Different countries around the world prefer not to display military bases. They have a wide range of purposes, ranging from the study of deadly viruses and ending with tracking space objects.
Some bases are of interest due to their unusual shape, others due to location and other factors.
1. Thule Air Base
Where: Kaasuitsup, Greenland.
This air base, located 1,300 kilometers from the Arctic Circle, is the northernmost American military establishment. You can get to the station only during the three summer months, which, of course, makes its own adjustments to the supply schedule for the people living there. Due to the permafrost, all communications are laid above the ground and packed in several layers of insulation.
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2. Polygon Dugway
Where: Great Salt Lake, Utah.
Equally deserted is the area around the Dugway test site, where the US military conducts field tests of chemical and biological weapons and defense equipment. An entire city with 4.5 thousand kilometers of first-class roads has been built in the desert on the edge of Utah to provide the necessary infrastructure. Not cities, but districts were built here before to simulate settlements that the US Air Force was to carry out bomb attacks during the Second World War.
3. Research station HAARP
Where: Gakon, Alaska.
When, in 1997, 180 huge antennas were installed in Alaska, installed by the US military under the pretext of studying the aurora borealis, the rest of the world immediately suspected that something was wrong. HAARP stations are attributed to a wide variety of functions - from remote influence on the climate to blocking communications between enemy ships and aircraft, but this is unlikely, because otherwise a small nuclear power plant or other sufficiently powerful source of energy would have to be located nearby.
4. Cheyenne Mountain Complex
Where: Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Perhaps nothing will better protect you from a nuclear strike than 300 meters of granite overhead. It is at this depth under the mountain that the Cheyenne Mountain Complex bunker is located, which was supposed to become the center of command and control in the event of an atomic explosion. For this case, literally everything is provided here - from 25-ton entrance doors to massive box-spring mattresses on the beds, which perfectly dampen vibration from an explosion.
5. Military base Forward
Where: Siachen Glacier, Kashmir.
If America claims to be the country with the northernmost military base, then two countries at once - Pakistan and India - become the owners of the highest military camps in the world. At an altitude of 6,700 meters in the Indian state of Siachen, two military bases have been deployed in opposition since 1984. Changeable weather conditions, which often complicate supply, as well as constant avalanches, make the conduct of hostilities very difficult. Despite a ceasefire agreement in 2004, Pakistan has not withdrawn its three military battalions from there, and India still maintains seven corresponding formations in defense readiness.
6. Devil's Tower Camp
Where: Gibraltar, Iberian Peninsula.
During the 300 years that the British Empire controlled part of the territory of the Strait of Gibraltar, connecting the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the location of the Devil's Tower camp has not lost its relevance. It is here that all conditions have been created for air and underwater training of fighters, as well as for practicing the conduct of hostilities in a specially built model of the city or in 40-kilometer underground tunnels.
7. Joint Defense Space Research Facility Pine Gap
Where: Australia.
A joint brainchild of the American-Australian military, located in Australia and intended, judging by official figures, to track enemy spacecraft (read, Russian satellites). Even at the time of creation, in the 1970s, there were many rumors about the true purpose of the eight huge spherical structures, including establishing contact with alien civilizations. Of course, no one even began to refute such versions.
8. Lajes Field
Where: Azores, Portugal.
A small volcanic island more than 1,500 kilometers from mainland Portugal was taken into circulation by the American Air Force back in 1953, when it suddenly became clear that in order for aircraft to fly across the Atlantic, they need to refuel. The uniqueness of the military base-airfield is that it shares the territory with an ordinary civil airport, for which there was simply no extra space on the island.
9. Defense Training Estate Salisbury Plain
Where: Wiltshire, England.
It is not known what goals were pursued by the British military, who located this training center just a dozen kilometers from the famous Stonehenge, but such a neighborhood does not exactly add secrecy to it. Another thing is that getting to the territory of the base is not so easy, and most tourists can be content with postcards with a top view of the fork-shaped camp.
10. Edwards Air Force Base
Where: California.
Even at the time of creation in 1942 for testing the first American jet aircraft Bell P-59, this area, which is the bottom of the dried-up lake Muroc 1, attracted the military and a few years later a whole base called Edwards appeared here. The smooth surface allows high-speed cars to be tested here, but the main purpose of the Edwards Base is to test space and aircraft.