NASA shows 'accidentally acquired' image of 'city under ice' abandoned by US military in Greenland

As NASA scientist Chad Greene flew over northern Greenland with a team of engineers in April, they didn't expect their radar to find something artificial buried deep in the ice. Greene and his team were flying over the Greenland ice sheet aboard a NASA Gulfstream III plane, peering into the barren expanse of ice that extends more than a mile deep in some areas, when their radar instrument detected something unusual.

“At first we didn't know what it was,” Greene said in a statement released this week by NASA's Earth Observatory, along with new images of the discovery. “We were looking for the ice bed and Camp Century came out.”

It turns out the team had stumbled upon an abandoned Cold War-era military base built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1959. Nicknamed the “City Under the Ice,” the complex consists of a network of tunnels dug into the ice cap. It was abandoned in 1967 and, over time, became buried approximately 100 feet below the surface due to accumulating snow and ice.

The base was built as part of Project Iceworm, a then-secret plan to experiment with building a missile launch site under the Greenland ice sheet during the Cold War, when tensions were soaring between the United States. United and the Soviet Union. Camp Century, an isolated nuclear-powered facility, was built to study the feasibility of such a project, but it was never carried out and the base was decommissioned on the assumption that it would be buried forever under the ice.

A view of the main trench at the U.S. military base in Greenland, Century Camp, is visible during construction of the installation in a January 1, 1950 file photo. Pictorial Parade/File Photos/Getty

While the “city under the ice” had been spotted by previous radar scans, instruments used during NASA's April flight provided a more detailed, if unexpected, study.

“In the new data, the individual structures of the secret city are visible in a way never seen before,” said Greene, who works with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Previous scans used a type of radar pointing directly at the ground and producing a two-dimensional scan of structures buried beneath the ice. Greene's flight used NASA's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, which is capable of producing maps with “more dimensionality,” according to the agency.

A photo released Monday by NASA shows the base's features hidden deep beneath the ice, appearing as anomalies near the base of the ice sheet.

A composite image shared by NASA's Earth Observatory on November 25, 2024 shows, at top, a view of the Greenland ice sheet taken from the window of a NASA Gulfstream III aircraft in April 2024 and, in bottom, images created using data from a UAVSAR. radar unit aboard the plane, revealing structural elements of Camp Century, an abandoned American military base buried under ice. NASA Earth Observatory/Garrison Michala, Jesse Allen, Chad Greene

“Scientists used maps acquired with conventional radar to corroborate estimates of Camp Century's depth – part of an effort to estimate when melting and thinning of the ice sheet could re-expose the camp and all remaining biological, chemical and radioactive waste that was buried with it,” NASA's Earth Observatory said in its article this week. “The scientific utility of Camp Century's new UAVSAR image remains to be seen; for now, it remains a novelty acquired by chance.”

A 2016 study of the abandoned base suggested the facility could no longer be considered “preserved for eternity” due to climate change accelerating the melting of Arctic ice.

Walter Cronkite of CBS News visited Camp Century for a tour of the facilities still under construction for a program broadcast in 1961. The camp commander, Captain Tom Evans, explained to him that the objectives of the program were threefold: “The first is to test a number of promising new polar construction concepts. The second is to provide a truly practical field test of this new nuclear power plant. Finally, we are building Camp Century to provide a good base, here, inside. from Greenland, where scientists can carry out their R&D activities.”

Walter Cronkite of CBS News is seen on the Greenland ice sheet during a visit to Camp Century, for a CBS documentary program broadcast in 1961. CBS

The exact nature of this research and development work was not addressed in Cronkite's report for the CBS documentary program “The Twentieth Century.” (An abridged version of this report can be viewed at the link above.)

Speaking to 60 Minutes in 2016, when that show revisited Cronkite's decades-old trip to Camp Century, producer Daniel Ruetenik said the trip was fascinating and he marveled at the evolution of human interest in the vast frozen expanse of the Greenland ice sheet.

“At the time [of Camp Century]“The Cold War was considered the greatest threat to humanity,” Ruetenik said. “And now the region has become a destination for climate scientists trying to study changes in the environment. So it now has a second goal.”

More from CBS News

What Are The Main Benefits Of Comparing Car Insurance Quotes Online

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 24, 2020, / Compare-autoinsurance.Org has launched a new blog post that presents the main benefits of comparing multiple car insurance quotes. For more info and free online quotes, please visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/the-advantages-of-comparing-prices-with-car-insurance-quotes-online/ The modern society has numerous technological advantages. One important advantage is the speed at which information is sent and received. With the help of the internet, the shopping habits of many persons have drastically changed. The car insurance industry hasn't remained untouched by these changes. On the internet, drivers can compare insurance prices and find out which sellers have the best offers. View photos The advantages of comparing online car insurance quotes are the following: Online quotes can be obtained from anywhere and at any time. Unlike physical insurance agencies, websites don't have a specific schedule and they are available at any time. Drivers that have busy working schedules, can compare quotes from anywhere and at any time, even at midnight. Multiple choices. Almost all insurance providers, no matter if they are well-known brands or just local insurers, have an online presence. Online quotes will allow policyholders the chance to discover multiple insurance companies and check their prices. Drivers are no longer required to get quotes from just a few known insurance companies. Also, local and regional insurers can provide lower insurance rates for the same services. Accurate insurance estimates. Online quotes can only be accurate if the customers provide accurate and real info about their car models and driving history. Lying about past driving incidents can make the price estimates to be lower, but when dealing with an insurance company lying to them is useless. Usually, insurance companies will do research about a potential customer before granting him coverage. Online quotes can be sorted easily. Although drivers are recommended to not choose a policy just based on its price, drivers can easily sort quotes by insurance price. Using brokerage websites will allow drivers to get quotes from multiple insurers, thus making the comparison faster and easier. For additional info, money-saving tips, and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ Compare-autoinsurance.Org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. "Online quotes can easily help drivers obtain better car insurance deals. All they have to do is to complete an online form with accurate and real info, then compare prices", said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. CONTACT: Company Name: Internet Marketing CompanyPerson for contact Name: Gurgu CPhone Number: (818) 359-3898Email: [email protected]: https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ SOURCE: Compare-autoinsurance.Org View source version on accesswire.Com:https://www.Accesswire.Com/595055/What-Are-The-Main-Benefits-Of-Comparing-Car-Insurance-Quotes-Online View photos