NASA scientists flying over Greenland discover remains of US military base buried 100 feet beneath the ice

NASA scientists flying over Greenland discovered the remains of a US military base buried 100 feet beneath the ice.

Camp Century was a Cold War base for the US Army that would have been a front for a planned arsenal of nuclear missiles.

This plan never came to fruition, and the base was abandoned.

Then last year, the base was discovered again when a NASA scientist was flying over the Greenland Ice Sheet.

EXPLORE SBX CARS – Supercar auctions starting soon powered by Supercar Blondie 

The abandoned US military base buried 100 feet under the ice in Greenland

NASA scientist Chad Greene had taken some radar images of the ice during his flight over Greenland in April 2024.

Upon closer examination, Camp Century was discovered buried 100 feet deep within the ice sheet.

“We were looking for the bed of the ice and out pops Camp Century,” fellow NASA scientist Alex Gardner told Popular Mechanics.

“We didn’t know what it was at first.”

So what is the backstory behind Camp Century?

It was built between June 1959 and October 1960 by the US Army Corps of Engineers and was made up of 21 underground tunnels.

As you can imagine, building in an underground base in a notoriously cold and inhospitable territory wasn’t easy.

The base was built using 6,000 tons of material, transported on bobsleds that would max out at two miles per hour.

Army engineers dug trenches in the snow, and then wooden buildings and steel roofs made up the structure of Camp Century.

The plan was for the base to store ballistic missiles.

An extra 52,000 square miles of tunnels were planned for this purpose, which would be enough to fit in 600 missiles.

In addition to this, 60 launch centers would have been built, with 11,000 soldiers stationed there full-time to man things.

This all sounds like a big operation, right?

Well, it was – and that’s pretty much the reason this base has been abandoned for the last few decades.

Why was this base abandoned?

Many reasons could be put forth for why this plan would be deserted, whether it’s due to cost, lack of manpower, or military resources.

But it boils down to one thing – this military base simply wasn’t practical.

Greenland is a remote location, and to take on a project of this scale would be extremely costly.

So in 1967, Camp Century was abandoned.

It’s remarkable that the base is still there in some form, however.

We’ve seen a lot of abandoned places before, and it’s always really cool to see.

There’s the deserted airport in London that was once the world’s biggest.

Over in Cyprus, there’s an abandoned airport that has been a ghost town since the 1970s.

These sites are fascinating reminders of a world that has slipped away.

DISCOVER SBX CARS: The global premium car auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie