(Image: Joe Idoni; wreckage of F-4 Phantom 158379)

Out on the remote Coso Range mountains of California, east of the Sierra Nevada, lies the wreckage of two US military warplanes that plunged to earth there almost half a century ago. The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II jets had been on a routine training mission on June 26, 1972 when they were involved in a mid-air collision. Today, their broken wrecks still haunts the canyons and mountainsides of the Coso Range.

(Image: Joe Idoni)

The US Navy F-4J Phantoms involved in the incident belonged to VFA-154, the “Black Knights”, which today operates the F/A-18F Super Hornet. The aircraft, serial numbers 158364 and 158379, had taken off from Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada, which is now home to the Naval Fighter Weapons School, famously known as TOPGUN.

(Images: Joe Idoni)

Ejection History lists the fateful last flight of the two F-4Js as a simulated airstrike exercise. All four crew members managed to eject from their stricken jets after the mid-air collision but, according to the website, Phantom 158379’s radar intercept officer, LTJG C. Jack Winstead, was killed in the crash.

(Image: Joe Idoni)

Large pieces of Phantoms 158364 and 158379 still lie where they fell to earth 44 years ago. Joe Idoni hiked up to the crash site in 2006 and spotted the unmistakable tail section of 158379, its unit markings and serial number eerily preserved despite decades out on the range. The aircraft’s wing lies across the canyon, while Phantom 158364 came down about a mile away.

(Images: Joe Idoni)

158379 is understood to be the last of 522 F-4J model Phantoms to have been built. The last J was delivered in 1972, which would make Phantom 158379 a brand new aircraft at the time of the crash. In addition to the tail and wing sections, other identifiable components include undercarriage and weapons pylons. The national insignia, unit markings and various stencilling were also found to be remarkably well preserved.

(Image: Joe Idoni)

Browse more of Joe Idoni’s photos here, and be sure to check out the video by Global URBEX.

If you’re a fan of the mighty F-4, you’ll find more Phantom jet articles in the Urban Ghosts archives.

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(Image: wiltshirespotter; Apache AH1 ZJ177 in storage at RAF Shawbury, 2004)

Joint Force Harrier may have been put out to (arid) pasture, but the UK military nevertheless retains a formidable carrier-capable strike platform in the AgustaWestland Apache AH1 (pending the arrival of the F-35). The attack helicopter – a licensed-built version of the original Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow – has been in service with the British Army Air Corps since July 2004.

The first eight gunships to be delivered were built by Boeing. A further 59 were assembled by Westland Helicopters at Yeovil, Somerset. These airframes incorporated a number of developments over the original version, including Rolls-Royce Turbomeca engines, sophisticated new electronic defensive aids, and folding rotor blades allowing them to operate from the confines of a ship (in the case of the Royal Navy, HMS Ocean (L12), the UK’s only helicopter carrier).

(Image: Staff Sergeant Mike Harvey/MOD; AH1 in Afghanistan, 2008)

To date, only one Apache AH1, serial number ZJ177, is listed as being out of service. ZJ177 (pictured above) was delivered in 2000 and was written off on September 4, 2008 in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. The £30 million attack helicopter crashed on take-off from Edinburgh Forward Operating Base, in an incident deemed not to be the result of enemy fire. According to Demobbed, the wrecked gunship was subsequently used as a ground instructional airframe at AAC Wattisham, before being stripped for parts and scrapped in 2015. The above photograph shows ZJ177 and two other Apaches in storage at RAF Shawbury in 2004.

The AgustaWestland Apache AH1 is currently operated by 3 Regt AAC and 4 Regt AAC of the British Army Air Corps’ 16 (Air Assault) Brigade. The type saw heavy combat use during Operation Herrick (Afghanistan) in 2006. By the following year the Daily Telegraph had reported that half the UK’s Apache force were considered not “fit for purpose” and grounded. By 2008, the newspaper further reported that only 20 of the 67 British Apache AH1s were available for combat operations.

(Image: LA(Phot) Bernie Henesy/MOD; Apache operates from HMS Ocean)

Despite the setbacks, Apaches went on to see further service in Afghanistan and later Libya. In June 2011, the Libyan government spuriously claimed to have shot down five Apaches. However, no AH1 combat losses were reported by the Army Air Corps. With the exception of ZJ177, the others are understood to remain in service.

Keep Reading: Dumped Westland Whirlwind (XD165) Wreck at Caernarfon Airport

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(All images by Martin Briquet Photography)

Amid the sands of a remote beach somewhere in western Europe, a neglected group of tanks and abandoned infantry fighting vehicles rest, their decaying hulls slowly rotting away. Photographer Martin Briquet (who also documented a vast aircraft cemetery known as La Casse Mirage) visited the western European location and returned with these haunting photographs.

(All images by Martin Briquet Photography)

The vehicles are understood to stand on an old military gunnery range. Though few people know of its whereabouts, the site is known to some as “the Elephant Beach”. Certainly the derelict armoured vehicles remain refreshingly free of vandalism – save for the hundreds of shell holes that riddle their battered hulls.

(All images by Martin Briquet Photography)

Their external condition suggests the abandoned fighting vehicles have stood out on the range for many years. While the tank carcasses have weathered down to their familiar earthen hue, the infantry carriers now blend uncannily into the sand of the so-called Elephant Beach around them.

(All images by Martin Briquet Photography)

The vehicles’ interiors are no different. Their cabins are little more than empty spaces strewn with sand, the light streaming in through the holes made by hundreds of bullets and other ordnance.

(All images by Martin Briquet Photography)

If you’re a fan of military history, including derelict combat vehicles, be sure to explore 10 abandoned tank graveyards across the world.

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(Image: TCCI1; Oban Minefield Control Tower)

If you were a German U-boat commander during World War Two, there’s one place around Britain’s shores you absolutely would not have wanted to end up. At the achingly-beautiful Sound of Kerrera near Gallanach in Scotland, a vast network of submarine mines were laid out, each poised to explode and send German vessels sinking beneath the waves. Controlled from a concrete watchtower high above the sound, they could be remotely programmed to disable themselves, explode on contact… or all detonate at once, destroying everything in sight.

(Image: TCCI1)

While the minefield is today long gone, the nigh-on indestructible tower remains intact, silently watching over the waters below, as if waiting for the day when the U-boats would return. Stripped of its military guard and equipment, the abandoned Oban Minefield Control Tower now looks like something out of a Brutalist sci-fi film: a concrete spaceship, all hard lines and razor-sharp edges, preparing to blast off into the Scottish sky.

Inside, this hallucinatory impression is quickly replaced by something much more down to earth. Now gutted and covered in graffiti, the derelict military tower’s interior simply has a sombre, neglected air, like a place that’s been forgotten by everyone but bored teenage vandals. Little trace remains of its one-time importance, or the vast, destructive power it was capable of.

Perhaps that’s a good thing. In its small underground section, away from the revealing glow of natural light, the Oban Minefield Control Tower is a silent, haunting place. Like the threats Britain used to face on a daily basis from Germany, it has become little more than a relic of the past. A postcard from a far-distant, infinitely stranger time.

(Images: TCCI1)

(During World War Two, Oban was also home to the flying boats of RAF Coastal Command, and the remains of their bases can still be seen today.)

Related: 10 Abandoned Wartime Structures Built for the Defence of Britain

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(Image: ww2gallery; “crashed” Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter)

This photograph, showing what appears to be a crashed Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter from World War Two, has done the rounds of the internet over the past few years, including several subreddits. The downed warbird looks to be resting atop a canopy of trees, its crumpled hulk bleached by the hot New Guinea sun. But fanciful as this idea may be, the mysterious “treetop” Zero isn’t, sadly, some recently-rediscovered aviation treasure from the Pacific War.

Look closely and you’ll see that the aircraft’s undercarriage is deployed. Now look closer still and you’ll notice what appears to be some sort of plinth. The wrecked A6M is actually one of several wartime relics to be found in Kieta Memorial Park on Bougainville Island, in Papua New Guinea. Mounted on a pole in the jungle, the derelict Zero is now a memorial to the conflict that gripped the region between 1941 and 1945.

(Image: Google Earth; the Bougainville Zero on Google Earth)

Beady-eyed virtual explorers may also be able to locate the wartime fighter on Google Earth a stones throw from the Bougainville.

Related: 12 Abandoned, Wrecked & Recovered Aircraft of World War Two

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(Image: Andy Hebden; the former RAF Longley Lane SOC Communications Bunker)

Ask most people, and they’d probably tell you that Britain’s landscape is one of the most-peaceful on the planet. In one sense, they’re right: the rolling hills and quiet valleys of this rain-soaked island are indeed green and pleasant. Yet, across every square inch of this proud country are reminders of the dark days of the 20th century; a time of militarisation, of threat, of whole countries on a permanent war footing.

You can even find evidence of this in places as sleepy as the village of Broughton, Lancashire (population: 1,722), which is home to the abandoned RAF Longley Lane SOC Communications Bunker.

(Image: Andy Hebden)

During the Second World War, as the entire nation scrambled to deal with the Nazi threat, the RAF installed a three-room communications bunker complex here to help combat the Luftwaffe. So useful did it prove that it kept up this role after the war. But the 1950s the site had become a Sector Operations Centre (SOC), providing a key link in the ROTOR defensive radar net surrounding Britain, intended to war of incoming Soviet nuclear bombers.

(Image: Andy Hebden)

The military installation remained active in this guise for only a few years, and had closed by 1957. The RAF Longley Lane SOC Communications Bunker was eventually turned into a military firing range, then abandoned altogether. Seen today, it isn’t much to look at. A few empty rooms, repurposed by local farmers. A lump of earth, topped by forlorn, grey towers.

(Image: Andy Hebden)

Yet, in another sense, the bunker is a symbol of an entire slice of British history. A remnant from a past based heavily on conflict and the possibility of more conflict. A frozen fragment of time left over from the days when it seemed the country was mere minutes away from nuclear obliteration, and only small, unassuming communications stations like this stood between locals and complete oblivion.

Related: 10 Abandoned Radar Bases & Early Warning Stations

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(Image: Simon D. Gardner; Kent’s abandoned Grain tower gun battery)

Don’t let the name fool you. Grain tower in Kent has nothing to do with agriculture, and everything to do with destroying enemy ships. A giant abandoned gun emplacement, the tower was built in the mid-19th century near the Isle of Grain to defend the rivers Thames and Medway against French Naval incursions. Rendered obsolete as soon as it was finished, the Grain tower has effectively stood empty ever since – with the exception of some usage during World War Two.

Today, the crumbling fortification is little more than an interesting ruin off the coast of Kent, in South East England. In private hands since 2005, the abandoned Grain battery tower would make for a superb conversion into a house or hotel.

(Image: Simon D. Gardner)

(Images: Simon D. Gardner)

(Image: Simon D. Gardner)

(Image: Simon D. Gardner)

(Images: Simon D. Gardner)

If derelict military and defensive structures like the Grain battery tower are your thing, be sure to explore 10 abandoned wartime structures built for the defence of Britain.

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(Image: Kevin Mape; dismantled Eurofighter Typhoon ZJ922)

In October 2016, the same month that a 9-year-old Typhoon T3 was officially reduced to produce (RTP) at RAF Coningsby, another Eurofighter was seen departing the airfield by road. Eurofighter Typhoon ZJ922 arrived at Coningsby on February 27, 2006. Her dismantled airframe was trucked out of the front-line base on three low-loaders, bound for BAE Systems’ plant at Warton in Lancashire, on October 5th this year. The airframe hasn’t flown since 2014. It’s uncertain whether she’s been grounded permanently or will be returned to flight.

ZJ922 was built as a Typhoon F2 as part of the Tranche 1 production run. The aircraft first flew on January 6, 2006. Reportedly one of the first two Typhoon jets taken on charge by No. 3 (Fighter) Squadron (the other being ZJ918/QO-L), the Block 2 aircraft was later upgraded to FGR4 standard, and received the R2 retrofit to bring her to Block 5 capability.

(Image: Kevin Mape)

ZJ922 was damaged in 2014, and was later used as a source of spare parts in the Typhoon Sustainment Fleet, which manages a handful of stored jets at RAF Coningsby. According to an August 2015 response to a freedom of information request, ZJ922 and another Typhoon (ZJ940 – which has reportedly not flown since its delivery to the RAF on September 20, 2007) were at the time being assessed by BAE Systems for possible return to flight.

More than a year later, ZJ940 continues to languish in storage, while Typhoon ZJ922 – still wearing the markings of 3 (F) Squadron and coded QO-C – was photographed departing Coningsby by road in October 2016. The 10-year-old combat jet was trucked to BAE Systems’ facility at Warton, reportedly for use training Saudi personnel. It’s unclear whether the aircraft will be repaired and returned to service, or remain a ground instructional airframe.

(Image: Kevin Mape)

Though some early Typhoons aren’t yet a decade old, the British government had initially planned to retire its Tranche 1 fleet by 2020. But the MOD pledged earlier this year to retain enough Tranche 1 Typhoons to create two additional front-line squadrons, as part of the RAF’s quick reaction alert (QRA) duties.

Despite this, a number of Tranche 1 jets (probably the fleet of early two-seat trainers) are likely to be grounded permanently. A number of Tranche 1 Typhoons have already arrived at RAF Shawbury for storage, including ZJ910, ZJ911, ZJ925, ZJ932 and ZJ936. Whether these airframes will fly again in the future remains to be seen. Also at Shawbury is the fuselage of ZJ943, which was written off in a landing accident in the US in 2008. The aircraft’s tail fin is displayed within the 11 Squadron complex at Coningsby.

Time will tell what becomes of Typhoon ZJ922, and other airframes in both the Sustainment Fleet at RAF Coningsby and those in storage inside Shawbury’s cavernous hangars.

Keep Reading: Browse more Eurofighter articles here.

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(Image: Disco-Dan; the abandoned cliff complex of St Margaret’s Bay)

If you were looking for a place to land an invasion force on the coastline of southern England, St Margaret’s Bay in Kent would seem like a strong candidate. At least, that was the thinking at Whitehall during World War Two, where defence of this stretch of Kentish coast was made a top priority. Today, the forgotten wartime tunnels are still there, abandoned in the wake of a German invasion force that thankfully never came to be.

In the event of a landing, British soldiers would have scrambled through the cliff complex to gun batteries and pillboxes, from where they would unleash a fierce bombardment of the beach below. Indeed, old machine gun nests are visible even now, still watching out over the busy waters of the English Channel.

(Images: Disco-Dan)

The abandoned cliff complex of St Margaret’s Bay was one of many wartime defences in the area. Another impressive example, the Fan Bay Deep Shelter, was rediscovered and excavated in 2012.

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(Image: JavierKohen; grand warship wreck in the Vasa Museum)

The Vasa is the world’s only completely preserved 17th century warship. Salvaged in 1961, her hulk sits in a museum in Stockholm, where she’s been on display since 1990. Until just over half a century ago, the Vasa had rested on the bottom of the sea for 333 years. More than a million people visit the ship every year, but according to Wired, there’s more going on with her remains than meets the eye.

(Image: Peter Isotalo)

(Image: OneHungLow; the port side of wrecked warship)

The Vasa sank in 1628, only about a mile into her maiden voyage. The flagship of a nation at the height of its power, the ill-fated warship proved alarmingly top-heavy. Her destruction came swiftly, after she capsized under her own weight. Around 30 people died in the Vasa’s sinking. After her bronze cannons had been salvaged, the shipwreck was largely forgotten. Until 1961, at least, when she was pulled out of the waters and prepped for preservation.

(Image: Peter Isotalo; the Swedish shipwreck’s lower gun deck)

By 2000, the salvaged warship’s hull had begun to show signs of additional wear and tear and, according to Wired, it wasn’t until 2012 that the Vasa’s caretakers realised her hull was slowly weakening on a molecular level. Already about 40 percent weaker than standard oak, the Vasa seemed to be suffering from a progressive decay that began not at the bottom of the sea, but once the shipwreck was exposed to air.

(Image: Allie Caulfield)

Conservators at the Swedish National Maritime Museum stress that the Vasa is still in excellent condition for her age (not to mention the fact that she lay derelict on the seabed for more than 300 years). They also pointed out that her hull is not in danger of disintegrating any time soon. But, little by little, the proud warship once hailed as a nation’s crowning glory is slowing dying a “second death”.

(Image: Jonathan Pio)

Related: Abandoned Warships: 10 Decaying Aircraft Carriers, Submarines & Other Military Vessels

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(Image: Bas van der Poel – Maestro Photography; the abandoned “Ice Station Zebra”)

Known to the urban exploration community as Ice Station Zebra, this cluster of defunct radar dishes forms part of an abandoned early warning base atop a chilly European mountain range. The windswept scene was captured by Netherlands-based urbex photographer Bas van der Poel in May 2014.

(Image: Bas van der Poel – Maestro Photography)

Isolated and exposed, the forgotten military facility is perched near the summit of a 5,000 foot-high peak. Ice Station Zebra is understood to be a former NATO radar station built in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, to defend Western borders against Soviet forces on the opposite side of the Iron Curtain.

(Image: Bas van der Poel – Maestro Photography)

According to the photographer, the antennas are angled towards other early warning bases in Italy, France and Switzerland. The radar dishes are positioned above a sheer 900 metre drop to the valley below.

(Image: Bas van der Poel – Maestro Photography)

On his Flickr page, Bas van der Poel writes that Ice Station Zebra may yet have a role to play within the NATO alliance, though the site was reportedly disused when the photographs were taken. (For more superb photography, check out Bas’ Facebook page here.)

(Image: Bas van der Poel – Maestro Photography)

If defunct early warning stations are your thing, don’t miss our popular 2012 feature: Cold Warning: The Abandoned Radar Stations of the Arctic Circle.

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(Image: Robin Povey; the hulk of Vulcan XH539 behind XL426)

Photographs of Avro Vulcan B2 XH539 are quite rare online. But pictures of the mighty V-bomber in her final role – as a crash-rescue training airframe on the fire dump at RAF Waddington – are especially hard to come by. The aircraft hadn’t flown since 1972, and some sources claim she was scrapped the same year. As it turned out, however, XH539 lingered on until 1989, and was one of the last Vulcans to depart RAF Waddington. (The above screenshot was taken from Robin Povey’s 1984 video (below), showing crews planning XM655’s delivery to Wellesbourne Mountford and additional footage of Vulcan XL426, which is now preserved at Southend.)

A Brief History of Vulcan XH539

Delivered to the Air Ministry on May 25, 1961, Vulcan XH539 was retained for trails and never saw front-line service with the RAF. During her trials work, the mighty delta-winged bomber was used to test the air-launched Blue Steel standoff missile, the UK’s Cold War nuclear deterrent from 1963 to 1970.

From 1962 to 1964, she was deployed, along with Handley Page Victor XL161 (photo here), to RAAF Edinburgh Field in South Australia. On charge with No. 4 Joint Services Trial Unit RAF, the aircraft was used to test the Avro cruise missile on the vast military range at Woomera. When Blue Steel trials came to an end, 539 was allocated to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) at MOD Boscombe Down, where she was photographed by Flickr user Dave58282 (below) in March 18, 1971. But by December that year, she was considered surplus to requirements and was withdrawn from service soon after.

For reasons unknown, the powers that be decided not to transfer the early-production B2 aircraft to the Royal Air Force; at least, not in a flying capacity. And so it was that in 1972, XH539 made her final flight to RAF Waddington, one of several front-line Vulcan stations throughout the Cold War.

(Image: Dave58282; XH539 at Boscombe Down in March 1971)

On arrival, 539 was subjected to the usual spares-recovery process before her empty hulk was towed across the airfield to the Waddington fire dump, located on an unkempt patch of land alongside the station golf course (see here). There, Vulcan XH539 was used for crash-rescue training. Her canopy was removed and, though the aircraft no longer stood on her undercarriage, there was enough of a gap between the forward fuselage and the ground to allow access to the cockpit via the crew door.

Unusually, XH539 may have been the only Vulcan ever to receive a fresh coat of paint after being condemned to the dump. On retirement, the former trials airframe still wore anti-flash white camouflage, designed to reflect thermal nuclear radiation. As a result, she was considered an eyesore, and it wasn’t long before someone had toned her giant form down with a coat of olive drab – surely a unique paint scheme for the type.

And so, during the early 1980s, as Waddington’s last remaining V-bombers were allocated to museums or broken up for scrap, Vulcan XH539 sat quietly on the dump. The aircraft wasn’t scrapped until 1989, by which time she was one of only four Vulcans remaining at Waddington, Lincolnshire’s last V-bomber base. The others included the display aircraft, XH558, which moved to Bruntingthorpe in 1993, and the old battle damage repair airframe XJ825, which was broken up without ceremony in 1992. Only the Falklands bomber, XM607, survives at Waddington today.

(Image: Robin Povey; XL426 taxies past the hulk of XH539 at Waddington)

In the early 1980s, while embarking on an ill-fated effort to dismantle the late-production B2 XM652 for preservation in Sheffield, my father was directed towards the hulk of XH539, which, he was told, might offer some insight into the aircraft’s structure. Unfortunately he failed to take any photographs, making Robin Povey’s excellent video one of the only places to catch a glimpse of the old trials Vulcan in her final years. (Part 2 of the footage (above) shows the hulk from another angle.)

Do you have a photo of XH539 on the Waddington dump that you’d like to share? If so, please contact us here. Or perhaps you applied the olive green paint! If so, please drop us a note below.

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(Image: Kristof Ven/Instagram/Facebook; the “Lost” Alpha Jet)

There isn’t much left of this decommissioned Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet. It’s little more than an empty fuselage inside a deserted aircraft hangar, its wings and tail assemblies nowhere to be seen. The defunct plane still wears the markings of its national operator, the Belgian Air Component, which is expected to continue flying the type until at least 2018.

The Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet is a light attack aircraft and advanced trainer developed collaboratively during the 1970s by France’s Dassault Aviation and Germany’s Dornier Flugzeugwerke. The first Alpha Jet took to the air in 1973, with 480 airframes built over a period of almost two decades. Production of the popular little jet finally ended in 1991.

(Image: Kristof Ven/Instagram/Facebook)

In his three-photo set titled “Lost Jet”, urban exploration photographer Kristof Ven showcased the abandoned military aircraft fuselage in all its faded glory. Sporting a pale grey camouflage scheme which blends well with the drab surroundings of the hangar that houses it, the Alpha Jet wears the code MT 46 beneath its empty twin cockpits.

The photographs were taken in November 2013. It’s uncertain what caused this aircraft to be grounded permanently while others in Belgium’s fleet remain active.

(Image: Kristof Ven/Instagram/Facebook)

In September 1973 the Belgian government announced that its air force had ordered two batches of Alpha Jet 1Bs totalling 33 planes in all. Aircraft deliveries took place between 1978 and 1980. Training on the jet also made heavy use of flight simulators.

Belgium’s Alpha Jets were upgraded during the late 1990s and early 2000s and are expected to remain in service for at least a couple more years. But not the “Lost Jet”. For this Cold War-era plane’s flying days would seem to be over, at least at the hands of military pilots.

Keep Reading: What’s the Real Story Behind the Belgian UFO Wave?

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(Image: Z22; Canada’s Emergency Government Headquarters)

At the height of the Cold War, when Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker authorised the construction of more than 50 emergency bunkers across the vast North American country, the Liberal opposition would ensure that his name was given to the facilities, also. They were called “Diefenbunkers”.

(Images: Iouri Goussev)

When the Emergency Government Headquarters were built in the 1960s, their construction was a closely guarded secret. The so-called Diefenbunkers were designed to withstand a nuclear blast, and each one was adequately outfitted to ensure the survival of those who took shelter there. Most could support a few dozen people for a period of several weeks, but the largest bunkers were designated shelters for all critical Canadian governmental operations.

(Images: Iouri Goussev)

The biggest bunker in the chain of Emergency Government Headquarters was outside of Carp, Ottawa. Others – in Nanaimo (British Columbia), Penhold (Alberta), Shilo (Manitoba), Borden (Ontario), Valcatier (Quebec), and Debert (Nova Scotia) – were designated Regional Emergency Government Headquarters, or REGHQs.

(Images: Iouri Goussev)

The CFS Carp facility could support 535 people for 30 days, and it remained an active communications hub even after the Cold War ended. It wasn’t until 1994 that the nuclear fallout facility was finally decommissioned. It’s since been opened to the public as a Cold War museum (more here).

(Images: Iouri Goussev)

Other Diefenbunkers have apparently witnessed a stranger post-Cold War life. One, Alberta’s Penhold location was decommissioned and sold to a public figure. When it went up for sale again, it was rumoured that an outlaw biker gang was looking to purchase it for their club headquarters. The government bought the abandoned fallout facility back and demolished it.

(Images: Iouri Goussev)

Those visiting the CFS Carp facility outside Ottawa are in for a fascinating – and chilling – glimpse into Canadian Cold War history, where retro computer consoles, dated conference rooms, ration packs, and alarming diagrams all tell the story of what would have prevailed (hopefully) in the event of a nuclear strike.

Fan of Cold War history? If so, don’t miss our feature covering 10 Abandoned Nuclear Bunkers, Missile Silos & Ammunition Dumps across the world.

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(Image: Wikimedia; explosion at Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan)

By the end of World War Two, the Soviet Union was pushing its scientists to get the country’s nuclear weapons programme up to speed with the United States. These powers would soon find themselves on opposite sides in a new war. Amusing Planet reflected on the effects of scientific and military advancement taking priority over the health and safety of a country’s citizens. The results were catastrophic.

(Image: Kalpak Travel via Flickr; model of the Semipalatinsk Test Site)

Located in Kazakhstan, south of the Irtysh River, the 18,000-square-km Semipalatinsk Test Site (known as “The Polygon”) was among a handful of nuclear testing grounds in the USSR. The town of Semipalatinsk (later renamed Semey), with its 100,000-strong population, lay 150 km to the east. Hundreds of thousands more lived within an 80 km radius of the site, in small villages that would ultimately be impacted by the 456 nuclear tests performed in the Polygon between 1949 and 1989.

(Image: Kalpak Travel via Flickr)

Those living nearby were so close that the powers-that-be would warn them when a nuclear device was about to tested. Residents were instructed to remain outside in case the shock wave demolished their homes.

(Image: Kalpak Travel via Flickr)

Even after nuclear testing drew to a close at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, an alarming number of deaths reportedly occurred from radiation-induced cancers, and numerous cases of babies born with birth defects.

In 1965, a nuclear blast was even used to create Lake Chagan, a reservoir on the eastern edge of the The Polygon ranges. Radiation from the Chagan nuclear test was detected as far away as Japan, and as Amusing Planet reports, the water remains around 100 times more radioactive than is deemed to be safe in drinking water. Not surprisingly, the 100,000 m3 volume crater is referred to as the Atomic Lake.

(Image: Kalpak Travel via Flickr; Chagan artificial lake)

(Image: Bing Maps; the ‘Atomic Lake’)

Today, a memorial stands at the abandoned Semipalatinsk Test Site, alongside concrete bunkers, towers, and other decaying infrastructure left over from the days of the USSR’s Cold War nuclear testing. The memorial, known as “Stronger than Death”, is a terrifying reminder of those whose lives were damaged irreparably in the name of the nuclear weapons technology.

Keep Reading: Liquidators: Wandering the Dystopian Remnants of Chernobyl’s Rescue Vehicle Graveyard

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(Image: Bing Maps; Umm Al Melh Border Guards Airport)

There are few things more controversial in the modern military than the use of drones to carry out precision attacks. And according to Wired.com, the Umm Al Melh Border Guards Airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia could have a purpose very different to its official role of patrolling the Yemeni border.

(Image: Bing Maps)

The report – drawn from The New York Times and The Washington Post – shows imagery of a remote airfield surrounded by nothing but miles of burning desert. The photos, which can be found on online satellite maps, were kept out of public news reports for some time. Now, though, it’s been publicly noted that three hangars at Umm Al Melh Border Guards Airport bear a striking resemblance to known drone bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Analysts also pointed out what they claimed to be telltale indicators that there’s more to the mysterious airfield than meets the eye. The rumoured top secret drone base blends in extraordinarily well with its surroundings, a desolate patch of the Middle East referred to simply as “Hell”.

(Image: Bing Maps)

The difficult terrain means that a major construction effort must have been undertaken to build Umm Al Melh Border Guards Airport, which was established sometime between November 17, 2010 and March 22, 2012.

No-one is officially confirming or denying anything, of course, leaving the rest of the world to wonder if one of the America’s most clandestine military operations was accidentally revealed to the world via the internet.

(Image: Google Earth)

When the imagery from Bing Maps was revealed, the remote facility was still under construction and didn’t even register in Google’s catalogue of satellite photos, according to Wired. But Google Earth now shows a finished base. Its three hangars, each large enough to house Predator or Reaper drones, have been joined by a fourth, smaller one. The site appears to be highly secure, separated from the rest of the airfield by a fence as well as a wall…

If highly classified airfields and top secret planes are your thing, be sure to check out our top secret archives and the articles below:

Top Secret Tombs: The Classified Stealth Aircraft Burial Grounds of Area 51

3 Top Secret Technology Demonstrator Aircraft That Are Now Declassified

3 Top Secret Aircraft Demonstrators Which May Have Flown at Area 51

Was a Top Secret Experimental Aircraft Buried at Area 51 in 1982?

Did the United States have a Top Secret Fighter Prototype called the YF-24?

Did You Know Area 51 was Home to a ‘Top Secret Museum’ Known as Dyson’s Dock?

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(Image: metro.ru; map supposedly showing the rumoured Metro-2 in Moscow)

Rumour has it that there’s a top secret underground railway hidden under the streets of Moscow. Dubbed Metro-2, the clandestine facility is said to lurk up to 200 meters below the surface and consist of four lines that connect the Kremlin, the Federal Security Service, Terminal 2 at Vnukovo International Airport (referred to by some web pages as Vnukovo-2), and an entire underground town in the district of Ramenki.

The four branches of the mysterious Metro-2 are said to be longer than the city’s mainstream rapid transit system. The shadowy subterranean railway supposedly dates back to the time of Joseph Stalin and was given the code name D-6 by the KGB.

(Image: Anakin; a service tunnel rumoured to be part of Metro-2)

The idea of a hidden underground metro system first came to the public attention in 1992, with the publication of a novel set in a subterranean Moscow bunker. The novel’s author, Vladimir Gonik, said the idea was inspired by a real world location. Gonik claimed to have learned of Metro-2 after spending 20 years piecing together information about top secret bunkers connected by railways, which he supposedly gathered while working at the polyclinic of the Ministry of Defence.

Metro-2, the author claimed, had been developed strictly for use by leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and their families, as well as the Politburo.

Unconfirmed tunnels and secret passages beneath busy urban centres are a popular urban legend, and it’s hard not to dismiss Gonik’s claims as a publicity stunt to sell more copies of his book. But the US Department of Defense also made reference to Moscow’s secret underground railways in a 1991 report, perhaps lending some credence to the claims.

The rumour was further substantiated in 2004 by Vladimir Shevchenko, a former adviser to presidents Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin, who reportedly claimed a single track line existed from the Kremlin to Stalin’s dacha in Volynskoye. It was, however, abandoned. He also mentioned a pneumatic mail tube between Moscow’s Old Square and the Kremlin. Could this be the mundane inspiration behind the modern legend?

(Image: Anakin; alleged connecting tunnel between Metro-1 and Metro-2)

Other government officials have referenced not only the mysterious lines themselves, but a recruitment drive to staff the top secret Metro-2 system. KGB defectors have purportedly spoken of an entire network of railways and other infrastructure deep beneath Moscow. But the extent to which these facilities exist remains a mystery – and the KGB isn’t about to offer a guided tour.

Claims seem to vary wildly from a vast “underground city” of the most clandestine kind to a subterranean nuclear bunker complex, where high ranking Soviet government officials would have retreated to had the Cold War ever warmed up. Similar secret command bunkers around the world (including Barnton Quarry in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Canada’s Diefenbunkers) would seem to make this option more plausible.

But what of the highly classified alternative subway system, Metro-2? Compelling as the story may be, there’s no reliable evidence that such a facility exists. But if it does, as Vladimir Shevchenko has claimed, it’s more likely to be a disused railway tunnel carrying decaying underground utilities, badly in need of repair, than a top secret subterranean subway network winding its way from the Kremlin to all corners of Moscow.

Related: Is there a Secret Russian Nuclear Base Beneath Mount Yamantau?

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(Image: Alan Wilson; abandoned Flogger at Khodynka, Moscow)

They might have been low-tech compared to their western counterparts (at least until a new generation of dogfighters came to the fore, including the MiG-29 and Su-27), but there was something awesome about the Soviet Union’s vast military arsenal, and especially its Cold War-era military aircraft. This abandoned MiG-23 Flogger was photographed at the former Khodynka Aerodrome in Moscow, in August 2012. The derelict airport had latterly served as a large storage facility for out-of-service Russian aircraft. As of 2016 the area has been regenerated, its decaying airframes moving to Tretyakovo Airport in Lukhovitsy, Moscow Oblast. It’s unclear whether this redundant MiG made the journey or succumbed to scrapping, but either way the composition makes for a great photograph. Explore 21 abandoned airplane graveyards here.

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(Image: Brett Levin; derelict radar towers of HM-40 B Battery Nike Hercules missile base)

It wasn’t too long ago that the world – led by its nuclear superpowers – was on the brink of total war. The tense 12 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis were particularly terrifying, and as we looked at in our piece on the America’s now-abandoned Nike missile bases, there still exist frightening reminders of how close we came to World War Three.

By the early 1960s, relations with the Eastern Bloc had deteriorated to the point that an order was given for the construction of hundreds of missile sites across the country. The HM-40 base (previously designated HM-66 B Battery) built in North Key Largo is one of only three Florida bases still in existence. It was active from June 1965 to June 1979.

The now-abandoned missile base housed re-designed MIM-14 Nike Hercules missiles – a safer alternative to their predecessors, the MIM-3 Nike Ajax. Bases typically covered about 120 acres, and included five radar towers, missile storage vaults, a ready room, and systems for both launching missiles and tracking incoming objects, in a bid to identify their intentions through a system called IFF: Identification, Friend or Foe.

(Image: Brett Levin)

When The Bohemian Blog headed to Florida, the site examined the remains of the abandoned HM-40, which had been decommissioned in 1979 and passed to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. While much of it has been destroyed, the former Integrated Fire Control (IFC) site was still there. Despite its location near the ominously-named Crocodile Lake, the intrepid explorers pressed on.

(Image: Brett Levin)

Note: Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge is a protected area for the American crocodile – an endangered species – and is also home to countless Burmese pythons, amid what was once America’s first line of defence against an incoming Soviet missile strike.

(Image: Brett Levin)

The BB documented several remaining buildings, almost completely reclaimed by nature. Drowned in palm trees and mosses, covered in mould with windows turned green with vegetation, it’s hard to believe that the HM-40 site once housed some of the most hi-tech weapons and radar technology in the world.

Related: 10 Abandoned Gun Emplacements, Artillery Batteries & Flak Towers

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(All images by Andrey Khachatryan – Livejournal/website; Central Air Force Museum)

If you’re a fan of Russian aircraft developed back in the days of the Soviet Union, the Central Air Force Museum at Monino Airfield is a must-visit attraction. The awesome collection, located around 25 miles east of Moscow, is home to around 173 aircraft and 127 engines, making it one of the world’s largest aviation museums. Many of the artefacts were developed at the height of the Cold War, representing some of the greatest advances in Soviet aerospace innovation during that tense period of history.

The Central Air Force Museum was founded in 1958, but it wasn’t until the turn of the millennium that its doors were finally opened to the public. This was due to a number of classified Soviet prototypes being among its exhibits.

(If only the USA could reveal some of its classified prototypes and top secret demonstrators, which are said to be stored (or perhaps even preserved) at Area 51.)

In addition to Monino’s extensive collection of planes and aircraft engines are other artifacts, including weapons, spy instruments and flying uniforms. Among them is the flight suit worn by CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers, whose Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down in 1960 by an S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile.

Situated adjacent to the Gagarin Air Force Academy, the Monino museum has been known by a variety of names over the decades, including the USSR Air Force Museum and later the Russian Federation Air Force Museum. Tours are offered by ex-pilots who volunteer their time to take visitors through the history of Russian aviation.

According to this unofficial website: “The facilities are largely unimproved and the majority of aircraft are exposed to the harsh Russian weather… Despite these conditions, the aircraft are in surprisingly good shape and most are sitting on the original tires they landed at the Monino airfield with. This is a testament to the museum employees who have a great historical legacy to preserve.”

However, rumours have circulated about the Central Air Force Museum’s imminent closure, so those planning a visit would be wise to book a ticket to Moscow sooner rather than later. If that happens, it’s likely many exhibits would be moved to another location, and the larger ones scrapped.

But as of December 2016 it was still open to the public, just one among numerous historic landmarks of Cold War Moscow and its surrounding area. CNN wrote of Russia’s capital and most populous city: “From bunker complexes to rusting MiG fighter jets to the vestiges of long-defunct secret weapons programs, Moscow is a living museum of the epoch that shaped the 20th century.”

One of the most unusual exhibits on display at the Monino museum is the Bartini Beriev VVA-14, an amphibious wing-in-ground-effect aircraft, of which only two prototypes were ever built. Nearby, Myasishchev M-50 and Sukhoi T-4 prototypes stand alongside MiG and Sukhoi fighters/attack aircraft, mighty Tupolev bombers and other examples from early Russian aviation to the present day.

The Central Air Force Museum’s exhibits may represent outdated tech, now superseded by more modern jet aircraft, but it’s hard to imagine that the rows of warplanes wouldn’t make for an impressive air force even today. You can check out the official website (in Russian) here.

(All images by Andrey Khachatryan – Livejournal/website)

Related: The Abandoned Buran Space Shuttles of Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome

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