In the book ‘Keep Out’, author Nick Redfern describes some of the most secret military installations in the world, kept secret by some countries for decades and whose objectives remain a mystery to this day.
“Governments have excellent reasons for wanting us to remain in the dark. It is in these secret facilities that, for decades, clandestine research has been carried out,” wrote Redfern, who is a supporter of some quite unorthodox theories.
He and other ufologists and scholars of these places do not hesitate to see in all this unusual explanations: downed flying saucers, alien bodies, bizarre creatures, time manipulation, lethal viruses and even mind control are among them, in stories worthy of an episode of the acclaimed series The X-Files.
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Fascinating theories aside, it is a fact that most of these secret bases really exist and have quite enigmatic roles.
Some had their existence hidden for years and others to this day, despite so much evidence, are denied by the governments of their countries.
What are they hiding? What tasks do they perform? What are their real objectives? Perhaps one day all of this will come to light.
Air Data News lists below some of the most intriguing bases, what is speculated about them and their location on the globe.
Yulin Naval Base, Hainan Island, China https://goo.gl/maps/KjFGqBqGVqC2)
China’s military power has been frightening the world for years, but the discovery of the Yulin naval base in 2008 showed that the country’s navy has ambitious plans.
Located on the island of Hainan, the complex is impressive. In addition to serving as a departure point for China’s nuclear submarine fleet, it has underground facilities accessible by a tunnel that leads into the interior of a mountain.
It is believed that up to 20 vessels could be protected inside it. And this is a real fear: with resources to spare, China’s military might should one day rival that of the United States.
Pine Gap, Northern Territory, Australia (https://goo.gl/maps/CLS5k98xA182)
The official name for Pine Gap says little about it: “joint defense facility”, but the base located in the center of Australia draws attention due to its huge number of antennas.
It is part of an agreement between the Australian government and the US and is officially a ground station for monitoring satellites. However, an employee who worked there between 1990 and 2008 decided to write a book about Pine Gap that was surprisingly authorized by the NSA, the American national security agency.
Obviously, without being able to reveal many details, David Rosenberg, the former analyst, describes the work of analyzing various data collected by satellites that spy on countries that the US is interested in monitoring.
The idea is to find out what nations that threaten the West are doing in terms of nuclear weapons, for example. But some say that Pine Gap would be one of the bases of Echelon, a broader espionage program that would capture commercial and private communications around the world, in a kind of military Big Brother.
HAARP Research Station, Alaska, USA (https://goo.gl/maps/MRQDQRAutzp)
Located in Alaska, the HAARP research station is a favorite among conspiracy theorists.
Discreet and located in the middle of nowhere, it is officially a complex with 180 antennas that can penetrate the ionosphere and thus allow the Americans an unparalleled level of airspace patrol.
But for many people, it is there that the US can change the weather in countries and even manipulate other people’s minds. Interestingly, HAARP is not considered a secret facility by the US government.
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado, USA (https://goo.gl/maps/dPD2PphWjq22)
Another popular US Air Force address, the Cheyenne Mountain complex was built to withstand a nuclear catastrophe.
To this end, a command base was excavated inside the granite massif of the mountain. 25-ton doors seal off the environment, which can support a large number of military personnel in the event of a conflict.
It is a common sight in action films that show American leaders at the war command center, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command).
Raven Rock Mountain Complex, Pennsylvania, USA (https://goo.gl/maps/joLnuNuxACT2)
Also called ‘Site R’, it is an underground structure similar to Cheyenne, but it is close to the US President’s summer residence at Camp David, Pennsylvania.
Rumor has it that there is a 6km tunnel connecting the two facilities so that the US President can command the country in the event of a nuclear war.
Hangar 18, Ohio, United States (https://goo.gl/maps/DdYC1c822Zx)
Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio is huge. It has almost 30,000 people working there, as well as relatives of military personnel in the surrounding area.
In other words, unlike other mysterious addresses located in remote places, the base is in a populated area. However, it is there that some of the oldest conspiracy theories reside.
One of them indicates that the US Air Force (USAF) would have taken the UFO that supposedly crashed in Roswell in 1947 there. The place that was used to analyze the material is called Hangar 18 and the bodies of the aliens would be stored in the ‘blue room’, according to these theories.
Wright Patterson, however, has a real connection to unidentified flying objects: it was here that the US Air Force developed the ‘Sign’ and ‘Blue Book’ projects that investigated unexplained aerial phenomena that emerged from the 1940s onwards.
Unsurprisingly, the official conclusion was that they were not aliens.
Plant 42, Palmdale, California, USA (https://goo.gl/maps/uhKbZP9pVDL2)
Not all “official” secret bases are in remote areas. One address is particularly interesting in the US. It is “Plant 42”, an air base in Palmdale, near Los Angeles, which is responsible for building most of the advanced American aircraft.
Manufacturers themselves still use facilities there to finish their projects, such as Northrop Grumman and Skunk Works, the advanced design arm of Lockheed Martin that created famous aircraft such as the F-117A fighter and the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane.
The most recent secret aircraft from Plant 42 is the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bomber.
There is a saying about it: “What flies in Area 51 is built in Plant 42”.
Area 51, Nevada, United States (https://goo.gl/maps/4xY7mYVpV2n)
It is by far the place that most intrigues conspiracy theorists, and not without reason. Its airspace is prohibited, its limits prevent you from photographing or filming the base in detail, and trying to invade its perimeter could mean your death – the government is authorized to shoot to kill, if necessary.
Also known as Groom Lake or Homey Port, the famous Area 51 went unnoticed by the public until satellite images identified it in the middle of the state of Nevada.
The US government did not even recognize it, but today it is known that it is part of the Edwards Air Force Base, where several advanced aircraft tests were carried out after World War II.
It was only in 2013 that the CIA recognized it, but its purpose was never clarified. It is true that the development of secret aircraft such as the U-2, SR-71 and F-117A were among the main objectives, however, such mystery fueled theories about UFOs captured and studied at its facilities, which have always been denied by the government.
For many ufologists, Area 51’s main task is to reverse engineer captured craft in an attempt to acquire technological knowledge.
To this end, it is believed that the base is not exactly the location of these secret activities, but rather an underground structure to the south called S4, where the most complex studies would be carried out.
The American Robert Lazar said he worked in this secret area in the late 1980s, where he claimed to have seen several flying saucers, created by humans and aliens, and that he worked on identifying the technologies used by them, again being denied by the authorities.
To prevent possible leaks and control the security of the base, the government maintains a fleet of 737 jets that transport employees to the complex from Las Vegas in unmarked planes. It is no wonder that the place entered the popular imagination.
Zhitkur Underground Base, Russia (https://goo.gl/maps/Nq3CGUsJJUv)
One of the most mysterious bases in the world, a sort of “Soviet Area 51”, Zhitkur is said to have emerged due to space research, but the most frequent rumors associate it with alien contacts. To avoid prying eyes, the Soviet government is said to have destroyed a nearby city.
The underground base is said to be within the boundaries of Kapustin Yar, the first Soviet space facility that was established shortly after World War II and served as a testing ground for technology acquired with the end of Nazi Germany. It was from there that the rockets that took the first Sputnik satellites into space took off.
Since its emergence, there have been reports of UFOs circling the region and ufologists claim that the former Soviet Union shot down at least one of them, which was reportedly analyzed in Zhitkur.
The site is still responsible for launching ballistic missiles, but nothing has been confirmed regarding the underground facilities, although supposed photos of its interior circulate on ufology websites.
Montauk Station, Long Island, United States (https://goo.gl/maps/1e2KcXafGEF2)
This is one of the most incredible and at the same time implausible theories ever published. Named after the Montauk Project, it was a series of experiments by the US government carried out at Camp Hero, later renamed Montauk Air Force Station.
The base is located on the eastern tip of Long Island in New York State and experiments with time travel, teleportation, among others, were carried out there.
The most famous case involves the Philadelphia Experiment, conducted by the US Navy with the destroyer USS Eldridge in 1943, which is said to have made the ship disappear thanks to technology based on the “Unified Field” theory developed by Albert Einstein. It is said that the destroyer was seen at sea hundreds of miles away for some time.
The story, although there was never any evidence of its existence, served as inspiration for a film, “The Philadelphia Experiment”, from 1984. Another more recent production is said to have been inspired by the story, the famous Netflix series Stranger Things, which was hugely successful with conspiracy theories about mind control experiments.
Dulce Underground Base, New Mexico, United States (https://goo.gl/maps/oxi4foKhQUs)
Compared to the stories about Dulce, Area 51 seems like just a fairy tale. Supposedly located near the city of the same name, in the north of the state of New Mexico, almost on the border with Colorado, the hypothetical secret base came to light in the late 1970s when a ufologist Paul Bennewitz (1927-2003) claimed to have identified communications between aliens and the US military in the region.
The evidence would be in mutilated cattle in the region and in the constant unidentified sightings. The alleged base would be an underground complex with seven floors where the US government would experiment with hybrids of humans with animals and aliens with humans.
The stories about Dulce border on nonsense: from battles between ETs and soldiers to third-kind contacts with ‘smelly’ aliens.
Even the location of the ‘base’ is curious: it was located underground in a coal-fired power plant. Bennewitz was considered paranoid even by other ufologists, but the author of the book “Keep Out” added some rather curious information on the subject.
Nick Rendfern said in an interview a few years ago that the FBI had released information about these cattle mutilations that had been secret since then. A few kilometers from the alleged location of the base, the American government detonated a 29-kiloton nuclear device in 1967, about 750 meters underground, with the intention of releasing natural gas for production. According to him, for this reason no one in the region could dig underground without authorization.
