The beginning of this true story begins like in the best movies. We are in a room in late 1940, where high-ranking officials from the United States and Denmark meet at the request of the United States. There is an unusual offer in the background: Americans want to buy a piece of Greenland for $100 million. This was the beginning of a negotiation with a very uncertain outcome, now visible through NASA’s radars.

The Agency finds “something”. This happened in April 2024, when a space agency flight over Greenland spotted something unusual: the ruins of what appeared to be a base. Further analysis revealed this to be Camp Century, the secret base built by the United States in 1959 during the Cold War.

The discovery was made possible thanks to UAVSAR radar, which was initially tested to map the inner layers of the ice sheet. The images revealed the structures of the base with unprecedented clarity, despite some distortions caused by technology.

Designed to house up to 200 soldiers, the “city” was abandoned in 1967 and buried under more than 30 meters of ice and snow, along with tons of radioactive waste from its nuclear reactor. Originally designed for polar research, this site now lies hidden in the frozen desert, but its history is much more complex than it seems.

Inside the story. In that room we return to the beginning. In a context such as the beginning of the Cold War, suspicion was eminently reasonable. Why would the United States want a piece of this inhospitable and icy place on the planet that offers at least 100 million times? When asked, the US delegation said they were trying to establish an air base and that the military was interested in having permanent access to the region’s ice sheet to develop a range of techniques for building structures above and below the region. ice

What did Denmark do? He did not accept the sale, but after World War II they felt a debt of gratitude. So the Danish government gives the Americans permission to establish their own air base and allows Army engineers to visit and locate a remote, desolate, flat area of ​​the ice sheet and conduct experiments with its construction. In this way, the United States began two projects: the Thule air base and another air base 240 km away, described at the time as the “city under the ice”.

Camp Century as seen from the air by NASA radar

Camp Century. This was the code name for a project that was much more. Located approximately 150 kilometers from Thule Air Force Base (now Pituffik Cosmodrome), Camp Century was built between 1959 and 1960. It consisted of 21 steel tunnels of approximately three kilometers in total; dormitories, a hospital, recreation areas, a kitchen, and of course, a nuclear power plant that provided light and heating to the entire building, everything was powered by a PM-2 reactor.

Additionally, the base was capable of accommodating 200 people and relied on innovative technologies such as ice-melting water wells and advanced ventilation systems. Despite temperatures of -57°C and winds of up to 120 mph, the base was a safe haven from nuclear attack and had a system of interconnected tunnels and electric trains for internal transportation. However, the instability of the ice made the entire plan unsustainable and the project was eventually abandoned in 1967.

The iconic cover of the February 1960 issue of Popular Science about the “goodness” of the project

Nuclear weapons. Years and decades passed. It was never heard of again until the mid-90s, thanks to declassified documents discovered in the USA by Danish researchers. Not only did the newspapers show that the United States regularly carried nuclear weapons over Greenland in the 1960s, they also revealed that they stored nuclear weapons at Thule Air Base, the exact opposite of what they publicly stated when they signed the treaty. agreement with Denmark

Investigators also found that the Danish government knew about the Americans’ practices from the beginning and lied to its citizens for 30 years, called Thule-Gate in Denmark.

Ice worm. The big bombshell of the documents was revealed shortly afterwards, with a report detailing the design of a completely different base to the one introduced at the time. Codenamed Project Ice Worm, the aim of the plan was to test whether it was possible to permanently drill deep vertical boreholes into the Greenland ice.

Why? Hide up to 2,100 nuclear missile silos and 60 launch control centers. These missiles would constantly move over subway trains to avoid detection and ensure responsiveness. Regardless, they all have the same target: nearby Soviet territories.

And there are still more. These documents also showed that nuclear missiles called Icemen were an unprecedented variant for experimenting with these weapons under ice. It was also revealed that Army engineers first tested ice construction techniques at another secret Greenland site known as Project Fistclench, then went on to build Camp Century to publicly test complex “nuclear” ice designs. scientific endeavor.

Its importance is incidental. Although abandoned, Camp Century continues to provide valuable information. Thanks to their early research, researchers have obtained this previously unobtainable material for the first time, as US engineers dug deep into the Greenland ice sheet and extracted some of the first deep ice cores.

This was an unprecedented advance for science, as these nuclei continue to provide valuable information today. Chemical analysis of ice sheets in particular has been used to establish a link between atmospheric greenhouse gases and global temperatures. Analysis that contributes to a better understanding of past climate conditions and predicting the future impact of climate change.

Image | National Archives

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