It should come as no surprise that with an annual military budget of over $610 billion, the United States invests in some gargantuan black ops and top secret facilities. These include warfare testing, nuclear bunkers, chemical experimentation,Continuance of Government (COG) command centers, and a wide variety of both known and unknown contingency preparation. Some of the facilities, like the infamous Area 51, are well-branded into our collective imagination; other are less known and considerably more vexing. It stirs and scares the mind to think about an entire underground network of tunnels connecting giant government facilities. Yet they are out there, down there, controlling this nation’s future military responses and engaging in technological and weapons testing that most of us cannot even begin to fathom.

1. The Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Home of NORAD

Above: Early construction inside mountain

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a hollowed out mountain in Colorado Springs that keeps track of everything in outer space and all planes in the North American airspace. Yes, this is the home of NORAD. Monolithic backlit screens provide a constant stream of information, including the 24/7 whereabouts of the President and Vice President.

In the event of a nuclear war, 800 personnel could survive in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex for 30 days, completely cut off from the outside world. Twenty-five ton blast doors and over 1,319 thousand pound springs remain anchored within 1,700 feet of granite.

2. Chemical Warfare Testing at The Dugway Proving Grounds

The Dugway Proving Grounds in Tooele, Utah is a testing facility for military hardware. It is the size of Rhode Island and there’s every indication that anything you can imagine going on in Area 51 doesgo on. Initiated within two months of Pearl Harbor, there are 60 years worth of reports suggesting this is the home of next-generation weapons systems, secret aircraft, particle beams, chemical and biological weapons, and much more.

Perhaps the most salient feature of this site is the 48,000-square-foot Reginald Kendall Combined Chemical Test Facility, where chemical warfare detection devices and protective clothing are tested– on what or whom, we don’t know.

3. Raven Rock, Site R – World War III Hideaway

The Raven Rock Alternate Command Center, or “Site R,” is the location from which U.S. forceswould be commanded in the event of World War III or a nuclear war. Like Cheyenne, it is designed to be self-sufficient for 30 days after a nuclear attack.

There are some reports that a 6 mile tunnel connects it to Camp David. In his book Top Secret Tourism, author Harry Helms notes that cell phones and GPS devices do not work near Site R, which suggests there is a blocking mechanism in use to prevent people from coordinating or communicating in the vicinity.

4. Fort Detrick and Biological Warfare Tests on San Francisco

Fredrick, Maryland was the home selected for America’s first biological warfare program, signed into existence by President Roosevelt in 1942, soon after Pearl Harbor. Fort Detrick became home to tests involving biological toxins or infectious agents.

In the 1950s and ’60s, scientists from Fort Detrick, along with the US Navy, conducted six experimental warfare attacks on San Francisco to test the general population’s vulnerability to germ agents. Over eight days, a ship moving alongside the shoreline of the bay released massive clouds of two different supposedly non-pathogenic germs deemed “realistic simulants that might be used in an attack.” Of the six tests carried out, four containedBacillus globigii and two contained Serratia marcescens.

5. Mount Weather & the Underground Continuity of Government (COG)

Mount Weather is another “above top secret” military base cocooned within a hollowed out mountain, this time in Berryville, Virginia. There was a time when this facility was the biggest secret since the Manhattan Project. Like many other top secret military bases, Mount Weather is tasked with protecting military elite in the event of a major disaster. This one is perhaps the ultimate bomb shelter. During the September 11, 2001 attacks, many high level officials, including Vice President Cheney, took refuge here.

In addition to its numerous living quarters and recreational facilities, Mount Weather also has a crematorium and a radio and television station.

It has long been rumored that this military base hosts officials and commanders from an alternate chain of command—a parallel government so to speak—that would take over in the unlikely event that the entire presidential line of command is killed or turned into zombies.

6. Wright Patterson Air Force Base – What’s Inside Hangar 18?

Home to Project Blue Book and the infamous Hangar 18, the Wright Patterson Airforce Base in Dayton, Ohio is yet another hub for conspiracy theories. What we know for sure goes on there is aviation technology research, and with 22,000 people employed and 6,000 personnel and their families living on-base, it seems like it would be difficult for flying saucers to be shuttled in and out without notice.

However, there is a large contingency that believes that after the Roswell crash, much of the wreckage of the UFOs and the alien bodies were taken to WPAFB and stored in a facility that came to be known as Hangar 18. The bodies of the aliens are said to be preserved in the “Blue Room.”

A more realistic explanation is that the CIA and Air Force used the flying saucer phenomenon andProject Blue Book as a disinformation campaign to cover up sightings of the U2 and SR-71 spy planes (and possibly stealth craft) that were being developed by the government in secret.

7. Area 51, aka “Groom Lake”

Unless you’ve been living in a cave without wi-fi for the last half century, you’ve already heard of Area 51. Area 51 is simultaneously one of the most cliched and most enigmatic subjects in American popular culture and has been since the Roswell incidents in the late forties. It begs the question: How could so little be known about something that is talked about so much? And the even more haunting question: If our government was secretly creating an atomic bomb in an underground city (the Manhattan Project) over 50 years ago, what epic deviousness could they be up to today?

Whether it’s in Area 51 itself or a different military installation, such as the nebulous Dulce base, it’s almost a certainty that the U.S. government is engaged in some high-level covert technological experiments. Therefore, when I say Area 51, I mean wherever the hell they’re doing whatever the hell they’re doing.

Ostensibly, this includes any of the following: alien experimentation, reverse engineering of alien spaceships recovered from Roswell, alien interbreeding, quantum teleportation, advanced artificial intelligence, high tech propulsion systems, and time travel. The most recent theory surmises that whatever was taken to Area 51 from Roswell actually concerned a failed Soviet experiment.

8. Plant 42 – Area 51’s Aircraft Supplier

In Top Secret Tourism, Harry Helms states there’s a fair chance that every top secret U.S. aircraft of the last four decades has been built 60 miles from downtown Los Angeles, at the mother of all secret aircraft military bases: Plant 42 in Palmdale. Spread out over 5,800 acres, Plant 42 is highly secured, meaning inquisitive civilians with cameras have absolutely no chance of even getting close to what goes on inside. In fact, if you even park on a street adjacent to the outermost edge you are likely to be harassed by law enforcement. It has been said that anything that is flown at Area 51 is built at Plant 42.

9. HAARP – Playing God with the Ionsphere

A surviving remnant of Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Gakona, Alaska is one of the more controversial and mysterious military projects in recent history. The official objectives of this Air Force/Navy lovechild is to shoot high frequency beams through the ionosphere for scientific research purposes (meaning there are no military applications).

However, a litany of conspiracy theories, as well as some actual solid evidence, suggest more is going on there than mere adult science fair projects. Fringe theories range from the facility being used to test electromagnetic “mind control” signals to it being the home base of geoengineering andweather modifying technology. Others claim they are working on holographic technology that can be used to beam images into the sky. A rash of mysterious humming and booming sounds in the region have also been attributed to HAARP activity.

All that can be said for certain about HAARP is that there is some very strange “research” going on there that is directly applicable to defense systems, which falls under the category of “military”—which HAARP denies it’s a part of. Last year, reports began to surface that HAARP was being shut down. Others claimed HAARP as we know it has always been a front for the real facility, which is located in Poker Flats, North of Fairbanks, Alaska.

10. The Dulce Base – the real Area 51?

This is the only base listed here that may not exist. I’m giving in to my conspiracy side and including one of the more controversial government hideaways among fringe circles. According to these conspiracists, Area 51 is just  a smokescreen for where the real above top secret experiments have been taking place: Dulce. The base is allegedly a secret alien underground facility under Archuleta Mesa on the Colorado-New Mexico border.

However, the government does not formally acknowledge the existence of the base and no one has been able to produce substantial proof of the aliens that exist there, though some have tried.

Excluded but on the shortlist:

China Lake
Edwards Base
Lawrence Livermore
Onizuka Air Force Base
Buckley Air Force Base
Peterson Air force, CO
Fort Gordon

Jake Anderson