8.
KHARKIV TANK GRAVEYARD Viral footage recently surfaced on Twitter
showing what appears to be a tank graveyard in eastern Ukraine, just 20 miles (32 km)
from the Russian border.
While the vehicles appear old and rusted, it’s been speculated that Ukrainian forces
might be able to make use of them if the need arises.
The secret depot is heavily guarded, but 18-year-old Pavel Itkin managed to sneak in and snap some
photos anyway, which are now the ones circulating on social media.
Itkin heard about the site from a friend and had to go and see it for himself.
He spent months trying to locate it before finally figuring out where it is, and believes
he was lucky when he arrived and nobody noticed his presence.
The tank graveyard was once a bustling tank repair plant.
Operations went quiet when the Soviet Union fell, leaving rows upon rows of abandoned
tanks and tank engines.
During its heyday in the 1960s and ‘70s, the plant repaired over 60 tanks and 55 engines
per month.
Itken spent over two hours walking around and taking pictures of the many old vehicles
that the newly independent Ukraine did not see any reason to modernize back in 1991.
7.
CULPEPER SWITCH
Built in 1969 outside the small town of Culpeper, Virginia, the Culpeper Switch was a sprawling
135,000-square-foot (12,542 meters) bunker that was designed to keep banks running during
and after an apocalyptic event, such as nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Formally known as the Federal Reserve System’s Communications and Records Center, it housed
$4 billion in U.S. currency during the 1970s in a massive, single-floor vault.
The bunker also contained a highly advanced computer system for the time, which would
facilitate electronic bank transfers and other transactions, ensuring that business could
continue as usual, for the most part, even if catastrophe struck.
If the need arose, certain Federal Reserve employees and their families would be dispatched
to the bunker.
The $6 million structure was equipped with its own air filtration system, power generators,
and enough freeze-dried food to feed 400 people for a month.
There were only 200 beds, which means that the staff would have to share bunks and sleep
in shifts in what’s known as “hot bedding.”
The bunker also had a shooting range, a helipad, and cold storage for bodies in case anyone
working or living down there died and it wasn’t safe to leave and bury them elsewhere.
While the building was technically meant for use during an apocalyptic scenario, the Federal
Reserve used it for routing bank transactions for quite a number of years.
The public didn’t learn about the Culpeper Switch’s existence until the 1970s.
And once people found out about it, many didn’t like the idea of it.
They saw it as a large cash stash that would be in the hands of just a handful of people,
and not something that would benefit society at large.
The Federal Reserve moved out of the bunker in the early ‘90s and tried to sell it.
When it failed to find a buyer, the site was donated to the Library of Congress.
It’s been repurposed as the National Audio Visual Conservation Center and houses movie,
TV, and music recordings.
6.
GREENBRIER BUNKER
Next to the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia lies a bunker, hidden
behind a reinforced steel door that was successfully kept a secret from the public for 30 years.
It was built during the Cold War as a bomb shelter for members of Congress to flee to
in the event of a nuclear attack, and was stocked with supplies in case disaster struck.
A 7,000-foot (2,134 meters) landing strip enabled these politicians and government officials
to fly directly to the site.
Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Greenbrier Resort used to be
one of the most famous luxury resorts in the U.S. A plethora of important and wealthy people
hung out there, including industrialists and government advisors.
The 3,000 residents who live in the surrounding small town began to suspect that something
suspicious was going on at Greenbrier around the time the bunker was built.
They began to demand answers from the property’s official historian, Bob Conte, as soon as
he took the position in 1978.
He denied their suspicions and even claimed that the landing strip didn’t exist!
But Conte wasn’t necessarily hiding anything – in fact, it’s likely that he himself
was unaware of the bunker’s existence.
It’s fascinating that the government managed to hide something that was roughly half the
size of a typical Walmart.
It did so by using part of the building as a conference center and not telling people
that it had another, less obvious purpose as a bomb shelter.
Conte eventually began to notice things about the property that weren’t adding up, including
its unusually high number of bathrooms.
He also thought it was strange that some alleged employees of a local TV company were always
hanging around.
They seemed out-of-place, perhaps because they were actually government workers in disguise,
who were tasked with keeping the bunker maintained at all times.
Journalist Ted Gup finally exposed the Greenbrier Bunker in 1992.
Consequently, it was taken out of official use.
Today, it functions as a data storage facility and a tourist attraction.
Congress members still have a place to go in the event of an apocalyptic disaster, but
it’s located elsewhere, in a place that the government is probably working diligently
to keep hidden from the public.
5.
VOGELSANG Located deep in the woods of northeastern
Germany, the village of Vogelsang has always remained hidden from the public eye.
It was founded during the 18th century by settlers who felled timber for a living.
In 1882, it became part of a state forest.
Vogelsang’s remoteness was particularly appealing to the Soviet military, which built
a base along with housing nearby in 1951.
The village grew quickly.
Just a year later, there were 15,000 people living there, including military members and
their families.
It was the third-largest Soviet base in East Germany, with around 550 buildings including
shops, offices, a gym, a school, a theater, and medical facilities.
The Soviets managed to keep Vogelsang a complete secret from German civilians, moving nuclear
weapons into the city right under the population’s nose.
To avoid being discovered, they carried out all their training exercises at night under
the cover of darkness.
It’s unclear how long the Soviets kept nuclear weapons at Vogelsang.
Official records state that they were removed in 1959, but American and British military
intelligence found that the missiles might have remained there until after the Cuban
Missile Crisis.
The Russian military abandoned the site in 1994, leaving behind communist-era relics
including an obelisk featuring a carving of Vladimir Lenin and artwork depicting soldiers,
military equipment, workers, and farmers.
They also left evidence of the seemingly normal residential life that the population enjoyed,
including liquor bottles and other everyday items, sports equipment, and murals featuring
nature scenes, dancers in traditional Russian dress, and cartoon characters.
All the buildings at Vogelsang have been demolished, but a few photographers managed to capture
pictures and footage of the ruins before they were destroyed.
Would you like to see this place in person?
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4.
THE HANFORD SITE Located along the Columbia River in Washington
State’s Benton County, the Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex
owned and operated by the federal U.S. government.
It was established in 1943 as part of the infamous Manhattan Project and was home to
the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor.
Plutonium produced at the site was used in the world’s first nuclear bomb, as well
as Fat Man, the atomic bomb that was dropped over Nagasaki.
The material was also tested at the Trinity site, where the first nuclear weapon was detonated.
The Hanford site was expanded during the Cold War.
It grew to include 9 nuclear reactors and 5 plutonium processing complexes, where the
plutonium for most of the U.S. nuclear arsenal’s more than 60,000 weapons was produced.
While many major nuclear technological advancements were made at the Hanford site, the outcome
wasn’t all good.
Most of the nuclear reactors were shut down between 1964 and 1971, and the final reactor
was finally decommissioned in 1987.
The property was highly contaminated, with over 53 million gallons (200,000 meters3)
of high-level radioactive waste left behind.
Government authorities devised a cleanup plan in 1989, but unfortunately a lot of troubling
damage was already done by then.
Official documents have revealed that the activities at the Hanford Site released significant
amounts of radioactivity into the surrounding area, including onto the land and into the
Columbia River.
Additionally, it was found more recently that one of the site’s underground tanks was
leaking hundreds of gallons of radioactive waste into the ground every year since 2010.
The pollution remains a problem today, threatening local fish and wildlife and their habitat.
For now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Damage Assessment,
Remediation, and Restoration Program is evaluating the potential effects of the radiation on
groundwater, surface water, sediment, soil, plants, animals, and the environment.
The organization is also looking into the possible impacts on public health.
This information will help experts determine what the proper next steps are for mitigating
future damage, although it’s sadly too late to prevent a lot of harm that’s already
been done.
3.
BECHEVINKA Decades ago, Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula
was home to a top-secret submarine base and military town called Bechevinka.
Located in the country’s Far East, the site was established during the 1960s.
The residential area consisted of 8 apartment buildings ranging from three to five stories
high, a kindergarten and school, a hostel, a post office, a grocery store, and a club
for entertainment.
All the necessary installations were built on the military portion of the property, including
barracks, storage facilities, a commandant’s office, a headquarters building, a boiler
room, a diesel substation, and a warehouse for fuel.
A supply ship stopped at Bechevinka weekly with food, essential items, and mail.
It was the remote settlement’s only connection to the outside world – there was no land
route between Bechevinka and other cities, and the only way to reach it was by helicopter
or boat.
In 1996, the base closed down due to cost-saving measures, five years after the Soviet Union’s
collapse.
Residents simply packed up and moved, leaving behind a ghost town that the Russian government
conveniently ignored.
Today, Bechevinka remains pretty much how it was left, minus the effects of time and
weather.
Because it’s hidden and difficult to access, it’s been largely spared from vandalism.
The ruins consist of rusting ships and derelict buildings filled with personal belongings
and other items including toys, newspapers, equipment manuals, textbooks, children’s
drawings, and furniture.
2.
TEUFELSBERG SPY STATION In the Grunewald Forest on the edge of Berlin,
there’s a 262-foot (80 meters) hill known as Teufelsberg, or Devil’s Hill.
It was created with debris from thousands of buildings that were destroyed during World
War II.
For years, up to 800 truckloads of rubbish were dumped at the site every day.
During the 1950s, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) built a station on the hill for
spying on communist East Germany.
It consisted of large, round buildings called radomes, as well as huge satellite dishes
that were used for intercepting and jamming correspondences among members of the Eastern
Bloc.
American intelligence officials used the facility until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, signaling
the end of the Cold War.
After that, the site functioned as an air traffic control center for 10 years.
The government sold the property in 1999, but it was never redeveloped.
Five large decommissioned radar domes remain standing on Devil’s Hill today, serving
as an eerie reminder of Cold War-era tensions and paranoia between nations.
Today, visitors can tour certain parts of the graffiti-covered, decrepit facility.
If you’re not sold on the idea of visiting an abandoned intelligence base, Teufelsberg
is worth a trip for the stunning views it offers of the Berlin skyline.
Documents from Teufelsberg are slated to become declassified this year, and will provide the
first-ever glimpse into the site’s daily activities.
1.
NORTH STAR MISSILE SILO Located a few miles east of the city of Gypsum
in Kansas, there’s a lone, seemingly out-of-place doorway.
It leads to a staircase that descends 200 feet (61 meters) underground into what’s
known as the North Star Missile Silo.
It was built during the Cold War era as one of 12 storage places for holding nuclear weapons,
the silo was designed to protect missiles and their launch crews from an incoming blast,
and to facilitate a rapid response to an attack.
It was constructed with the strongest concrete that was available at the time, and was reinforced
with a steel framework with shock-absorbing springs.
The amount of concrete that went into building the silos could pave a six-inch-thick (15.2
cm), 20-foot-wide (6.1 meters) highway from St. Louis to Chicago, according to the official
North Star Missile Silo website.
Each structure came with a hefty price tag of $110 million, which would amount to over
$1 billion each today.
The North Star Missile Silo was decommissioned in 1965 after then-President John F. Kennedy
and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed that only a crazy person who wanted to destroy
the world would resort to nuclear war.
While Cold War tensions and widespread fear of nuclear war were far from over, this mutual
understanding made U.S. officials feel comfortable enough to disarm the 12 silos.
The North Star silo is one of few that remain intact today.
It sits on an 18-acre (7.3 hectares) property that’s currently for sale for $989,000.
Developer Paul Novitzke cleaned and partially renovated the structure last year, leaving
it ready for whoever decides to turn it into their own private bunker or living space.
Thanks for watching!
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