# Nuclear Weapons Storage facility



## UrbanX (Oct 22, 2015)

I’ve been exploring areas like this for years now. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen an area as secure as this (during its working period of course). Visited with Gingrove. 




It sits in the middle of a US Airforce base, which features heightened security as it is, double fence lines, guard towers etc. But this area was ring fenced by another 3 fences. All with killing zones between. 

Looking down one of the killing zones:



On the fences are ‘droops’ of wire. To my untrained eye they it just looked like the fence wire had got old and had sagged. Until someone pointed out to me the contacts on them! If the fence moved and the droopy wire lost its contact with the rest of the chain link, an alarm would sound. You could see continuous disruptions in the ground where there were pressure sensitive alarms too. 




Around the compound were random telegraph poles, again nothing too ‘high security’ about them, but I later found out they were to deter helicopters from landing within the compound. Visible as shadows here:




All of the manholes within a kilometre were locked down with a bar over them. 




There were two mobile patrols constantly circling the killing zones, and a minimum of 22 armed personnel guarding the compound at any one moment. 




They were not storing conventional weapons here. 

The main entrance looked so foreboding (hence my overuse of under exposed black and white shots…) It featured an ‘airlock’ system for any vehicles coming in or out, and featured lighting from road level to overhead. 

The entrance block (Note the shooting holes near the top of the concrete parapet). There would be guards with M16s pointing out of here at all times. 




Righty ho, shall we pop in then? 

Inside the gate control point the controls were simple enough: 



The personnel would exit the vehicle and surrender anything like matches / lighters etc. They would give I their badge in exchange for a bright pink one, as a visible reminder to all that they have authorisation to be there. Their regular badge would be placed in one of these slots: 




They would then be allowed through this turnstyle:





Entrance overrides:




I climbed up to the shooting holes and took in the view:



To be fair, they don’t do themselves any favours by painting this on the wall tho…




Blast protection wall. I’ll let the symbols speak for themselves:




Non-descript looking building, not worth attacking at all... 




On closer inspection the windows have literally just been pressed into the concrete. There’s no windows at all. 



There is only one door to this building. It leads into one room. Which is around the size of a toilet cubicle. That's it. The rest of this building is a solid concrete block. Whatever was stored in that room must have been important "ahem...nuclearwarheadtriggers...ahem" 

There were some ‘Igloos’ in the compound. I managed to get into a couple, but there’s not much too them. Most of them were sealed tight as they’re now being used for storage by local furniture, and fireworks businesses… or are they… 




Thanks for reading.


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## UrbanX (Oct 22, 2015)

Oh and the door into the vault room...
(Edit: not sure why it's displaying upside down? click for the original if you cant imagine it the right way up...) 



Inside the vault door:


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## SlimJim (Oct 22, 2015)

Clean and well shot! Enjoyed this  Thanks for posting!


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## clinka (Oct 22, 2015)

Ooh, very nice. With Picture 2, not sure if its relevant at this location, but sometimes these are enclosed like this for dogs. Rather nasty dogs will patrol between the fences. With possible pressure senses in the ground, its unlikely dogs would be used. That said, if an intruder is detected, the dogs could be let in easy enough. Great pics and lovely moody images.


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## flyboys90 (Oct 22, 2015)

Cracking report and photos,makes one nervous just looking!!


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## druid (Oct 22, 2015)

Good to see you went into the nuclear trigger store. It's often missed off the tour due to time constraints.

The painting on the blast wall isn't how it was originally done in the 1980's. It was originally about nuclear safety and was modified much later to look like a mushroom cloud.


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## Newage (Oct 22, 2015)

That's the place I wanted to see last time I went, the "PIT" store that's
Just bonkers.
Did you get any shots of the other guard towers?

Cracking post mate and love the B&W adds a lot to the place.

Cheers Newage


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## krela (Oct 22, 2015)

Tis a great place.


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## smiler (Oct 22, 2015)

You must have felt unwelcome Newage, Great Report and Pics, Thanks


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## Conrad (Oct 22, 2015)

You know it's going to be an interesting read when the first few lines refer to killing zones. Insane report and brilliant write up.


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## HughieD (Oct 22, 2015)

Don't know how you get into these places UrbanX but glad you do. That was fascinating.


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## gingrove (Oct 22, 2015)

Great set Lee ( Still waiting to hear back from Dave about return dates)


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## druid (Oct 23, 2015)

HughieD said:


> Don't know how you get into these places UrbanX but glad you do. That was fascinating.



For this site you can speak to the heritage group. They run a limited number of tours. These usually fill quickly and don't generally run over the winter.

Even the site owners occasionally organise tours...they aren't keen but it was something they committed to.


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## krela (Oct 23, 2015)

druid said:


> For this site you can speak to the heritage group. They run a limited number of tours. These usually fill quickly and don't generally run over the winter.
> 
> Even the site owners occasionally organise tours...they aren't keen but it was something they committed to.



Yeah, I PM'd Hughie with some details yesterday. It's well worth it but you have to be shit hot on noticing when they're running the tours to book a place on them. It's almost as hard as getting a Glastonbury ticket!


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## UrbanX (Oct 23, 2015)

Lol, the site owners _really_ aren't keen on people visiting


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