Although the radium was finally removed to a place eleven miles away, the process did not let up. This resulted from the effect of nuclear radiation on orgone energy. DOR is black, lusterless, toxic, carries a high charge, and is oxygen and water-hungry. It appears as black specks in the atmosphere, as though someone had sprinkled the air with black pepper. One can clearly see the sun through it, but photographs appear as though they were taken in shadow.
Leaves droop and lose their luster, birds and insects become quiet, and even the air is still.
Humans become uncomfortable, the skin blue, mouth parched, and the scalp tight, causing headache and nausea. The blackening effects of DOR on rocks led to considerable research into the chemistry of the process, designated preatomic chemistry by Reich, and the discovery of melanor, orite, brownite and orene, all of which are described in the later orgonomic journals. Early in 1952, to combat DOR, Reich devised a cloudbuster consisting principally of hollow pipes grounded in water, which was able to draw this energy out of the atmosphere into water. This led to an interest in weather, and he experimented with both the production and prevention of rain. On two occasions, his weather work was televised, and once, in 1953, he produced rain for a group of Maine farmers whose crops were dying because of drought.