During a scientific flight over the Arctic in April 2024, a NASA team made a sensational discovery - an abandoned Cold War-era city under the Greenland ice sheet.
Data collected by radar mounted on the Gulfstream III drone reveals the remains of Camp Century – military base that was used by the US Army Corps of Engineers, reports CBS News.
A secret project with global ambitions
Camp Century was built in 1959. as part of the top secret American project "Ice Worm". The plan provided for the creation of a network of tunnels with a total length of more than 4,000 km, in which intercontinental nuclear ballistic missiles aimed at the USSR would be located. Of the planned tunnels, only 21 with a length of about three kilometers were built, and the base was abandoned in 1967. due to unpredictable changes in ice cover and high costs.
An unexpected discovery
"We were looking for an ice bed and came across Camp Century. "At first, we didn't know exactly what we had found," said Alex Gardner, a NASA scientist. The camp includes a network of tunnels located about 240 km off the coast of Greenland.
NASA's mission
The main objective of the mission was to study the effects of climate change on the Arctic. However, the discovery of the remains of the base provides a unique insight into one of the most secret operations of the Cold War era.
Camp Century remains a symbol of US technological and strategic ambitions in the global conflict with the USSR. The discovery shows how human history can be "frozen" and stored under the ice surface of the Arctic.