Underground Bases and Tunnels:
What is the Government Trying to Hide ?
By Richard Sauder Ph.D
Chapter Three
THE ULTIMATE WAR ROOMS:
FIGHTING THE BIG ONE FROM DEEP UNDERGROUND
A 1989 article in U.S. News & World Report stated that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Pentagon administer approximately 50 secret underground command posts around the country, where the president might flee in the event of a nuclear war. (Although FEMA is perceived as a "civilian" federal agency, in reality FEMA and the Pentagon work closely together.) Each of these underground bunkers is "equipped to function as an emergency White House." The article specifically cites the FEMA "Special Facility" at Mount Weather and the Pentagon back-up facility called Raven Rock, or Site R, located along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, and operated by Fort Ritchie (see the next page for more on the Ritchie facility). Supposedly, in the event of a nuclear crisis, 1,000 civilian and military officials would be rushed to these secret bunkers. They would take refuge there while the rest of the country muddled through the ensuing radioactive holocaust as best it could.1 In reality, given the number of secret bunkers cited (50), it seems that the number of personnel who would be evacuated would be considerably higher.
The logical question is: where are the underground command posts and bunkers? The answer is not an easy one, since by their very nature these facilities are hard to find. To begin with, they are all underground. Some of them are on military bases. Virtually all of them have been constructed behind a veil of secrecy and high security. And all of them continue to operate under considerable security.
Nevertheless, at least a partial answer can be provided, because the locations of some of the underground bunkers are known. And information is also available about the function of some of them and what they contain.
THE PENTAGON, NORTHERN VIRGINIA -- As might be suspected, the Department of Defense has burrowed underneath the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia and established a sophisticated facility called the "National Military Command Center."
"SITE R", AKA "RAVEN ROCK" OR THE RITCHIE FACILITY - In the hills of southern Pennsylvania, near the small town of Blue Ridge Summit, is the home of the "Underground Pentagon." Run by nearby Fort Ritchie, since the 1950s the facility has been a major electronic nerve center for the U.S. military. This huge installation, known as "Raven Rock" or "Site R," was blasted out of the native granite known as greenstone and lies 650 ft. below the surface. The 265,000 sq. ft. facility which sprawls beneath 716 acres is comprised of five different buildings in specially excavated separate caverns. It normally is staffed by about 350 people. Access to Raven Rock is by way of portals set into the mountainside. Its corridors are lit by fluorescent lights and it contains a wide variety of amenities including a convenience store; barbershop; medical, dining and fitness facilities; a subterranean reservoir that contains millions of gallons of water; a chapel; 35 miles of telephone lines; and six 1,000 kilowatt generators. "Site R" has long functioned as a sort of second Pentagon and is equipped as a supercomputing and electronic command post linked with numerous military communications networks all over the globe. Local rumor has it that "Site R" is connected by tunnel to the presidential hideaway at Camp David, several miles away in northern Maryland, near the town of Thurmont. According to a recent press report, with the thawing of the Cold War "Site R" has gone to a standby status and will be staffed at a lower level than in the past.2
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C. -- There is a large, sophisticated bunker complex under the basement of the White House in Washington, D.C. Dating back at least to the Eisenhower administration, special forces were ready to tunnel down and extract the President from deep underground in the event a nuclear holocaust reduced everything above to rubble.
But just how extensive - and deep - is this complex? One source I have personally interviewed claims that there are many, many levels below the basement of the White House, that keep going down and down. On one occasion during the Lyndon Johnson administration (in the 1960s), this source was sent to deliver some papers from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Upon arrival, my source was escorted by two Secret Service agents to an elevator in an area of the White House that is not open to the public. They entered the elevator and went down for what the source remembers as 17 levels. When the elevator doors opened they stepped out into a corridor covered on the walls, ceiling and floor with beige, ceramic tiles. The corridor was very long, stretching away in the distance to the vanishing point. According to my source, other corridors and doors opened off the main corridor. The fluorescent lighting was recessed in the ceiling. There was a man sitting at a desk by the elevator doors. The papers were delivered to a man in a room that opened off of the corridor and then my source was escorted back to the elevator, back to the surface and out of the White House. All of the men appeared to be Secret Service agents and were dressed in dark, business suits. The person who related this story to me had the impression there were even more levels below the 17th level. Why papers from HUD had to be delivered to the subterranean bowels of the White House, my source did not know. Whatever the actual size of this underground installation may be, clearly there is far more to the White House than is apparent from driving by on Pennsylvania Avenue.
KANEOHE, HAWAII -- There is also an underground installation at Kaneohe, in Hawaii, connected with U.S. Pacific Fleet operations.
CAMP DAVID, MARYLAND -- At the presidential retreat in northern Maryland, there is "an ultrasensitive underground command post" for the use of the president in an emergency. During the Eisenhower administration this command post was run by a group of military officers known as the "Naval Administrative Unit."3
OMAHA, NEBRASKA -- And at Offutt Air Force Base, in Omaha, Nebraska, there is an underground command post for the Strategic Air Command.4
Unfortunately, I know little more about these installations than I have set forth here. And that's just the point -- I'm not supposed to know, and neither are you. In the event of nuclear war, we'll be nuclear missile fodder while the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff huddle underground figuring out how to bounce the rubble one more time. For that type of arrangement to work, you need secrecy, and lots of it.
In a time of nuclear war, or during some other crisis, when the politicians and military planners go underground, where will they get the information they need to make decisions? Some of the most important information will come from — you guessed it - other underground facilities, among them the NORAD facilities described below.
NORAD AT CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, COLORADO -- For subterranean privacy, try Colorado Springs, Colorado, where the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) operates perhaps the best known of the major underground bases.
This super-secret facility is located deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Here's where the latest space, missile, and air-traffic information is gathered, using state-of-the-art equipment, and fed to military and civilian decision makers.
Planning for the subterranean, 4.5 acre, 15 building complex began in 1956. Construction was started in 1961. The Utah Mining and Engineering Company of San Francisco did the excavating, under the supervision of the Omaha District of the Army Corps of Engineers. The large engineering firm of Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas was also involved on the project. In 1966 NORAD moved in and began underground operations.
Jointly staffed by United States and Canadian military personnel, the installation constantly monitors all space traffic in and around the earth, all missile launches worldwide, submarine movements and air defenses for North America. This NORAD base is also the National Warning Center for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This is the place from which civil defense warnings for Canada and the U.S. are initiated.5
About 1,700 personnel operate the facility around the clock, including a night shift of 300 people. A 4,675 ft. tunnel bores straight through the mountain. The entrance tunnel is 22.5 ft. high and 29 ft. wide, while the central access tunnel, that branches off the entrance tunnel, is 25 ft. high and 45 ft. wide. Three hundred and fifty hardrock miners, working in three shifts, excavated almost 700,000 tons of granite to construct the facility. The NORAD base is stocked with 30 days of contingency supplies, including enough fuel to run its six diesel generators for 30 days. It also has underground reservoirs, hewn out of solid rock, that hold six million gallons of water for cooling purposes and for use by personnel for domestic purposes. Its 25 ton, hydraulic-operated blast doors, that open off of the access tunnel, well inside the mountain, can open or shut in just 45 seconds. Hardened microwave channels and coaxial cables provide essential communications links for the state of-the-art electronic and computer systems inside the facility.6 (See Illustration 50 for schematic diagrams of how these communication links might look.)
NORAD AT NORTH BAY, ONTARIO, CANADA - This deep underground command center, which is located about 200 miles north of Toronto, is also jointly staffed by both Canadian and U.S. military personnel. The North Bay installation became operational in October 1963 and consists of two huge caverns, bored out of the solid rock, hundreds of feet under the Precambrian Shield. The two huge caverns, each 400 ft. long, by 60 to 70 ft. high and 45 ft. wide, are connected by three cross tunnels. Inside the caverns, just as at Colorado Springs, three-story buildings have been constructed to house personnel and equipment. There are two access tunnels, the one about 6,600 ft. long and 12 ft. by 12 ft., the other about 3,500 ft. in length and 16 ft. by 16 ft. Inside are 142,000 sq ft. of floor space, filled with offices, communications and computer equipment, and defense radars that cover the northern sectors of North American air space.
There are also kitchen and dining facilities that can accomodate 400 people, a hospital and infirmary, washrooms and showers, a "well equipped canteen," and space for people to rest and sleep. Power is supplied by six generators that are normally fueled by natural gas piped down from the surface. Under emergency conditions the generators would run off of diesel fuel stored underground in the complex. During normal operations, water for equipment cooling and personnel use is obtained from nearby Trout Lake. But during emergency "button-up" conditions water would come from underground reservoirs specially excavated for use when the facility was sealed off from the outside. One reservoir holds 200,000 gallons for domestic use, and the other contains five million gallons for air conditioning and equipment cooling.7
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) There are other secret underground government command facilities. Many of them are operated by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA usually pops up in the news as the lead federal agency charged with hurricane or flood relief efforts. But FEMA has another side as well -- a secret, underground side.
MOUNT WEATHER, BLUEMONT, VIRGINIA -- The hub of the FEMA subterranean network is located inside Mount Weather, near the small town of Bluemont, in northern Virginia. This top-secret base was constructed in the 1950s to house the United States government in the event of a national crisis such as nuclear war. Funded by "black" money, Mount Weather remains nearly as inaccessible to scrutiny as it was when first built. Although it is the headquarters for FEMA's far-flung underground empire it 49 Underground Bases and Tunnels does not even appear in the agency's published budget. Security is tight at the installation, which is surrounded by a 10-ft. perimeter fence patrolled by armed guards. There are a few buildings above ground, but most of the real work of Mt. Weather takes place deep below, in great secrecy. The mountain contains what amounts to a small town. The infrastructure includes: a small lake; a pair of 250,000 gallon water tanks, capable of supplying water for 200 people for over a month; a number of ponds 10 ft. deep and 200 ft. across, blasted out of solid rock; a sewage plant capable of treating 90,000 gallons per day; a hospital; a cafeteria; streets and sidewalks; a diesel powered electrical generating plant; private living quarters and dormitories able to accommodate hundreds of residents; a sophisticated, internal communications system using closed-circuit color TV consoles; a radio and TV studio; massive supercomputing facilities; a "situation room" equipped with communications links to the White House and "Site R" in southern Pennsylvania; and a transit system of electric cars that transport personnel around the complex. According to published reports, some of the hundreds of people who work inside the mountain routinely stage practice drills for managing a wide variety of potential crises, ranging from civil disturbances and economic problems, to natural disasters and nuclear war.8
Speaking off the record, in the mid-1970s government officials stated that, in fact, Mt. Weather houses a resident, back-up government. Many federal departments and agencies are represented there, including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, HUD, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation and the Treasury; and agencies such as FEMA, the Office of the President, the U.S. Postal Service, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Reserve, Selective Service, the Federal Power Commission, the Civil Service Commission and others. These highly placed government sources maintain that the administrators of the Federal departments at Mt. Weather hold cabinet-level rank and are referred to as "Mr. Secretary" by the personnel who work under them. These covert "Secretaries" are said to keep their positions over the course of more than one administration, their terms not being limited by the presidential election cycles that govern the terms of office of their Washington counterparts.9 These are sensational allegations, but if they are true, then the political news we are fed in the mainstream media must be fictional to some, unknown degree and the system governing us is controlled to that same unknown degree by agencies and officials who work in great secrecy, literally underground and totally unaccountable to the citizenry of the United States.
Mount Weather serves as a hub for a system of other underground installations and bunkers, known as Federal Relocation Centers. These are located within a 300 mile radius of Washington, DC known as the "Federal Arc." Key government officials and personnel would be evacuated to these centers in the event of nuclear war as part of the Continuity of Government (COG) plan. Besides Mt. Weather, there are said to be an additional 96 of these centers in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina.10
Presumably, at least some of the approximately 50 secret, underground command posts mentioned earlier in the discussion of military facilities would be among these 96 centers in the FEMA Continuity of Government system. Among other things, the centers are said to contain data files and computer systems maintained by a variety of Federal agencies, and are supervised by the facility at Mount Weather.11
A 1991 Jack Anderson column in The Washington Post reported that the COG system was created by the Reagan administration and consists of a "$5 billion network of bunkers filled with high-tech communications equipment at secret locations around the country."12 Just how many of these secret centers were newly constructed during the 1980s, and how many are older facilities that the Reagan administration merely converted to its purposes (expanded, remodeled and modernized) is not known. My guess is that at least some of the dozens of secret COG facilities are mentioned in this book. Of course, that would leave dozens of others which are not.
MOUNT PONY, CULPEPER, VIRGINIA -- There are several underground installations either known, or alleged, to exist in the five-state "Federal Arc" area. The best known is probably the large bunker complex that lies under Mount Pony, a couple of miles east of Culpeper, Virginia, just off of Rt. 3 in the northern part of the state. Although one published report identifies this underground facility as the emergency relocation center for the Treasury Department,13 two other reports,14 local rumor and the sign by the front gate identify the installation as a "Federal Reserve Center." Constructed in the late 1960s, the 140,000 sq ft. facility is said to be supplied with water, food, a generator, communications equipment and even cold-storage for corpses. One source who formerly worked in the Culpeper area told me it is believed that the Federal Reserve stockpiles very large supplies of United States currency there. Indeed, 5 billion dollars are reportedly stored under Mt. Pony.
But this is not a dormant facility, waiting for Armageddon before springing to life. From its underground vantage point in Culpeper the Federal Reserve constantly monitors all major financial transactions in the United States. It does this by means of the "Fed Wire," a modern, electronic system that permits it to keep track of all major business and banking activity that occurs.15 Why does the Federal Reserve need a secure, underground bunker to monitor the nation's economic life? I don't pretend to know, but clearly, judging by the intermittent traffic going in and out the front gate on the day I visited, the Mount Pony bunker is in active use and doing something.
As it happens, just six weeks after my mid-June 1992 visit to the Federal Reserve's Mount Pony bunker a cover story appeared in Time Magazine that dealt, in part, with that very installation. The story said that, as of July 1992 "the facility's mission will no longer be needed."16 My opinion is that this may well be disinformation. I doubt very much that the Federal Reserve has really abandoned its bunker in Culpeper. And even if the bunker really were to be emptied out, my suspicion is that the contents would merely be transferred to another, more secure location, quite likely also underground.
For what it is worth, I had spoken on the phone with the Time Magazine article's author just a few days after visiting the Mount Pony bunker. He wanted to know where I found my information about underground bunkers and installations, and so I mentioned a few of the installations to him that I knew about at that time.
FEMA IN OLNEY, MARYLAND -- Another, less well known, underground installation is located on Riggs Road, off of Rt. 108, between Olney and Laytonsville, MD. Although it has been reported that there are actually two such facilities, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) civil defense bunker in Olney and a bunker operated by an unknown government agency in Laytonsville,17 a recent visit to the area turned up only one site, midway between the two towns. If there is another bunker in the vicinity it is sufficiently well concealed that it is hard to spot. While it is not clear to passers-by who operates the facility on Riggs Road, since there are only generic United States government "NO TRESPASSING" signs posted on the security fence that surrounds the complex, this site is reportedly the backup command center for FEMA's day-to-day operations.18 When I arrived the gate was open and no one was in the guard house. However, a prominently placed sign did advise that the entrance area was under electronic surveillance.
So presumably, any unauthorized intrusion would not go unchallenged. The one building visible from outside the fence is in an advanced state of disrepair and gives every appearance of having been vacant for some years. However, the real work at this site takes place beneath the surface. One former Maryland resident who told me of the site spoke of seeing a long line of cars heading through the gate when shifts change and disappearing behind a slight rise in the near distance. I did speak with one man who had been inside the place many years ago on a school field trip. He remembers going down two or three levels and seeing an underground office complex and electronics facilities. This is not surprising given the large number and variety of aerials and antennae visible on the surface. Both this man and another local with whom I spoke said that the bunker is believed to extend as deep as ten levels underground.
THE GREENBRIAR HOTEL, WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, WEST VIRGINIA — Recent revelations about a large, secret bunker beneath the posh Greenbriar Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia make clear that it is entirely possible to keep the existence of a large, underground installation out of the public eye for decades on end. Until the story broke in the last week of May 1992 only six members of Congress knew that between 1958 and 1961 a warren of living quarters, meeting rooms, and banks of computers and communications equipment had been installed underground beneath the hotel, located about 250 miles southwest of Washington, DC in the Allegheny mountains. Situated behind two giant blast doors, each weighing more than 20 tons, and supplied with water, electricity and sewage treatment, the complex is large enough to house eight hundred people. It contains a large dormitory; an infirmary; shower facilities; a television studio; radio and communications equipment; phone booths and code machines; a dining and kitchen area; a power plant; and even a crematorium for getting rid of the corpses of those who might die inside the sealed bunker. According to published reports, the bunker was constructed to shelter the United States Congress in the event of a nuclear attack.19
Of course, the obvious question is: in the certain chaos of an impending nuclear war how could the hundreds of members of Congress take shelter in a distant bunker that most of them did not even know existed? According to press reports, only a few local people, the hotel management and maintenance staff, a handful of government officials, and other government personnel with a "need-to-know" appear to have been aware of the installation. Could it be that the bunker has, or had, another purpose which is not being divulged? After all, if the bunker itself was kept secret for over 30 years isn't it conceivable that there is more to the story than has so far been publicly admitted?
FEDERAL REGIONAL CENTERS - In addition to the huge bunker at Mt. Weather and bunkers in the neighboring states, FEMA also operates underground installations at other sites around the country. Reported locations for these facilities, designated as Federal Regional Centers, are: Santa Rosa, California; Denver, Colorado; Thomasville, Georgia; Maynard, Massachusetts; Battle Creek, Michigan; Denton, Texas; and Bothell, Washington.20 There are probably others; these are the ones that can be identified from the public record.
I did file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with FEMA asking where their underground facilities were located. Even though information about underground FEMA sites is readily available in the public domain, FEMA refused to name them, citing national security provisions of Executive Order 12356, although they did list the following FEMA facilities in a letter to me:21
FEMA Headquarters- Washington, DC
FEMA Special Facility- Round Hill, VA
National Emergency Training Center- Emmitsburg, MD
Software Engineering Division- Charlottesville, VA
National Warning Center*- Cheyenne Mountain AFB, Colorado
FEMA Regional Offices (RO) Federal Regional Centers (FRC)
Region I Boston, MA (RO) Maynard, MA (FRC)
Region II New York, NY (RO)
Region III Philadelphia, PA (RO) Olney, MD (FRC)
Region IV Atlanta, GA (RO) Thomasville, GA (FRC)
Region V Chicago, IL (RO) Battle Creek, MI (FRC)
Region VI Denton, TX (RO/FRC)
* This is a FEMA presence at a Dept. of Defense facility. Information about that facility would be kept by DOD.
Region VII Kansas City, MO (RO)
Region VIII Denver, CO (RO/FRC)
Region IX Presidio, CA (RO)
Region X Bothell, WA (RO/FRC)
Communications Antenna Fields
Fort Custer, MI
Santa Rosa, CA
Strategic Storage Centers (for Disaster Assistance)
Blue Grass- Richmond, KY
Forest Park -Forest Park, GA
Dempsey- Palo Alto, TX
The observant reader will note that I have already identified 10 of the facilities listed above as underground FEMA installations.
I do not know if any of the other facilities listed in the FEMA response to my request include an underground component. My guess is that some, or all of them, well may. I welcome information from readers who can tell me more.
The Defense Nuclear Agency
In 1975 the Defense Nuclear Agency published a detailed, geological study that discussed dozens of possible sites all over the country for very deeply based military installations - as much as 5,000 ft. underground.22 Some of these prospective sites are relatively large in area, while others are fairly limited in geographic extent. Most of them are in the West; a few are located in the mid-West and on the Eastern Seaboard. The report delineated the sites as follows:
East
Adirondack Mountains, New York (in vicinity of Elizabethtown)
3 sites in Central New Hampshire
Area to northwest of Portland, Maine
Northeastern, Central and South Central Virginia
Mid-West
St. Francois Mountains, Missouri (between St. Louis and New Madrid)
Northern Wisconsin (general area between Chippewa Falls, Wausau and Florence)
Minnesota River Valley (generally 30-40 miles south of Benson and about 50 miles southwest of Minneapolis-St. Paul)
West
Southeastern Wyoming
Rio Grande River Valley, New Mexico (to west and north of Taos; area of special interest 20-30 miles north of Taos, near Colorado border)
Pedernal Hills, New Mexico (60-70 miles east-southeast of Albuquerque)
Zuni Mountains, New Mexico (100 miles due west of Albuquerque, south of 1-40)
La Sal Mountains, Utah (20 miles southeast of Moab)
Sierra Nevada Mountains, California (large area 350 miles long by 50 miles wide)
Idaho Batholith (large area in central Idaho, north of Boise)
South Central Idaho (under Snake River lava flows between Twin Falls and Idaho Falls)
Holbrook, Arizona (general vicinity)
Northwestern Arizona (north of Seligman)
Ash Fork and Williams, Arizona (general vicinity)
Black Mesa Basin, Arizona (under Hopi and Navajo Reservations)
Book Cliffs-Uncompahgre Uplift. Area along Utah-Colorado border (in general vicinity of and to south of Grand Junction, Colorado)
Monument Uplift and Blanding Basin, Utah (southeastern part of state near towns of Blanding and Mexican Hat)
San Rafael Swell, Utah (west of town of Green River)
Extreme West Central Utah (area 30-40 miles west of towns of Delta and Minersville)
Southwestern Utah (area between towns of Cedar City and Panguitch)
Nuclear Test Site, southern Nevada
Central Nevada (50 mile radius of town of Tonopah)
Northwestern Nevada (50 to 100 miles east and northeast of Carson City)
Special Sites
Washington, D.C. (surrounding area in Virginia and Maryland)
Omaha, Nebraska (general vicinity)
Readers should bear in mind that any installations that may have been built in these areas are likely to be well hidden, and very deeply buried. In addition, since the areas are often rather large, the directions provided are of necessity only a general guide to the location of possible installations. After all, the geological formations of interest to the Pentagon for subterranean bases usually extend for miles. Also, entrances to underground facilities may be some distance away from the base itself. So finding these places is not necessarily an easy task.
My guess is that some of these sites have been used for underground base construction over the last 20 years. Readers who may have information about the presence of underground bases at any of these sites are urged to get in contact with me.
Deep "Black" Underground: The Oliver North Connection
In Oliver North's autobiography, Under Fire, he briefly mentions an extremely secret government program called "The Project." According to North, for a year and a half during Reagan's first term he was the "de facto administrator of The Project" and coordinated a group of expert advisors known as the "Wise Men." The work of the Wise Men and The Project entailed providing for the survival of the United States government in the event of a nuclear war. North specifically says that he wrote policy directives pertaining to The Project which President Reagan signed, and that he also often briefed then Vice-President George Bush about The Project. While North does not say precisely how The Project was carried out he does mention that the Soviet Union had "a network of secret tunnels under Moscow" to which its leaders would flee in time of war, while the United States had nothing comparable.23 By implication, then, The Project would seem to have provided a similar capability for the United States.
In fact, it seems that The Project did involve an extensive underground construction program. In April 1994 a front page story in the New York Times announced the existence of a previously undisclosed program known as "The Doomsday Project." According to the story, the project was an "amalgam of more than 20 "black programs" during the Reagan administration, supervised by George Bush, with some involvement by Oliver North. It reportedly cost some $8 billion to build and took eleven years to complete. The Doomsday Project was concerned with the survival of the federal government in the event of nuclear war. The project involved many people, including "White House officials, Army generals, CIA officers and private companies." Of direct interest for readers of this book is the fact that the Pentagon built "scores of secret bunkers" as part of something called the "Presidential Survivability Support System."24 It is my educated guess that many of these "secret bunkers" would be located in the areas and locations set forth in previously discussed documents generated by the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Air Force Project RAND and the Defense Nuclear Agency.
Last But Not Least: Underground Command Center For Sale
And finally, this thought-provoking footnote to our tour of underground strategic command centers: As of 1992 there was a decommissioned Strategic Air Command bunker for sale in Amherst, Massachusetts. The 44,000 sq ft. bunker is three stories high, buried under a mountain, blast-proof, climate-controlled, with a glassed-in command theater. It was for sale for just $250,000.25 There are a couple of interesting things about this piece of information. First, the size and location of this bunker underscore the fact that underground facilities and installations can literally be almost anywhere. Second, the fact that SAC is getting rid of it on the open real estate market means that it must be obsolete. So obsolete that they don't care who goes inside, and they don't care who knows where it is.
One obvious conclusion would be that the Pentagon now has something better, somewhere else.
Chapter Four
MORE UNDERGROUND FACILITIES: MILITARY, GOVERNMENT, NUCLEAR AND BUSINESS
Although I've been told that the Pentagon operates many other underground facilities here in the United States, perhaps dozens more than I've discussed so far, in this chapter, as in the previous chapter, I will err on the conservative side and report only on those underground installations for which I can provide some form of tangible documentation.
Along with military installations I also report on facilities run by other branches of the government, and on some run by private business. Currently, I can positively verify just seven underground corporate facilities. I strongly suspect there are many more. I welcome information in that regard from readers who know of other underground corporate facilities.
But whether it's the Navy or the Federal Reserve or private industry, they all seem to have one thing foremost in their minds: S-E-C-R-E-C-Y.
ATCHISON, KANSAS -- At Atchison, Kansas the Pentagon operates (or used to operate) the Defense Industrial Plant Equipment Facility (DIPEF). This huge underground warehouse facility, with 987,000 total square ft. of space, is a converted and remodeled limestone mine. The facility is serviced by underground roadways that make it easy to 62 More Underground Facilities move the thousands of items of machine tools and industrial equipment stockpiled there. Half of the underground area is paved with concrete and the entire facility is climate controlled. As of 1974 138 people were employed at the DIPEF.1 [almost 1000 ft by 1000 ft DC]
THE FEDERAL RESERVE -- A 1981 Wall Street Journal article says that, "Nine of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks have underground emergency quarters, where records are updated daily." I do not know where most of these underground emergency centers are, or how elaborate they are. Neither do I know exactly what kind of records are kept in them. However, since the Federal Reserve is the agency that controls national monetary policy I would speculate that the records it keeps in these underground centers might well have to do with the national money supply and the daily affairs of the world of high finance. Moreover, since we are living in a computerized, electronic era of instantaneous telecommunication I would speculate further that these underground centers might contain sophisticated computing and communications systems. But all this is speculation on my part, since I have never been in the Federal Reserve's underground facilities.2
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, FT. MEADE, MARYLAND -- Beneath the National Security Agency's headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland are "cavernous subterranean expanses," said to be filled with more than ten acres of the most sophisticated supercomputers that money can buy. 3 The NSA operates in tremendous secrecy; however, it is a safe bet based on what is known about the agency that these computers are engaged in a massive surveillance of much of the world's telephone, telegraph, telex, fax, radio, TV and microwave communications, including surveillance of domestic, internal U.S. communications by ordinary citizens. In a word, Big Brother is already here, and his name is "NSA."
THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S NEVADA TUNNELS AND INSTALLATIONS — The DOE also has many underground tunnels and installations in Nevada. Most of the DOE activity appears to be conducted at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), where the Department of Defense (DOD) and the DOE have for decades been excavating tunnel complexes for underground testing of nuclear weapons (See Illustrations 13 and 14).
These tunnel networks can be quite elaborate (See Illustration 15). The DOE and DOD sometimes reuse the tunnels; other times they are apparently abandoned. Their usual practice is to pack the tunnels with all sorts of sophisticated, hi-tech equipment and machinery to monitor the blasts (See Illustrations 16 and 17). Much of the monitoring takes place within thousandths of a second, even millionths of a second after the nuclear device detonates.
I do not know the purpose of all of the hundreds of underground nuclear blasts (a number that seems excessively high) detonated by the DOD and the DOE; I only know that there have been many, many of them and that there are many tunnels under the nuclear test site. I do not know where all of the tunnels are, what they are all used for, or how extensive the interconnections between them are, providing such interconnections exist at all.
Like many students of UFOlogy I have heard rumors and read anecdotal accounts that allege there are extensive underground complexes for living and working under the Nevada Test Site. I am inclined to think some of these accounts may be true, but I cannot provide factual documentation that demonstrates that such facilities exist. The DOE also operated a test facility at the NTS in the 18).
THE NUCLEAR WASTE DEPOSITORY AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN, NEVADA — Evidently the nuclear waste storage tests in the early 1980s were successful, or at least encouraging, because in 1991 and 1992 the DOE actively solicited companies for construction of a deep underground tunnel complex inside and beneath Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as another "test" depository for nuclear waste. The actual name of the facility is the "Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project, Exploratory Studies Facility (ESF)." The solicitations were for companies that can provide: tunnel boring machines (TBMs) capable of boring tunnels of 25 ft. to 30 ft. in diameter; mobile miners and other mining equipment for excavating tunnels; conveyors and muck removal systems; underground ventilation, water and power supply systems; and all requisite support facilities, buildings, roads and equipment for excavating and maintaining a major, underground complex. Construction was slated to begin in November 1992. Reynolds Electrical & Engineering Co., Inc., which is the Prime Management and Operations Contractor for the Nevada Operations Office of the Department of Energy, is the company that will supervise construction and carry out the actual testing at the facility when it is constructed.
The plans call for 14 miles of underground tunnels and ramps, ranging from 14 ft. to 25 ft. in diameter, with grades as steep as -16%. Since the facility also is slated to contain a 1,300 ft. vertical shaft, by implication the complex will be at least 1,300 ft. beneath the surface.
Here again, as with so much of what goes on underground, it is hard to say what the DOE is up to. Maybe they really are making a test facility for long-term 65 Underground Bases and Tunnels storage (10,000 years) of nuclear waste. Or maybe the high-security curtain of the Nevada Test Site provides a convenient screen behind which the DOE can carry out other, more secret projects, under the public relations rubric of a nuclear waste "test" facility. The trail of lies at the DOE, and at its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), is so long where things nuclear are concerned it is hard to know when to trust the public relations rhetoric and press releases. The more so, since no one without a security clearance (people like the author of this book, for instance) is usually allowed anywhere near these facilities, let alone permitted to actually go underground to poke around to see what is there.4
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO -- At a June 1983 scientific conference in Lake Tahoe, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (which is located in northern New Mexico, but run by the University of California) put forward a proposal for a "National Underground Science Facility" to be constructed deep beneath the Nuclear Test Site in southern Nevada. The proposal called for the facility to be built 3,500 ft. underground, with the possibility of extending it as deep as 6,000 ft. Initially, Los Alamos envisioned two experimental test chambers for doing particle physics, gravity experiments and geophysical studies. The facility would also include machine and electronic shops, a small computer, and dormitory space.5 Whether or not this installation was built I do not know. But, even if it wasn't, the fact that a government agency was actively planning to go as far down as 6,000 ft. to construct a manned scientific facility gives an idea of how deeply based these underground installations can be. Most of the underground facilities I identify in this book range anywhere from tens to hundreds of feet underground. However, it is quite possible that there are bases that are thousands of feet underground. Researchers and students of this subject should be prepared to think of bases located as much as a mile or more beneath the surface. That may seem implausibly deep, but I promise the reader that at the Pentagon there are planners who have commissioned studies calling for military bases to be built as deep underground as 8,000 feet below the surface of the earth -- that's over a mile and a half down! Those plans are discussed later in this book. [talk about overkill! DC]
STANDARD OIL CO. OF NEW JERSEY -- As recently as 1970 Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey operated an emergency center 300 ft. underground in upstate New York, near Hudson. The facility was formerly known as Iron Mountain Atomic Storage. The site contained company records, "vaults, dining halls and more than 50 sleeping rooms for key company officials and their families." 6 More recent reports indicate this facility is now used for storage of corporate records.
NORTHROP - In the Antelope Valley of southern California, near the towns of Rosamond, Palmdale and Lancaster are three mysterious underground facilities, operated by Northrop, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas. (See Illustration 19). The Northrop facility is located near the Tehachapi Mountains, 25 miles to the northwest of Lancaster. There are rumors that the installation there goes down as many as 42 levels, and that there are tunnels linking it with other underground facilities in the area. I do not know whether these rumors are true or not. There are also reports of many strange flying objects in the vicinity, of many shapes and sizes. Some are reportedly spherical, others are alleged to be triangular, elongated, boomerang or disk shaped. And they are said to range in size up to hundreds of feet in diameter. The facility itself is engaged in electronic or electromagnetic research of some sort. There are large radar or microwave dishes and strange looking pylons to which various objects can be affixed, ostensibly for the purpose of beaming electromagnetic radiation at them. These pylons rise up from underground out of diamond-shaped openings in the middle of long, paved surfaces that resemble aircraft runways, but which, in fact, are not used by aircraft.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS -- The McDonnell Douglas facility is located at the now closed Gray Butte airport, northeast of Llano, California. It too has "runways" that are not runways, with diamond-shaped openings through which huge pylons with strangely shaped objects mounted on them are raised to the surface. These objects sometimes resemble elongated disks or flying saucers and have been seen to glow and change colors. Glowing spheres have also been seen by people in the area at night. However, the nature and function of the spheres is not known.
LOCKHEED -- The Lockheed installation is adjacent to what used to be the Hellendale auxiliary airport, six miles to the north of Hellendale, California. Just like the McDonnell Douglas and Northrop facilities it also has the runway-like features, with large, diamond-shaped doors through which huge pylons rise from underground with strange objects attached. This facility also has an obvious underground entrance. (See Illustrations 20 and 21.)
To compound the high strangeness of these California facilities, there are ominous reports of covert military activity associated with them, possible alien activity (and I emphasize possible), possible abductions and lost time episodes, and numerous sightings of extremely unconventional aircraft and flying objects, to which I have already alluded.7
AMERICAN TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH - A 1981 report revealed that AT&T had seven "emergency centers" in separate regions of the country. At least three of these were underground complexes. Near Netcong, New Jersey, to the west of New York City, AT&T buried a three-story emergency center in the granite, 40 ft. below ground. In the center were "...executive living quarters, a control room and a computer (with) the data bank for AT&Ts entire system." Also in the center were a "kitchen, a month's supply of food for 100 people, sleeping quarters and emergency generators." Facilities like the one at Netcong were also located at Rockdale, Georgia and Fairview, Kansas.8 And I have been told there are others all over the country, in isolated rural areas. One of these underground AT&T communications facilities is said to be located in Catron County, New Mexico.9
In the preceding pages I have set out dozens of known underground facilities, installations and bases. Some of these are quite complex and sophisticated installations, capable of supporting large numbers of people in some degree of comfort. Some are operated by the military, or other branches of government, and some are run by Fortune 500 companies in the military-industrial complex. I have also presented information on dozens of other possible sites where the military was contemplating building deep underground installations.
By now it should be clear that underground bases and installations could literally be just about anywhere: under a military base; under a major hotel; under a prominent government building; under old, abandoned mine workings; under virtually any mountain or hill; under a national park, or perhaps in a national forest; in a small town; or in the middle of a large city - maybe even deep under an Alaskan glacier. And as the Army Corps of Engineers documents spell out, these underground facilities could be - and in many cases probably are - well camouflaged and concealed, making detection by a casual observer difficult.
The purpose and function of many of these facilities appear to be related to either the waging or the surviving of nuclear war -- or both. Of course, many other agendas and projects could conceivably be carried out in these underground installations as well. Let your mind run — secret scientific research? Super-secure prisons where people are secretly detained incommunicado? Extraterrestrial living areas?
I must confess that while I don't have many answers, at the least it does seem certain that the southern California Lockheed, Northrop and McDonnell Douglas facilities mentioned above are heavily engaged in nonconventional, hi-tech aerospace research. And while there are stories floating around in UFO circles about bizarre, Nazi-style genetic engineering programs being conducted in underground facilities by "Little Grey" aliens and the U.S. military I can offer no proof that such programs exist. They may exist; they equally may not.
As for the possibility of secret, underground prisons: I will simply observe that many people absolutely disappear in this country every year, never to be heard from again. No bodies are found, no trace of them ever surfaces. I don't know where these people go; I don't know what happens to them. I can offer no proof that any of them are held in secret underground prisons. I cannot even offer any proof that there are secret, underground prisons. However, it occurs to me that at the end of WW II many German citizens were surprised to find out that there were concentration camps, run by the Nazis, in which millions of their neighbors (Jews, Gentiles, Gypsies, mentally impaired, homosexuals, political prisoners) had been incarcerated, tortured, forced into slave labor - and killed.
Given the many underground facilities secretly operated by the U.S. government, could a similar, smaller scale program be going on here? I have no proof of such a program, but considering the large numbers of disappeared people and the existence of dozens of underground installations operating behind a thick security veil it occurs to me that the possibility is at least conceivable.
As I have shown, there is every reason to think that the underground construction plans and activities of the military continued during the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s. A 1974 report by Bechtel Corporation, a huge multinational company that derives significant revenues from government contract work, stated that, "The demand for tunneling and underground excavation for national defense needs is believed to be large. Some examples of underground defense facilities include: hard-rock silos, command posts, communications systems, personnel shelters, storage and power generation facilities."10
And a 1981 report issued by the U.S. National Committee on Tunneling Technology made a similar point: "The demand for defense-related underground construction will be affected significantly by decisions made in the early 1980s. It could be for as much as 20 million cubic meters for missile sites and underground command posts, most of which would be constructed between 1985 and 1995. These projects do not include the civil construction routinely carried out by the (Army) Corps of Engineers."11
In other words, there could easily be a lot of covert construction going on beneath our feet right now.
next
The Mother of All Underground Tunnels?
footnotes
Chapter Three -- The Ultimate War Rooms
1. Steven Emerson, "America's Doomsday Project," U.S. News & World Report. 7 Aug 1989, pp. 26-31.
2. Douglas Heuck, '"Underground Pentagon' Quietly Awaits Armageddon," The Albuquerque Tribune. 25 November 1991, pp. ID and 2D; Richard H.P. Sia, "As Cold War Wanes, Pentagon's Pennsylvania Fortress Lifts Its Alert," The Baltimore Sun. 20 April 1992, p. 1A and 10A; and William M. Arkin, Joshua M. Handler, Julia A. Morrissey and Jacquelyn M. Walsh, Encyclopedia of the U.S. Military. (New York: Harper and Row, Ballinger Division, 1990) p. 63.
3. Ted Gup, 'The Doomsday Blueprints," Time (10 Aug 1992), p. 37.
4. John Guthrie, "Underground Command Posts," International Combat Arms. 5 (May 1987), p. 19.
5. Arkin and Fieldhouse, Nuclear Batdefields. p. 181; William R. Evinger, ed., Directory of Military Bases in the U.S.. (Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1991), p. 33; and Arkin et al, Encyclopedia of the U.S. Military, pp. 482-483.
6. John M. Norvell, "The Rock'-NORAD COC," The Military Engineer. No. 367 (Sep-Oct 1963), pp. 309-311; and Guthrie, "Underground Command Posts," p. 19.
7. LB. Leonberger, "Under the Pre-Cambrian Shield," Airman. 14 (March 1970), pp. 11-12; K.G. Roberts, "Air Defence Goes Underground," The Roundel. 15 (Sep 1963), pp. 8-13; and "NORAD at North Bay: Underground Center a Joint Effort," Air Force Times. 29 (12 Feb 1969), p. 27.
8. Ted Gup, "Doomsday Hideaway," Time. 9 Dec 1991, pp. 26-29; and Richard P. Pollock, 'The Mysterious Mountain," The Progressive. March 1976, pp. 12-16.
9. Richard P. Pollock, 'The Mysterious Mountain, The Progressive. March 1976, pp. 12-16; and Ford Rowan, Technospies: The Secret Network That Spies on You -- and You (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1978), pp. 25-43.
10. Ibid; and Arkin, Handler, Morissey and Walsh, Encyclopedia of the U.S. Military, pp. 177-179, 270-272.
11. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Commerce, Surveillance Technology. Joint Hearings Before Subcommittees of the Senate Committees on the Judiciary and Commerce. 94th Cong., 1st Session, 1975, pp. 63-100.
12. Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta, 'Top Secret Hide-Outs Also Mask Flaws," The Washington Post. 29 August 1991, 23B.
13. Arkin and Fieldhouse, Nuclear Batdefields. p. 210.
14. Ted Gup, 'The Ultimate Congressional Hideaway," The Washington Post Magazine. 31 May 1992, p. 15; and Rowan, Technospies. pp. 34-35.
15. Rowan, Technospies. p. 35.
16. Ted Gup, 'The Doomsday Blueprints," Time (10 August 1992), p. 38.
17. Arkin and Fieldhouse, Nuclear Battlefields, p. 193.
18. Ibid; and Arkin, Handler, Morissey and Walsh, Encyclopedia of the U.S. Military, p. 273.
19. Robert D. Hershey, Jr., "A Bunker Just For Lawmakers Who Now May Run For Cover," The New York Times. 31 May 1992, pp. 1 and
20; Tom Webb, 'The Last Resort," Albuquerque Journal. 30 May 1992, pp. 1A and 9A; and Ted Gup, 133 Underground Bases and Tunnels "The Ultimate Congressional Hideaway," The Washington Post Magazine. 31 May 1992, pp. 10-15, 24-27. 20. Arkin, Handler, Morrisey and Walsh, Encyclopedia of the U.S. Military, p. 273.
21. Letter to the author, dated 2 March 1993, from William F.W. Jones, Deputy Associate Director, National Preparedness Directorate, Federal Emergency Management Agency.
22. H.R. Pratt and S.J. Green, A Geology Compendium of the Continental United States - With Application to Deep-Based Systems. Report prepared by Terra Tek, Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah for the Defense Nuclear Agency. Federal Document No. DNA 3874F, 15 November 1975.
23. Oliver North, Under Fire: An American Story (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), pp. 164-166.
24. Tim Weiner, "Pentagon Book For Doomsday Is to Be Closed," New York Times. 18 April 1994.
25. "No Comment," The Progressive. 56 (August 1992), p.
11. Chapter Four -- More Underground Facilities
1. "Logistics Goes Underground," Army Logistician. 6 (July-Aug 1974), pp. 32- 33.
2. Ray Vicker, "Going Underground," The Wall Street Journal. 17 June 1981, p. 56.
3. Bamford, Puzzle Palace, p. 133.
4. The information on the plans for Yucca Mountain, Nevada comes from DIALOG FILE 194, an electronic database that catalogues announcements that appear in the Commerce Business Daily. Commerce Business Daily is a list of federal contract announcements and bid solicitations published every working day by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The announcements referenced here were published on 10 May 1991; 10 Feb 1992; 11 Sep 1992; and 22 Oct 1992. Responses were solicited by: Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Co. Inc., Yucca Mountain Project, PO Box 98521, Mail Stop 408, Las Vegas, NV 89193-8521.
5. Michael Martin Nieto, "Physics at the Proposed National Underground Science Facility," in Proceedings of the XIV International Symposium on Multiparticle Dynamics. Granlibakken. Lake Tahoe. California. 22-27 June 1983. ed. P. Yager and J.F. Gunion, scientific secretary K. Sparks (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd., 1984), 1107-1119.
6. Ted Gup, "The Doomsday Blueprints," Time. 140 (10 August 1992), p. 38.
7. The material on the Northrop, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed facilities, and associated strange goings-on, can be found in articles in the Nov 1992 issue of HUFON REPORT: The Newsletter of the Houston UFO Network. Inc.. from PO Box 942, Bellaire, TX 77402 (713)850-1352.
8. Ray Vicker, "Going Underground," The Wall Street Journal. 17 June 1981, p. 56.
9. Per author's personal conversation with former AT&T emplyee.
10. Research Program Plan for Meeting Tomorrow's Needs in Tunneling and Excavation: Final Report. Federal Document Nos. NSF-RA-T-74-087 or PB 242 777, Contract C-841. Study performed by Bechtel Corporation for the National Science Foundation, Research Applied to National Needs (RANN), March 1974, p. 53.
11. "Demand Forecast of Underground Construction and Mining in the United States," Subcommittee on Demand Forecasting, U.S. National Committee on 134 Footnotes Tunneling Technology, Assembly of Engineering, National Research Council, Federal Document number NRC/AE/TT-81-1 (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1981), p. 20.
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