15 Secret Bases and Military Installations From History

One of the first rules of government is building giant and easily recognizable lairs in which to do your top secret tinkering.

By Daniel Bonfiglio

Published 3 weeks ago in Wow

One of the first rules of government is building giant and easily recognizable lairs in which to do your confidential tinkering.

Whether diversions or for real, governments around the world love their "top secret" bases, so here is all you need to know about 15 of them in modern history.

1
Camp X
A British training ground for covert operations during World War II, American special forces were already training for action there before the attack at Pearl Harbor. Roald Dahl and possibly Ian Flemming each trained there. It also housed a complex telecommunications system called Hydra.

2
Tonopah Test Range
Overshadowed by a different top secret Air Force base in Nevada, the Tonopah Range Airport first opened in 1957 to help supply a nearby nuclear weapons testing facility. Since then it’s housed multiple fighter squadrons, including the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing with the F-117A Nighthawk.

3
Camp Peary, aka “The Farm”
Camp Peary opened in 1942 as a naval engineering training facility. It has changed hands a few times, but is now once again a Navy facility. It is also home to “The Farm,” an infamous CIA clandestine officer training facility.
4
RAF Menwith Hill
This Royal Air Force station in North Yorkshire is one of the largest electronic monitoring stations in the world and a key part of ECHELON.

5
Peenemünde Army Research Center
Created by the German Army Weapons Office in 1937, this World War II facility designed critical technology like the V-2 rocket. It eventually fell to the Russians in 1945.
6
Mount Weather
Mount Weather is FEMA’s center of operations and houses the FEMA National Radio System. It is also a relocation site for high ranking officials in the case of a catastrophic natural or nuclear disaster. Its existence remained a secret until TWA Flight 514 crashed into Mount Weather in 1974.
7
Kurt Weather Station
Germany secretly constructed this World War II weather base in Canada, hoping to tap into the West’s superior weather forecasting over the Atlantic. Shockingly, thanks to “Keep Out” signs and Canadian politeness, the abandoned base remained undiscovered for 38 years.

8
Pine Gap
This controversial joint Australian and US surveillance post helps control United States spy satellites over much of the East, including China, parts of Russia, North Korea, and the Middle East.
9
The Point
Located in Hertford, North Carolina, the Harvey Point Defense Testing Activity facility preps for special air operations among other things under the command of the DOD. It is rumored that Seal Team Six trained for their famous mission on a full scale mockup at The Point and locals claim to occasionally hear explosions coming from inside.
10
Lop Nur
As one of China’s nuclear testing sites, it's been in use since the cold war. It is also thought that the base is used to develop chemical weapons.

11
Cheyenne Mountain Complex
The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a United States Space Force installation and defensive bunker in El Paso County, Colorado. The mountain was converted into a command center during the height of the Cold War in the 1950s and it now houses the advanced North American Aerospace Defense Command, (NORAD).
12
Camp Century (Project Iceworm)
During the Cold War, the United States constructed a massive network of underground tunnels and missile silos in Greenland called Project Iceworm. To the public, “Camp Century” was nothing more than a science station and the truth remained sealed until the 1990s.
13
Mount Yamantau
It is thought that this unassuming mountain in Russia houses an extensive Russian military base and bunker system.

14
Diego Garcia
Located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, this small island is now a joint military base between England and the United States. With England removing local inhabitants to build the base in the late ‘60s, it offers “critical” bombing range to the Middle East and other potential US targets.
15
Area 51 (Groom Lake)
The one you’ve all been waiting for, it’s not exactly secret anymore is it? Thought to be used for testing top secret aircraft, it helped develop the Lockheed U-2 and was used for testing the A-12, and SR-71.