The British newspaper "Daily Mail" revealed details about a secret Pentagon project on how to stop the rotation of the Earth in the event of a nuclear war. The newspaper stated that the idea occurred to American military officials in the 1960s after achieving some successes in the space race, leading them to propose a project named "Retro."
The essence of their idea was that it could help avoid a Russian nuclear missile strike in case of a nuclear conflict. The Retro project involved setting up a massive field with 1,000 heavy missile launchers, including Atlas missiles. Once it was confirmed that the Soviet Union had launched its nuclear warhead-equipped missiles, it would be necessary to wait until those missiles completed their active flight phase, crossing the North Pole and gaining inertia towards the American missile silos in Dakota, Montana, Missouri, and Wyoming.
At that moment, all the Atlas missiles would fire their engines simultaneously. The jet streams emitted by the engines in the opposite direction to the Earth's rotation would create a thrust sufficient to temporarily stop the planet. Consequently, Soviet missiles would fly over their intended targets and land further away since they would continue to travel due to inertia.
The goal of the project was to save American ground silos and deliver a counter-strike to Soviet cities after the Earth resumed its rotation, but the project's proponents were well aware that completely stopping the rotation of the planet was impossible.
