![]() ![]() Atlas missiles had to be pressurized while on alert, because the stainless steel shell was so thina requirement of flightthat only pressure kept it in place while on the ground. Built in 1960, the base sits on an 8.3-acre parcel of land in the town of Saranac, N.Y., roughly 50 miles south of the Canadian border. The silo is part of our Cold War history. ![]() A nearby second, smaller door, also made of heavy steel, was the entry door for the sites crew members. But those close to the case say its not really about lineage. Control panels and clocks that display the time on three continents adorn the space along with more domestic furnishings, like a kitchen table emblazoned with the international hazard symbol for radiation. For 13 nerve-racking days, the world waited on edge, unsure if the two major superpowers would go to war. When Erdman arrived, Benson shot him in the head, killing him. Another site, near tiny Egypt, Washington, sits empty, said Mellor, who was a ballistic missile analyst a general troubleshooter. Its kind of scary going into one of them now, Mellor said. Since then hes used it to hold records related to his UFO research. The nine sites relied on crews of five airmen working 24-hour shifts, with three redundant communications systems connecting them to the Strategic Air Command. IN PROFILING PETER Davenport and his National UFO Reporting Center, there is something else that is part of his life, and it has little to do with alien spacecraft. ![]() ![]() The exception is the best-preserved of the nine sites, near Reardan. If the order came, the crew started a 15-minute countdown. The Missile Plains: Frontline of Americas Cold War Historic Resource Study, 2003. Konings has considered turning it into a museum or some other commercial use, but it currently sits vacant. No conditions reported in the past 7 days. Old submarine parts have been converted into faux whale fins. That would have changed the world as we know it, he said. The Kramers have owned the site since 1969, when Marks father, Bob Kramer, bought the abandoned site for $2,500. If the countdown reached the commit point, at 59 seconds and counting, there was no way to stop the launch, he added. The trucks carried 82-foot-long Atlas E missiles that ended up parked inside heavily reinforced underground sites. The site once belonged to long-haul truck driver Ralph Benson, who was convicted in 2004 of murdering a state auditor and dismembering the body. Body parts later were found near Cheney, some 40 miles away. There is no nearby re-compression chamber. Site six, near Davenport, also has a colorfulbut tragic history. They were designed to strike Russia in the event of nuclear war. There were nearly a dozen of these missile launchers in the Seattle area during the mid-20thcentury, as a precautionary point of attack against Russian missiles and aircrafts. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. The abandoned Nike Nuclear Missile Site S-13/14 outside of Seattle is such a place. Part of a series of articles titled A major, the Missile Combat Crew Commander, was in charge. The missile silos went online roughly a year later. I got the hell out of there and took a shower, he said. With the closings all the equipment and salvageable material was removed and the sites were auctioned off to the highest bidder. Each silo housed an Atlas E Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), equipped with a four-megaton nuclear warhead, much more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima. Instead of storing missiles vertically, the nine Atlas E locations held a single missile in a horizontal room, called the coffin. In addition, there were three Titan I complexes near Larson Air Force Base at Moses Lake, each complex housing missiles in three interconnected silos. By 1965 these missiles were outmoded and the bases closed. The Atlas then went through several upgrades. ![]()
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