UK's secret port? Let's talk about Machrihanish and it's godsforgoten history!

Hello,

This gonna be a discussion thread about events, contacts, movements that happened in not-so-distant past... in the 90's.
Whenever someone mentions any form of secret aircraft, people automatically think of Groom Lake or Edwards South Base as they are points connected to many shadowy programs and R/D developement.

On a global scale, there are many military installations, which conduct covert testing but at the same time, remain pretty much unknown to the general public. One of these bases is located on the West Coast of Scotland, RAF Machrihanish, which although pretty known has slightly to zero details of actually what has happened there or what they were up to in the past.

From that point on, the activities at Machrihanish are currently unknown until we come to the late 1980's when the US Administration decided to spend tens of Millions of dollars to upgrade the base. The exact details of the money spent remains unknown. These figures however show some of the money that was spent on the upgrade:

• £407,000 on the construction of a new control tower, representing 20% of a NATO-funded project

• £2,090,000 VAT payment on NATO-funded construction of underground fuel pipes and pumps

• £2,000,000 VAT payment on NATO-funded airfield pavement improvements, including the strengthening of runway aprons

• £1,807,000 on the construction of new single living quarters. In the same period NATO has contributed

• £28,306,000 on upgrading at RAF Machrihanish

Of course beside aforementioned base there are others as well located in Scotland. Think of Lossiemouth as an example. It is widely confirmed that presence of the US aircraft is nothing extraordinary as US played with UK and helped with many of the 'toys'. Kind of transatlantic pact between two industrail giants and big heads.

Let's look on the Machrihanish timeline:
November 1991: RAF radar operator (location unknown) tracked an unknown target leaving Machrihanish and then quickly accelerating to Mach 3. When the radar operator called up Machrihanish to find out what just happened, he was told simply to just "forget about it."
There were also a lot of reports of mysterious lights in the sky and sonic booms in the area during this time.

January 1992: More fast-moving targets were tracked by both RAF and civilian radar controllers operating around the Machrihanish area. The target was travelling at speeds between Mach 3 and Mach 6.

May 1992: A photographer in Amarillo, Texas got several pictures of a strange looking contrail stretched out across the sky. A few days later, the same contrails were spotted over the Machrihanish area. They are described as "doughnuts on a rope."

1993 (Sometime during the winter months): Windows shattered and houses "shook" in the Machrihanish area as what appears to be some form of sonic boom happened over the area. Local residents initially thought it was a plane crash due to the loud noise of an explosion, but this was not the case. At the same time, a radar controller at Prestwick Airport (Ayrshire) reported tracking an unknown target close to the base.

1994: A Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre killing all 29 people on board, 25 of which were military and police intelligence officers. The military initially blamed pilot error and only recently have their names been cleared. Many people believe that there was a large cover up involving the United States Military.


These reports are widely known for anyone focused on the subject.

However... As the discussion goes it is always fun to speculate and exchange opinions.

Recently there was an interesting series of episodes published by Prof. Simon Holland. He used to live in a village close to the base and heard some things that many here may find interesting. He speaks about them in following videos:

1. youtu.be...

A good one. Especially connection and part about *special* fuel being kept at the base.

There is also some Mach 7 story which I would take with a big grain of salt... how civillian radar at Prestwick would notice where the supposed aircraft flew into considering that single civilian radar isn't covering such a long distance(Atlantic).

As Machrihanish isn't useful anymore, let's discuss any rumours, facts, or ideas of what was going on there in the past?

The truth is out there...

a reply to: SpeedFanatic

My aunt and uncle have a holiday home in Machrihanish.

Beautiful place.

a reply to: SpeedFanatic

I've seen the Prof' Simon videos which were very interesting.
You also have the 89' story of the North Sea oil rigger worker and a member of the Royal Observer Corps who saw 3 aircraft refueling, 2 were F111s and the other was a black triangle type aircraft.

Machrihanish gives any aircraft a straight run over the Atlantic to America.

a reply to: SpeedFanatic


• £2,090,000 VAT payment on NATO-funded construction of underground fuel pipes and pumps

• £2,000,000 VAT payment on NATO-funded airfield pavement improvements, including the strengthening of runway aprons

Those are interesting-VAT is basicly a form of UK government extorsion on any trade or service you buy-It currently is at 20%

So Both the above two VAT payments must have been for 2 lots of work,each costing £10 million before VAT
Making them some highly expensive pipes and pavement upgrades.

Maybe they dug a secret underground base on the quiet?

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: SpeedFanatic

My aunt and uncle have a holiday home in Machrihanish.

Beautiful place.

Did you ever spend any time there? A Scot' I know said you only get about 2 weeks summer that far north.

originally posted by: Silcone Synapse
a reply to: SpeedFanatic


• £2,090,000 VAT payment on NATO-funded construction of underground fuel pipes and pumps

• £2,000,000 VAT payment on NATO-funded airfield pavement improvements, including the strengthening of runway aprons

Those are interesting-VAT is basicly a form of UK government extorsion on any trade or service you buy-It currently is at 20%

So Both the above two VAT payments must have been for 2 lots of work,each costing £10 million before VAT
Making them some highly expensive pipes and pavement upgrades.

Maybe they dug a secret underground base on the quiet?

VAT back when they were built would of only been 15%.

a reply to: Kurokage
Ah yes that is true.
So its VAT payments on 2 lots of work each costing £7.5 million.

a reply to: Kurokage

You mean the story by the “expert” that claimed he knew it was a KC-135Q because it had different engines than the other KC-135s?

Wiki says nukes stored there
and positioning place for US Navy Seals

apparently shut down and transferred to civilian use

a reply to: Kurokage

They go just about all year round down to them being semi retired college professors/lecturer.

My uncle who lost his leg down to cancer pretty much stays there for months on end.

Ive never been myself i prefer up Arisaig/Morar way.

As to the weather its beautiful if somewhat changeable.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

In the UK we store nuclear warheads at the "Royal Naval Armament Depot" at Coulport "HM Naval Base Clyde" which consist of about 16 storage bunkers built into a ridge overlooking "Loch Long".