From: TRADER@cup.portal.com (Paul Vincent McGinnis)
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

Now that I've been to the Nevada Test Site and seen (in detail) how and
where nuclear weapons were tested, here's a list of 10 very restricted
places in the United States I'd like to visit. Who knows... with the
end of the Cold War, we might be allowed to visit these places...

[note to foreign readers: abbreviations such as NV (Nevada) or MD (Maryland)
are postal abbreviations for the state where the facility is located]

1. Groom Lake, NV - very secret Air Force test facility in central Nevada.
Numerous "black" aircraft such as the F-117A Stealth fighter and U-2
have been tested here. A few years ago, the runway was extended to 30000
feet (9230 meters). It would be interesting to see the aircraft that
requires a runway this long...

2. Raven Rock Mountain, PA - alternate Pentagon, in case of nuclear war.
Tunnelled into the side of a mountain.

3. Sugar Grove, WV - operated by the Naval Security Group, this is an
electronic eavesdropping facility that is used to monitor communications
over U.S. COMSAT satellites.

4. Buckley Air National Guard Base, CO - while this is nominally a
National Guard base, in actual fact, it is used by the National Security
Agency to handle electronic signal intercepts relayed by low orbit
SIGINT satellites such as Jumpseat.

5. Vandenberg Shuttle Launch Facility, CA - recent news reports have indicated
that the Air Force started a program in the early 1980s to have their own
Space Shuttle launch facility, independent of the one at Cape Kennedy. 50
astronauts were trained and based in Los Angeles. Eventually, the facility
was "mothballed" because the Air Force decided that Titan 4 missiles were
a better launch platform.

6. Camp Peary, VA - also known as "The Farm", this is a CIA training camp
for paramilitary operations.

7. Goldstone complex, CA - officially, this is a civilian NASA facility.
If this is true, how come it is very difficult to enter and has its own
guarded airstrip, separate from nearby air fields such as at China Lake NAS?
Photos of the area indicate an impressive "antenna farm", far more than
would be needed for merely tracking manned space flights.

8. Fort Belvoir, VA -- home to many strange activities including the Air
Force HUMINT people (i.e. Air Force Intelligence agents). Radio enthusiasts
using HF direction finding equipment have identified this place as the
source of the English language "numbers" broadcasts. Until the end of
the Cold War, various shortwave frequencies were used to broadcast a
woman reading lists of 5 digit numbers. Similar operations in German
and Spanish were traced to East Germany, and Havana, Cuba. The Army claims
the place is used to train the Signal Corps, while the State Department
has admitted that the place is used for sensitive diplomatic communications.

9. Vault in the Capitol building, Washington, DC - I have seen Congressional
testimony indicating that very sensitive military matters are discussed
in a vault at the top of the Capitol building.

10. Room 4C1052, the Pentagon, Washington, DC - operations center for the
National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. agency responsible for spy satellites
such as the KH-11.

Paul McGinnis / TRADER@cup.portal.com