This is one of the most secure and important facilities in the world. It's a central place
where all the data from hundreds of thousands of sensors, radars and satellites come together.
This data can tell you everything you need to know about any aircraft in the air, any missile launch,
or any object in space. Ironically, it’s a place where brave people hide inside a cave… and analyze
the data, before sending information upstream to decision makers, such as the President of
the United States. Yet, this is a place where you still have to pay for snacks and drinks. This is
the Cheyenne Mountain complex, a place capable of withstanding a hit by a nuclear bomb … from
the 1960s. This underground bunker served as the headquarters of NORAD for 40 years,
but it was eventually shut down in 2006 as a cost cutting measure. You see the basement of
this nearby building offered as much protection against a modern nuclear attack as being 2,000
feet under the mountain. But after five years of being mostly abandoned, the underground bunker was
renovated and resumed its day-to-day operations in 2011. This installation is currently known as
the Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station. YES, a Space Force Station! And if you’re wondering
“what do they REALLY do inside the mountain?”, let me tell you… it's Not What You Think.
The Cheyenne Mountain Complex was designed to withstand a 30-megaton nuclear bomb, detonated 1.2
miles away from it. You see, back in the 1960s, no one expected the Soviets to score a direct hit
onto the mountain, because the missile technology of the time was quite inaccurate. Nevertheless,
the main 4,700 feet long tunnel was designed to redirect a nuclear blast perpendicular to
the giant blast doors. During the cold war, the two 25-ton doors had to be cycled, meaning that
one of the doors always remained closed. But today both doors remain open as the perceived
risks have subsided. Sometimes there’s even a tunnel run event. Despite their massive weight,
these doors can be operated by a single human, and it takes about 45 seconds for
each door to close shut. These doors are perfectly balanced to the point that they even bounce.
This underground city hosts 2 two-story and 13 three-story buildings. These buildings
don’t have any windows, but there’s a medical center, dentist office, cafeteria, chapel,
convenience store and even a 24/7 gym. To fit this city inside the mountain, over 693,000 tons of
granite was excavated out of the mountain, and in case you wonder where it all went,
some of it ended up beneath this parking lot. These 15 buildings sit on top of 1,300 metal
springs with each spring weighing half a ton. The springs allow the buildings to move up to an inch
in the event of an earthquake … or a nuclear explosion. This suspension system would help
protect sensitive computer equipment. Speaking of computers, an unexpected problem
occurred in one of the buildings when old massive computers were removed and replaced.
The computers were quite heavy, to the extent that after their removal, the building got so
light that the springs pushed it out of position toward the top of the cavern. … As a result, the
springs had to be re-tensioned to fix this. But in today’s day and age, men can maintain their
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Your Balls Will Thank You! And so will we. “Without power it's just a cave” is an actual
sign within the mountain. Normally, the mountain receives its power from a local utility company,
but in the case of … you know what, there’s a huge battery bank, which is essentially
the largest uninterrupted power supply in the United States. And in case that’s not enough,
there are six generators that produce over 10 megawatts of power. Where do they keep
the fuel for these generators? There’s a massive reservoir carved into the rock,
which holds 500,000 gallons of diesel fuel. Interestingly, all the activity within the
mountain generates so much heat, that 40% of all the power is used on air conditioning!
In addition, there is a 4.5 million gallon reservoir of water that is used as a heat sink
and an additional reservoir of 1.5 million gallons of drinking water. There’s also a
natural spring which was discovered during construction and provides more water than is
consumed. But why did they build this complex inside the mountain in the first place?
Cheyenne Mountain Complex was constructed to act as the headquarters for North American
Aerospace Defense Command or NORAD. The complex was designed to survive the nuclear blast of a
typical ICBM technology of the time in order to command retaliatory action. It cost $150
million dollars to build, which equates to $1.5 billion dollars in 2023. The construction began
in 1961 and was finished by 1966, although NORAD began operating from within the mountain a year
earlier. Speaking of NORAD, it was set up in 1958 by a joint American and Canadian command to
monitor the skies for enemy aircraft, missiles and space objects. And of course to track Santa!
If the Soviets launched an attack, NORAD would know within seconds with the help of 450 legacy
sensors from a global early warning network. Fighter jets and surface to air missiles would
be immediately dispatched. Within the first week of operations, NORAD traced over 100,000
objects in the sky, with the majority, of course, being scheduled commercial aircraft. But 10 were
unidentified, and as a result, fighter jets were scrambled to identify those 10 aircraft,
which ended up being friendly. By the way, this is a light gun. Before the invention of
touch screens, this officer used this gun to activate remote computer systems.
While no attack ever happened, NORAD would often detect Soviet Tu-95 bombers, known as Bears, in
the North American Air Defense Zone. NORAD would dispatch fighter jets and escort them out. After
the fall of the Soviet Union, the practice of bombers probing North American defences stopped,
but a few years back Vladimir Putin decided to resume the practice. A few dozen times a year,
NORAD detects Russian bomber aircraft and dispatches fighters to tell “Ivan
to f*ck off”. And that’s as much action as NORAD gets! In fact NORAD’s first ever kill
since its inception happened on February 4th, 2023, when a Chinese balloon was
shot down by NORAD’s dispatched F-22. But there’s a big problem with the Cheyenne
Mountain Complex. An unfixable problem. Even during the Cold War, it was already
understood that the underground bunker would not be able to survive a nuclear blast due
to advances in nuclear weapons and missile accuracy. In fact back then, as it is now,
the mountain could be easily eaten away by repeated volleys of nuclear strikes. As a result,
NORAD was moved out of the mountain in 2006 and relocated to the basement of an office building
in the nearby Peterson Air Force Base. This was a cost cutting move since it was too expensive to
run the mountain complex while it didn’t provide any real strategic value. The Mountain stopped
operating in 24/7 mode and was essentially put into a warm shutdown, with only a skeleton crew
remaining. However NORAD’s alternate command center remained inside the mountain from 2008
onward. But the warm shutdown didn’t last long, because other agencies started to move in.
You see the real reason the Cheyenne complex is still operational today is for the worst
case scenario event in American history. It is to provide various US government
agencies a secure space to work, in the event of various “things hitting the fan” scenarios
ranging from natural disasters, civil unrest, cyber attacks, biological and chemical attacks,
and limited and general nuclear attacks. The facility is currently run by “Space Base
Delta 1” with the official name of Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station. For all of you
wondering, from our research, we have found no evidence of Stargate inside the complex,
but the Department of Defense does provide a video of a Sith crusader inside the mountain.
Depending on the threat, NORAD's watch can be moved back inside the mountain. The last time
NORAD returned to the mountain full time was during the COVID pandemic.
Today NORAD uses less than 30% of the floor space within the Cheyenne Mountain Complex,
and accounts for approximately 5% of the daily population of the underground bunker.
Despite NORAD's limited presence, all of the mountain’s facilities are currently
100% occupied. About 400 people work there during the week, and about 100
to 150 during night time and weekends. Currently, the mountain provides EMP protection
to various government agencies who occupy the complex, such as the US Strategic Command,
Space Force Command, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Missile Defense Agency
and others. An EMP attack can damage most electronics, and Cheyenne Mountain is the
only Department of Defense high-altitude EMP-certified underground facility.
There are of course other undisclosed things that go on inside Cheyenne Mountain,
and they are obviously classified. What you see on the screen is the b-roll that the Department
of Defense provides for public viewing, with simulated screensavers, fake maps,
fake aircraft and fake charts, so we can’t actually see what they are doing… Publicly,
it is said that they engage in “defensive cyber operations”, and that people inside Cheyenne
mountain ingest huge amounts of information, classify it as good, neutral or bad, and decide
what to send up the chain of command. If something bad is detected, they would close the giant doors.
But in reality, very little is known about what actually happens inside the mountain.
All this said, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex is not the only one of its kind. In fact it's not
even the first one. An underground complex in North Bay, Canada, nicknamed The Hole,
opened on October 1st, 1963, “3 years” prior to the opening of Cheyenne Mountain Complex. The Hole
is the most extraordinary military installation in Canada, and it was built due to Canada’s unlucky
geography. Located between the United States and the Soviet Union, if the cold war ever turned
“hot”, it meant that Soviet Bombers would fly over Canada to reach the US, while Americans would fly
their fighter jets over Canada to intercept the Soviets, turning Canada into a nuclear
battleground. People at watch basically sat there and waited for World War III to begin.
Located 680 feet underground, The Hole was designed to withstand a direct hit of a 4 megaton
nuclear bomb, which is 267 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The complex
is accessible via a one and a quarter mile long North tunnel from CFB North Bay and a half a mile
long south tunnel from the city. The complex can support 400 people for about 4 weeks. This complex
made the city of North Bay, Ontario, a potential target in the event of a nuclear attack, just like
Cheyenne Mountain did for Colorado Springs. Two giant computers, Bonnie and Clyde,
took 11,900 square feet of space. Their job was to identify everything that flew
in the northern NORAD region. If it wasn’t identified in two minutes, fully armed fighter
aircraft were dispatched within 5 minutes. As those equipment became antiquated, and nuclear
weapons became more powerful, Canada decided to move The Hole’s operation into an above-the-ground
building, just like the Americans did. As a result, in October 2006, after 43 years of 24/7
operation, The Hole was emptied and put in a warm shutdown, while the operations moved into a much
cheaper-to-maintain above-the-ground building. It’s worth noting, that the American and Canadian
governments did think about building super combat centers and deep underground command
centers which would be able to withstand multiple 300-megaton nuclear weapon hits, as they would
be located over 4,000 feet underground. But they were never built … as far as we know!