Page 13 - 200811 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - November 2011

13 Underground Bases and Tunnels 13 Underground Bases and Tunnels UNDERGROUND UNDERGROUND BASES AND TUNNELS BASES AND TUNNELS by by ARSENIO LEMBERT JR. ARSENIO LEMBERT JR. There are dozens of underground bases and tunnels in the United States with access given only to a select list of the elite. In this section, documented information on numerous proven bases and tunnels will be presented, along with information regarding the Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) which have created these elaborate underground fortresses. Most of the documented tunnels and bases are decades old, leading many to speculate on current projects. The magnitude of constructing such facilities is done largely in secret by the Army Corp of Engineers with an unlimited budget surface. The tunnel extended a quarter-mile and been sworn to secrecy. The complex is also and workforce. With information public about measured 7 ft. wide by 6 ½ ft. high, and would home to the National Emergency Coordination the numerous base and tunnel locations in the later be expanded into an underground complex Center, which monitors disasters worldwide, country, it is assumed that modern tunnels and of offices and living quarters. such as earthquakes, tsunamis, or a nuclear at- bases exceed the imagination in their It was built primarily in response to the tack. sophistication. Tunnels which dig miles into the Soviet Union’s test of an atomic bomb in 1949, Tens of millions of dollars have been earth, and travel for thousands of miles in and in the 1950s provisions were made to spent on maintaining and upgrading the Mt. length under the Earth’s surface, are most likely protect the country’s leaders from a nuclear Weather complex as the threat of a nuclear a reality kept very secret. attack. Due to the rock structure, the holocaust increases. The man in charge of It can be reasonably assumed that Mt. government believed it would make an ideal Mount Weather since 1968 is Bernard “Bud” Weather, Mt. Cheyenne, and other popular bunker. In 1954 a massive expansion of the Gallagher, a former Air Force bomber pilot who bases are no more than a diversion for other mine began to create the most secure shelter and was shot down over Denmark and held captive deeper and more secret bases, or access points command post that scientific and military minds by Germany’s Gestapo during World War II. to tunnels leading to deeper locations. With Mt. of the time could imagine. Directions to Mount Weather Weather built in the 1950s, we can only begin F. Fowler was foreman of one of the - 48 air miles from Washington in to imagine what luxuries the secret cities three 40-man shifts and he reported, “That was Virginia contain today. some rough, tough, dirty work,” he recalls. - Go on County Route 601 It can also be reasonably assumed, as Between 1953 and 1969, Fowler witnessed the - Past Heart Trouble Lane much circum-stantial evidence points, that construction of the most elaborate feats of - Past flashing yellow light and 10 there are numerous underground cities. They engineering in history. In the tunnels was a cold m.p.h. sign may have elaborate tunnels, reaching thousands damp environment of 52 degrees. The Bureau of - Around corner of miles in length deep underground, spanning Mines started the project and the Army Corps of - Surrounded by 10 ft. high barbed wire the country, if not the globe. Engineers took it over and finished it. “It was fence 6 strands amazing the way they could drive a straight line - Armed guards patrol perimeter Mount Weather through solid rock.” In the following months, - Warning signs forbid drawing Mount Weather inside the mountain, the tunnel was expanded diagrams or sketches A 1991 article in Time Magazine titled into a self sustaining underground complex. Doomsday Hideaway, described Mount Sleeping quarters were set up to Continued on Page 14 Weather in detail.(#74) Designed to survive the accommodate hundreds of government unthinkable and completed in 1958, Mount officials. “Diesel engines were installed to Weather is operated by the Federal Emergency generate electricity in an underground utility Management Agency. (See FEMA) At the time plant called the power chamber. Refrigerators of the article, in FEMA’s international were brought in for food storage. A cafeteria telephone directory, Mount Weather was became part of the complex, as well as a referred to simply as SF, for Special Facility hospital.”(#75) Because the country’s and on Loudoun County’s tax map covering Emergency Broadcasting System could be 434 acres, the property was designated “United obliterated in a nuclear strike, a radio-and- States of America.” television studio was included so that the The facilities are elaborate, with an on- president or other key officials could address site sewage-treatment plant with a 90,000 the nation, providing people with emergency gallon-a-day capacity, and two tanks holding instructions and telling them that at least some 250,000 gallons of water which could last 200 units of government were intact and carrying people more than a month. There are also on. several underground ponds that were carved Underground complexes can be sealed from solid rock, some of which are to prevent contamination from radiation or other approximately 10 feet deep and 200 feet across. massive attacks. A so-called guillotine gate is Outside of the entry gate is a control tower and used, consisting of a 5 foot thick solid steel door a helicopter landing pad. that is 10 feet high and 20 ft. across. The door In the early 1900s the site was a rests on wheels and can be opened and closed National Weather Bureau facility where electronically. weather balloons were sent up to monitor the Mt. Weather reportedly has more than Earth’s weather conditions. In 1936 the U.S. 240 people who work at the site; some are Bureau of Mines began to dig an experimental second generation employees, and most are mine into the mountain 250 to 300 ft. below the unwilling to speak about the facility, having