Just the words Top
Secret conjure up images of intrigue, conspiracies, and clandestine
operations. These off-limits sites exist all over the world with the various
governments keeping activities hidden from public knowledge…safely ensconced
behind those closed doors and security fences.
It's a given that most of the secrets probably have to do with research
for new weapons and defense systems.
A while back, I came across an article listing 12 top secret
locations, certainly not the total number of these sites…not even close…but an
interesting list.
Cheyenne Mountain
Complex
This bunker near Colorado Springs, Colorado, is a relic from
the days of the Cold War. Located
literally inside Cheyenne Mountain, it was originally designed as a combat
operations center with its own water, electricity supply, air filtration system
and built to withstand a nuclear blast [a 1960s size nuclear blast]. This facility has been given new vitality as
a result of nine-eleven. It currently
participates guarding against ballistic attack, supports space operations, and
assists in keeping American and Canadian airspace safe. The U.S. Strategic Command, Air Force Space
Command, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and Missile
Defense Agency all maintain a presence at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex…and
that's a lot of organizations devoted to secrecy. But the secrecy of the location? Well…there is a picture of it on NORAD's
website and I recall seeing a kind of mini-tour several years ago on a
television documentary. But, with that
many secrecy organizations involved,
there's probably a lot more going on there than meets the eye.
Area 51
Undoubtedly the most famous…or infamous…secret facility in the world. Even though its location in the Nevada desert
was known and a topic of much speculation, the government refused to even
acknowledge its existence until 1995.
And anything that secret is
ripe for all kinds of conspiracy theories, some going back to Roswell, New
Mexico, 1947, and the alleged alien spacecraft crash with the alien bodies
supposedly taken to Area 51. With many
of the stealth technology aircraft tested there in secret, it must have looked
like strange alien craft flying overhead.
And now you can see Area 51 via Google Earth. Sort of takes away some of that mystique and
secrecy.
Site R
It's official name is Raven Rock Mountain Complex and it's
an underground relocation facility for the Department of Defense, sometimes
referred to as the underground Pentagon. It's located in Pennsylvania about 6 miles
from the Camp David presidential retreat.
There's speculation that a tunnel connects Camp David and Site R. Like Cheyenne Mountain, this was a cold war
era bunker given new purpose and life following nine-eleven.
The Capitol Visitor
Center
Located on the east side of the Capitol, as the name implies
its purpose is to welcome visitors to Washington, D.C. But there is a theory that within or beneath
the 580,000 square-foot building is a top-secret area for Congress to use in
emergencies. Giving credence to this
theory are 4 bomb-proof skylights, a tunnel system large enough for vehicles to
move around and a sophisticated IT infrastructure with thousands of feet of
fiber-optic cable.
National Security
Agency/Stellar Wind
According to Wired
Magazine, the NSA is building the largest spy center in the country in
Bluffdale, Utah. This is where the NSA
will intercept and inspect billions of calls, email, Google searches, travel
itineraries, book purchases, and other miscellaneous digital information. Stellar Wind is the codename for this
surveillance program. The NSA created a
supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble
codes. While the CIA is better known as
an intelligence gathering agency, the NSA is three times its size and costs
more. The NSA is considered the most
powerful intelligence agency in the world today.
This program resulted in public disclosure by whistle blower
William Binney in 2002 and most recently Edward Snowden in 2013.
Pine Gap, Australia
This is considered by many to be the Australian Area 51, the ground station for a
network that intercepts telephone, radio, and data links from around the world.
Camp Peary
Located near Williamsburg, Virginia, Camp Peary (known as The Farm) is an area of 10,000 acres
said to be where CIA agents receive covert training.
Mount Yamantau
Located in the Ural Mountains, the U.S. suspects this
Russian site of being a large secret nuclear facility. It's near one of Russia's last remaining
nuclear labs and is part of their Dead
Hand nuclear retaliatory command structure.
Liberty Crossing
Based in a complex in McLean, Virginia, this is home to the
National Counterterrorism Center. It
utilizes experts from the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, and other agencies, to avoid
large scale terror plots. Each office is
essentially a vault.
RAF Menwith Hill
This Royal Air Force station located near Harrogate, North
Yorkshire, England, is said to be the largest electronic monitoring station in
the world. It is operated by the U.S.
National Reconnaissance Office and is part of ECHELON, created during the Cold
War.
Negev Nuclear
Research Center
Located in Israel's Negev Desert, the facility was built in
1958 and is widely assumed to be a manufacturing site for nuclear weapons.
Porton Down
This is a government and military science park located near Wiltshire, England. Although the term science park makes it sound more like a children's learning-can-be-fun type of place,
that's not even close. In World War I,
it studied chemical warfare. With the
passing decades, studies changed from mustard gas to nerve agents in the
1940s. It continued to study biological
warfare.
Planet Earth might be a global society out of necessity, but
we obviously are not a harmonious global society.
