south bunker coordinates : 37°34'05.23"N 122°30'58.99"W north bunkers coordinates: 37°34'28.43"N 122°31'09.04"W pictures sources : 1 2 3 & Artificial Owl
This bunker is located above the pacific ocean at a part of the coast called "devil's slide" few miles south of San Francisco. I want to thanks Kevin L. for sending me this tip, this is truly an amazing location. I had the chance to go there and take some pictures, I can tell that the name "devil's slide" is perfectly appropriate!
There are 2 sets of bunkers in pretty much the same location, the lone bunker to the south, built originally on a thick pillar of sandstone. The stone has eroded so much that the building hangs over it on all sides. And some more to the north.
The following description from the United States Army Corps of Engineers website refers to those constructions (the one to the north) : "Prior to 01 July 1940, the War Department acquired 9.61 ... acres for a triangulation station and observation site. Devil's Slide was one of a series of observation posts during pre-radar days and was a part of the Harbor Defense of San Francisco. Military personnel would use binoculars and compasses to search for ships at sea and relay the position ... using information received from other observation posts. Improvements to the site began in 1943, and included three observation pill-boxes, one electric generator bunker, one communications and command bunker, and an observation tower."
The south bunker.
Looking to the north.
The 3 other constructions north of the first bunker.
text source : 1 2 3
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photo: Montpelier flick
Denge is a former Royal Air Force site near Dungeness, in Kent, England. It is best known for the early experimental acoustic mirrors which remain there.
The mirrors were built in the 1920s as an experimental early warning system for incoming aircraft. Several were built along the south and east coasts, but the complex at Denge is the best preserved.There are three acoustic mirrors in the complex, each consisting of a single concrete hemispherical reflector.
Acoustic mirrors did work, and could effectively be used to detect slow moving enemy aircraft before they came into sight. They worked by concentrating sound waves towards a central point, where a microphone would have been located. However, their use was limited as aircraft became faster. Operators also found it difficult to distinguish between aircraft and seagoing vessels. In any case, they quickly became obsolete due to the invention of radar in 1932. The experiment was abandoned, and the mirrors left to decay.
The most famous of these devices still stand at Denge on the Dungeness peninsula and at Hythe in Kent. Other examples exist in other parts of Britain (including Sunderland, Redcar, Boulby, Kilnsea) and Selsey Bill, and in Malta.
coordinates : 50°57'23.89"N 0°57'15.98"E
google map
pictures sources : 1 2 3 4 5 6
text source : 1 2
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This gigantic antenna system called Duga-3 is located near Prypiat in the Chernobyl area.
It was built in the 70's as an early missile detection system (over-the-horizon radar system). It was also called the Steel Yard hence its distinctive appearance. The antenna was deactivated in 1989.
The Russian Woodpecker was a notorious Soviet signal that could be heard on the shortwave radio bands worldwide between July 1976 and December 1989. It sounded like a sharp, repetitive tapping noise, at 10 Hz, giving rise to the "Woodpecker" name. The random frequency disrupted legitimate broadcast, amateur radio, and utility transmissions and resulted in thousands of complaints by many countries worldwide.
Starting in 1976 a new and powerful radio signal was detected worldwide, and quickly dubbed the Woodpecker by amateur radio operators. Transmission power on some woodpecker transmitters was estimated to be as high as 10 MW EIRP. As well as disrupting shortwave amateur radio and broadcasting it could sometimes be heard over telephone circuits due to the strength of the signals. This led to a thriving industry of "Woodpecker filters" and noise blankers.
coordinates : 51°18'19.31"N 30°03'57.66"E
google map
pictures sources : 1 2 3
text source : 1
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the explosion crater : 2000 m wide
This is the story of the biggest atomic bomb tested by the USA, the second biggest atomic bomb ever as well as the story of a design mistake that provoked a massive nuclear accident. And I knew nothing about it...
Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first U.S. test of a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device, detonated on March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, by the United States. Castle Bravo was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States, with a yield of 15 Megatons. That yield, far exceeding the expected yield of 4 to 6 megatons, combined with other factors to produce the worst radiological accident ever caused by the United States.
In terms of TNT tonnage equivalence, Castle Bravo was about 1,200 times more powerful than the atomic bombs which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Fallout from the detonation—intended to be a secret test—poisoned the islanders who inhabited the test site, as well as the crew of Daigo Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5"), a Japanese fishing boat, and created international concern about atmospheric thermonuclear testing.
remains of the bunker on the island
When Bravo was detonated, it formed a fireball almost four and a half miles (roughly 7 km) across within a second. This fireball was visible on the Kwajalein atoll over 250 miles (450 km) away. The explosion left a crater of 6,500 feet (2,000 m) in diameter and 250 feet (75 m) in depth. The mushroom cloud reached a height of 47,000 feet (14 km) and a diameter of 7 miles (11 km) in about a minute; it then reached a height of 130,000 feet (40 km) and 62 miles (100 km) in diameter in less than 10 minutes and was expanding at more than 6 kilometers (4 miles) per minute.
Unanticipated fallout and radiation also affected many of the vessels and personnel involved in the test, in some cases trapping them in bunkers. Sixteen crew members of the aircraft carrier USS Bairoko received beta burns and there was a greatly increased cancer rate. Radioactive contamination also affected many of the testing facilities built on other islands of the Bikini atoll system.
The fallout spread traces of radioactive material as far as Australia, India and Japan, and even the US and parts of Europe. Though organized as a secret test, Castle Bravo quickly became an international incident, prompting calls for a ban on the atmospheric testing of thermonuclear devices.
The following pictures are remains of various ships wrecked during atomic bomb test in the Bikini Atoll, some by accident, some on purpose : USS Saratoga ,USS Lamson, USS Anderson, USS Apogon. Some of the most beautiful underwater pictures you could ever see.
coordinates : 11°41'46.57"N 165°16'21.17"E
google map
pictures sources : 1 2 34 5 6
text source : 1 2 3 4 5
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What you see on the picture above is just what the title says... a massive concrete lid to a 107 m diameter nuclear waste trash can on a beautiful island in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Was it really necessary to damage so much those environments for the sake of testing useless nuclear weapons?
(On the left the concrete dome covering a explosion crater, on the right another explosion crater.)
After WW2 the residents were evacuated, often involuntarily, and the atoll was used for nuclear testing as part of the U.S. Pacific Proving Grounds.
Beneath this concrete dome on Runit Island (part of Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands), built between 1977 and 1980 at a cost of about $239 million, lie 111,000 cubic yards (84,927 cubic meters) of radioactive soil and debris from from 43 atomic and thermonuclear explosions on Bikini and Rongelap atolls between 1948 and 1958. The dome covers the 30-foot (9 meter) deep, 350-foot (107 meter) wide crater created by the May 5, 1958, Cactus test.
The people began returning in the 1970s, and on May 15, 1977, the U.S. government directed the military to decontaminate the islands. This was done by mixing the contaminated soil and debris from the various islands with Portland cement and burying it in one of the blast craters.
The U.S. government declared the islands safe for habitation in 1980.
The concrete dome during its construction.
coordinates : 11°33'09.10"N 162°20'50.21"E
google map
pictures sources : 1 2 3
text source : 1 2 3 4
