The tests were proposed by Nicholas Christofilos in an unpublished paper[3] of what was then the Livermore branch of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) as a means to verify the Christofilos effect, which argued that high-altitude nuclear detonations would create a radiation belt in the extreme upper regions of the Earth's atmosphere.

"[2] Prior to Argus, Hardtack Teak had shown disruption of radio communications from a nuclear blast, though this was not due to the creation of radiation belts.

Argus was implemented rapidly after inception due to forthcoming bans on atmospheric and exoatmospheric testing in October 1958.

Funding was provided by the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP), the predecessor of the present Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).

USS Norton Sound was a United States Navy-guided missile ship responsible for missile-launching functions.

It also carried a 27-MHz COZI radar, which was operated by Air Force Cambridge Research Center, which was used to monitor effects of the shots.

USS Warrington, in conjunction with Bearss, Hammerberg, and Courtney, maintained a weather picket 463 km west of the task force, provided an airplane guard for Tarawa during flight operations, and performed standard destroyer functions (such as surface security and search and rescue).

Due to the South Atlantic Anomaly, the Van Allen radiation belt is closer to the Earth's surface at that location.

The task force commander and his staff had devised a series of precautionary radiation safe measures to be followed in each stage of the operation.

Though the chance of exposure to radiation from these missiles was minute, the safety measures were performed as directed by the commander by the crew of Task Force 88.

[2] Coordinated measurement programs involving satellite, rocket, aircraft, and surface stations were employed by the services as well as other government agencies and various contractors worldwide.

Such radiation belts affect radio and radar transmissions, damage or destroy arming and fusing mechanisms of intercontinental ballistic missile warheads, and endanger crews of orbiting space vehicles.

[2] Argus proved the validity of Christofilos' theory: the establishment of an electron shell derived from neutron and β-decay of fission products and ionization of device materials in the upper atmosphere was demonstrated.

The tests were first reported journalistically by Hanson Baldwin and Walter Sullivan of The New York Times on 19 March 1959,[9][10] headlining it as the "greatest scientific experiment ever conducted".

This was an unauthorized publication that caused great controversy among scientists because many of them were unaware of the presence of artificial particles in the Earth's atmosphere.