I was completely forgotten. But NASA brought it back to memory. Released radar images of the abandoned US base ‘Camp Century’. It is a relic of the Cold War under the ice. The photos were taken by “chance” in an aerial survey in Greenland. The secret Cold War base reminds us of a forgotten world.
The images were taken by agency scientist Chad Greene. It was during a flight monitoring a radar instrument probing the Greenland ice sheet. The radar unexpectedly detected something buried within the ice.

special radar
“We were looking for the ice bed and Camp Century appears,” the researcher said in a statement. “At first we didn’t know what it was.” Camp Century, also known as the “city under the ice,” is a relic of the Cold War. It was made in 1959 by cutting a network of tunnels into the near-surface layer of the ice sheet. Snow and ice continued to accumulate. The structures are now at least 30 meters below the surface.
NASA’s UAVSAR (unmanned aerial vehicle synthetic aperture radar) was able to detect it. “The structures of the secret city are visible in a way they have never been seen before,” they said.

Chance
Camp Century’s depth estimates were corroborated. It’s part of an effort to estimate when melting and thinning ice sheets could re-expose the camp. And with it, any remaining biological, chemical and radioactive waste that was buried along with it. The scientific utility of the new Camp Century image obtained by UAVSAR remains to be seen. For now, The Secret Cold War Base is a novel curiosity acquired by chance.
The image of Camp Century was not intended to be captured. “Our goal was to calibrate, validate and understand the capabilities and limitations of UAVSAR in mapping the inner layers of the ice sheet and the ice bed interface,” they said. It is hoped to measure the thickness of ice sheets in similar environments in Antarctica. And thus, limiting estimates of future sea level rise.