Recently, I have been delving into the underground or secret military bases of the United States. Today, I turn to the world. Let's take a look at some of the most interesting military bases around the world.

To begin with, this list will obviously not be exhaustive. There are about 10,000 underground bases in the world and one can only guess how many are secret... Anyway, in this article we will look at five of them.

1) Pine Gap (Australia)

First Base is one you've probably heard of due to its recent popularity on Netflix's Pine Gap. I'll be honest, I had no idea Pine Gap was a real military installation when I watched a few episodes on Netflix. It is, however, a base surrounded by security and secrecy (and now a recognized name) and it is for these reasons that I would like to focus on it.

Pine Gap is a military installation located in rural Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia. Pine Gap is actually an American military base located in the middle of nowhere in Australia. Before you say it, I know I'm cheating a little off the bat by technically including a US run base, but that seems fair since it's located as far from the continental United States as any other location. inhabited in the world.

One way to describe Pine Gap is that it is a major US intelligence collection site. But the best way to describe Pine Gap is that it's where some of America's brightest spies and researchers congregate, gather intelligence, and then submit it to the forces that have the most of it. need.

Pine Gap was established in 1966 and has been used by the United States to gather information for the past 55 years. More recently, the intelligence he has produced has been widely used by US Special Forces soldiers, the Pentagon, as well as the President and his military leaders. Pine Gap relies heavily on SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) rather than HUMINT (Human Intelligence). The difference between the two is simply that SIGINT consists of intelligence acquired from communication and information systems while HUMINT consists of intelligence acquired from our humans.

Each type of intelligence is essential to get an idea of ​​the enemy.

2) The War Office Experimental Research Ground, Porton (UK)

Established in 1916, Porton Down is the oldest chemical warfare research facility in the world. Set on thousands of acres in the remote Wiltshire countryside, the Porton Down location is not short of space and secrecy, allowing scientists the 'freedom' to carry out a variety of animal tests , humans and even aliens.

In function, myth and secrecy, Porton Down is similar to a better known US military installation: Area 51. Like Area 51, secret scientific testing is carried out at Porton Down and many rumors have circulated over the years that the facility is home to extraterrestrials.

One wonders if myths such as harboring extraterrestrials, whether dead or alive, don't permeate all cultures. Much like the legend of Bigfoot, the concept that there are entities (like extraterrestrials) that are hidden from society is a concept that persists through generations.

Whether it's alien abductions or crash landings near "secret military installations", or Bigfoot sightings in nearly every densely forested area of ​​the country, we humans like to speculate. on something that we simply hope exists.

According to an article published in the Guardian, a particularly bizarre and tragic incident occurred at Porton Down during one of the alleged human tests carried out at the facility. According to the Guardian,

"An investigation has been reopened into the May 1953 death of a young airman, Ronald Maddison. He died after liquid nerve gas was poured on his arm by Porton scientists during an experiment [. ..] From 1945 to 1989, Porton exposed more than 3,400 human "guinea pigs" to nerve gas. It seems likely that Porton tested more human subjects with nerve gas, over the longest period of time, than did any other scientific establishment in the world.”

The article continues,

“From a purely scientific point of view, they have produced an enormous amount of data on the effects of nerve gas on the human body.

This data in turn enabled Porton to develop some of the most sophisticated defenses in the world to protect the British Armed Forces against chemical attack. Porton acknowledges that human experiments have made a 'vital contribution' to this protection."

This is where we wonder if we should indeed be using living, breathing humans as guinea pigs for testing.

Does this differ from the abduction of a person by the Taliban, who use them as a guinea pig or living ballistic dummy for their murder plots?

This is certainly a legitimate concern for all of us. Add to that all the other human rights issues and you have a delicate situation on your hands.

3) Kapustin Yar (Russia)

Kapustin Yar is a Russian rocket launch and development site located in Astrakhan Oblast, Russia. Kapustin Yar was founded in 1946 at the request of Joseph Stalin and was then mainly used to test rockets for the Russian army.

Like Porton Down, Kapustin Yar is a secret military testing facility. All of the sites I've discussed so far have one thing in common: they have an obvious, stated mission, and then a more secret, perhaps more sinister, real purpose. Kapustin Yar is no different.

While we know that Kapustin Yar has historically been used to test Russian rockets, rumor has it that Kapustin Yar also leads a secret dual existence. It is said that the mere existence of this facility was only discovered when German military planes flew over the site and found information about the property, and then when German scientists returned from Russia and relayed what they were there. seen. Regardless, the real reason for Kapustin Yar's current existence remains a bit unclear.

According to the History Channel, "Kapustin Yar is a place where it is said that the best researchers, scientists and military specialists of the Soviet Union were sent to develop highly classified technologies and weapons dating from the Cold War. In fact, the construction of the base was so secret that when a small nearby town was deemed by the Soviet military to be too close to be comfortable, its inhabitants were evacuated and it was simply wiped out."

The real secret, however, lies beneath the surface of Kapustin Yar. According to various witnesses (who were probably burned at the stake by Stalin for talking about it), there is a highly classified underground facility, located deep below the normal Kapustin Yar base, which is used as a Russian UFO research facility. This peculiarity explains why this secret base is on this list.

4) Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norway)

This is the Svalbard Global Seed Base, located in Svalbard, Norway.

Inside this highly restricted facility is a storehouse of seeds of nearly every known plant that has existed in the last century. The idea is that in the event of all-out nuclear war or a massive plague, countries around the world would have the opportunity to rebuild their lands. That is why the base received the nickname "Noah's Ark" of seed storage.

The vault, located more than 100 meters deep in the mountain, is divided by country, with each country's section housing the corresponding seeds.

As the base is near the North Pole, the permafrost and thick rock ensure that the seed samples will remain frozen whether or not there is a power outage at the facility.
The vault contains over a million varieties of seeds, from common grains to exotic plant seeds, and even viruses that can cure various diseases.

According to www.croptrust.org:

"The seed vault has the capacity to store 4.5 million crop varieties. Each variety contains an average of 500 seeds, so a maximum of 2.5 billion seeds can be stored in the vault."

“Currently, the Vault contains over 1,000,000 samples, from almost every country in the world. This ranges from single varieties of major African and Asian staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea and sorghum to European and South American varieties of eggplant, lettuce, barley and potato. In fact, the Vault already holds the most diverse food crop seed collection in the world."

Although this base is widely known, its location hundreds of feet underground and its potential impact on the well-being of Americans and the world certainly warrants its inclusion in our list.

5) Gjader Air Base (Albania)

Gjader Air Base is a communist-era base that was built on a barren hill in northern Albania. However, this base was not only an isolated place of retirement for the Albanian military. From the mid-1970s, it hosted many MiGs and other Soviet and Chinese aircraft.

This base is literally buried in the side of a mountain (like Svalbard) and is said to contain some 2,000 feet of tunnels within its walls. The base, now unused by the Albanian military, was once a bustling maze of tunnels, planes and fighters.

One amazing thing about this base is that planes took off from Gjader from the side of a mountain. It is said that the pilots had to make sure not to turn on takeoff, or risk crashing the plane into the formidable side of the mountain sheltering the base.

The main combat aircraft that called Gjader home were the MiG-19, MiG-17 and MiG-21. Many original MiG aircraft still exist in Gjader, but the Albanian authorities are considering ways to sell them. They also plan to display the planes in various museums in Albania.

Gjader Air Base fits in perfectly with the thousands of concrete bunkers that dot the Albanian countryside.

All these infrastructures were built on the order of the former communist dictator Enver Hoxha in order to prevent any invasion and seizure of power by foreigners. Luckily for Albania, the event Hoxha feared most will never happen.

The last jet took off from Gjader in 2004 and the base is now closed to all personnel. Despite its grim and abandoned existence, it's hard to believe that less than twenty years ago it was filled with tunnels, soldiers and fighter planes that would be ready when needed.

There may be a light in the future for Gjader, however. As recently as last year, officials were discussing the possibilities of opening Gjader to tourism or redeveloping the base for new military use.

The unprecedented

Some of the bases we saw above deal with intelligence and others work with jet aircraft. Some secure nukes and others manipulate seeds.

Despite their differences, what they all have in common is the secrecy and folklore that surrounds them. The only thing I would like to know is what about those we have NEVER heard of. These are the ones I would like to explore.