![]() STEPHEN: Yeah, I might be crazy, but I’m not stupid. I still believe they’re accessible, but the risk would be significant. ME: The first Titan test silos are in the Vandy base, but those are on an active base, as you know. There are always the Titan IIs, but those are definitely far, far away. ![]() SCOTT: I think the Atlas sites are mostly in the Midwest. STEPHEN: Are there any underground missile bases other than Titan and Atlas that are abandoned? Are there any Atlas silos that are available to explore ? I heard the Lincoln Titan site is filled with water, anybody have confirmation? It began as a terse exchange via email on January 15 of 2008, soon after the three of us had infiltrated and photographed the Sutter Buttes Titan I complex at Beale AFB: The decision started relatively inauspiciously. Stupid, yes, but certainly alluring.Īgain, members of the Vandenberg 30th Security Forces Squadron - this time training in the field, instead of lifting weights. As part of the MacGyver Generation, I also reveled in the potential of being part of an elite few who had managed to infiltrate an active base undetected. Some of my recent successful forays had given me a brazen confidence. Admittedly, part of what appealed to me was the risk. The sky was filled with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with infrared cameras. ![]() Security forces regularly patrolled the roads. All the roads inside of the base (and thus to the front door of our underground missile sites) were completely sealed off by sentry stations and road blocks. ![]() Though we had our alibi (we had developed a new-found interest in bird watching), we still didn’t have a way in. The old sites had four decades to decay and, in the interim, they had become something of a beautiful sight of their own merit.īut getting inside the perimeter of Vandenberg North isn’t as easy as it seems. Today, the bones of the past at Vandenberg North are ripe for exploration. In the 1970s Vandenberg North has been abandoned in place of Vandenberg South. Most compelling to explorers of missile defense sites such as myself, Vandenberg North was also where the early missile programs died by the late 1960s. If Vandenberg as a whole is the Disneyland of Missile Defense, then the Northern side of the base would be the equivalent of Frontierland – the place where all of it was born during the Missile Gold Rush of 1959. Soon, it had become an executive decision: Vandenberg was my next step in a longer journey and goal (but an increasingly spectral and dangerous journey). But in the vast 3,537,441 square miles that make up the United States land area, it is quite literally a crumb of the total cake. It’s a massive base, 250 square miles in all. Atlas D, Atlas E, Atlas F, Titan I, Titan II, Minuteman, Peacekeeper, Thor - you name it and Vandenberg had it. Vandenberg, for those of you who don’t know, is a proverbial Disneyland for Cold War era missile defense sites. However, I had strong reason to consider risking it – stupid, maybe, but certainly an alluring prospect. These protectors of Freedom carry M4 assault rifles and – as you can see in the photo above – can easily crush people like me between their fingers. I knew that the consequences of exploring Vandenberg at night could be dire the “SF,” as the security forces of Vandenberg are known, aren’t your typical slovenly security guards. A member of the Vandenberg 30th Security Forces Squadron at a weightlifting competition at Venice Beach (courtesy Vandenberg AFB Office of Public Relations)
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