Upon entering the unprecedented atomic age with the successful testing of the most powerful weapon known to man, the world lived in paranoia.

In order to better understand the blast and thermal effects of a nuclear bomb, the US dropped a 16-kiloton bomb on a fake town in the middle of the Nevada desert.

The mission, dubbed "Operation Doorstep," was used to determine if wooden-frame homes, cars, and mannequins — in place of people — could survive a nuclear blast.

Below are the haunting images from the March 17, 1953, test from the US Department of Energy digital archive.