 fully armed Mark 15 hydrogen bomber near Tybee Island release its weapon following a mid-air collision. The weapon was never retrieved despite initial assertions it was a dummy, according to National Interest, reports the Mirror US.

The B-47 was transporting a 7,600-pound Mark 15 hydrogen thermonuclear bomb. The Mark 15 had an explosive yield of 3.8 megatons, 190 times more devastating than the Fat Man bomb, which flattened Nagasaki and compelled Imperial Japan’s surrender.

The F-86’s wing was shattered, but the pilot ejected himself safely whilst the B-47 was damaged and the pilot feared the bomb could explode.

Therefore, the pilot jettisoned the Mark 15 into the waters of Wassaw Sound, near Tybee Island.

Utilising sonar, over 100 Navy personnel searched for the discarded Mark 15. The search continued for two months, and they found nothing.

The Air Force informed the public that the bomb’s plutonium warhead had been removed before the flight and replaced with a lead simulation.

However, decades later, in 1994, documents revealed from a 1966 Congressional testimony confirmed that the Tybee Mark 15 was indeed an intact nuclear weapon.

In 1966, a B-28 thermonuclear bomb was lost in the Mediterranean Sea following a collision between two U.S. military aircraft, and its warhead remains undiscovered.

One Spanish shrimp fisherman witnessed the oddly shaped white package fall. It was one of four B28 thermonuclear bombs that had been dispersed after two US military aircraft collided over the Mediterranean.

Three of the B-28s were retrieved on land but the warhead was never found.

Tybee, and the Mediterranean incident, are just two of 32 documented “broken arrow” accidents. Broken Arrow is military jargon for an accidental event that involves nuclear weapons, such as the loss of a nuclear weapon, or the accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon.

While Iran’s nuclear programme appears to have been largely decimated by US strikes and a previous targeted US-Israel operation some fear it may only be a matter of time before they rebuild their capabilities.

Global security expert Jeffrey Lewis stated: “If the strike does not succeed in removing a regime there remain thousands of people in Iran capable of reconstituting a programme like this.

“The technology itself is decades old, and a vengeful Iran is likely to reach the same conclusion that North Korea reached – that it’s a dangerous world with the United States, and it’s better to go nuclear.”