Camp Century was set up by the US Army after a deal was struck with Denmark that would allow bases in Greenland
A NASA scientist discovered far more than expected whilst probing deep beneath Greenland’s ice sheet. Chad Greene was attempting to locate the bed of the ice when he stumbled upon a US Army base harbouring a sinister secret.
Chad’s radar imagery revealed Camp Century, a 65-year-old Cold War facility entombed 100 feet beneath the ice. The base, dubbed “the city under ice” was constructed between June 1959 and October 1960.
It comprises 21 subterranean tunnels and stretches approximately 9,800ft, reports the Express. Chad says the base’s individual structures were distinct on radar imagery captured from the Gulfstream III aircraft utilised by his team.
“We were looking for the bed of the ice and out pops Camp Century,” said Alex Gardner, a cryospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), who helped lead the project. “We didn’t know what it was at first.”
NASA scientists employed an Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) to expose the base.
It resembles a type of radar frequently used to hunt for concealed structures and ruins across the globe, reports Popular Mechanic.
Camp Century was established after the United States and Denmark signed the Defense of Greenland agreement in 1951.
It was designed “to negotiate arrangements under which armed forces of the parties to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization may make use of facilities in Greenland in defense of Greenland and the rest of the North Atlantic Treaty area,” says the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. The camp was constructed from a whopping 6,000 tons of material, transported via hefty bobsleds that trundled along at a snail’s pace of 2mph.
These materials were first shipped to an army base in Thule before embarking on a gruelling 70-hour sled journey.
Engineers initially carved out 1,000ft passageways, which earned the nickname ‘Main Street’, deep into the snow and ice before erecting wooden buildings topped with steel roofs. The next addition was the PM-2 medium-power nuclear reactor that powered the site.
Scientists stationed at Camp Century made significant geological discoveries, studying ice cores and soil, and uncovering Greenland’s ancient history of forests and wildlife. However, it’s been suggested that this research was merely a smokescreen for the true purpose of Camp Century.
While the existence of the base wasn’t exactly hush-hush, its scientific projects were allegedly a cover for Project Iceworm, a major US nuclear weapon strategy. The camp was utilised to house ballistic missiles beneath the Greenland ice.
The United States had grand plans for an additional 52,000 square miles of tunnels at the camp, enough to accommodate 600 missiles. This would have necessitated an extra 11,000 soldiers living under the ice and 60 launch centres.
However, Project Iceworm never managed to take flight and Camp Century was eventually decommissioned in 1967. The nuclear weapon plan was finally revealed by the Danish authorities in 1997.
Camp Century has since been abandoned and left to be swallowed up by the ice. While the reactor was removed, it’s reported that the US Army left behind a staggering 47,000 gallons of nuclear waste produced at the camp.
“They thought it would never be exposed,” William Colgan, a climate and glacier scientist at Toronto’s York University told the Guardian.
He reckons the camp will be revealed by 2090 because of climate change’s impact.