Navy Submarine Base Under the Nevada Desert?

wow, this was a oldy goldy thread. Thanks for bringing it back up there hoss. Cool little thread, I haven't seen it in oh about a year.

Originally posted by ANNED
From what i have been able to find the navy keeps there tactical nuke torpedoes and mines there plus a few short defensive nuke missiles for ships

Thanks for that I will add it to the list and see what I can 'dig up' on that

Beyond amazing.

Thanks for the posts, Ron.

reply to post by Majic


actually it is quite common for no one but the commander of a Navy Sub to know what their true mission is until they are under way and since every crew member went down, it is not inconceivable that there was literally no one around to loose their lips so to speak with an exception of clandestine operatives like the seals who would've planted evidence etc....and it is not likely that they would've talked about anything unless idiotic leadership caused them to lose one of their buddies.

Jaden

reply to post by TXMACHINEGUNDLR


The only restricted areas at Walker lake are the south end at the munitions depot and the north end which is Piaute reservation land that is part of Schurz. The munitions depot was built in the 50's after the pier and storage area at New Jersey blew up. It's well documented! It was moved to a move secure area to avoid attack. Just like Cheyenne Mountain, the middle of the country is safer from surprise attacks.

The east and west side of the lake are wide open. There is a road through the depot to access the east side. I have done it many times, even at night. Yes there is security for the depot, but if you don't stop in the depot they don't care. You can stop at the main gate and get directions to the east side. The west side is residential and commercial property. Before diversion of water for agriculture the road was on the east side of the lake. Just like the train tracks.

The south end is part of the depot and is not safe. There are live munitions and mortars that were tested at the south end. They restirct access to avoid people being hurt or blown up. The north end is land that was given to the Piaute's and is part of the Piaute/Schurz area reservation. The area that is used for housing, farming, hunting and fishing.

I fished the lake 4 or 5 times a week for 2 years. I used side scanning sonar and never saw any subs in the lake. Just tufa formations (calcium carbonate) from natural spring processes in the lake. If you have ever been to the lake there is tufa evidnece everywhere. Just like a lot of other saline lakes in Nevada, California, and Utah (Walker, Pyramid, Mono). Major universities and the USGS have surveyed the lake and released the bottom scan of the lake to the public.

Maybe the lake monster is real too and it travels from LocNess to Lake Champlain. There is a painting in town across from the El Capitain, it's in the water right next to Eds' boat. The lake is a terminal lake. It has been completely dry at least 4 time over the past 10,000 years and it is on its way to drying up again. It evaporates off 4 to 5 feet every year and the state has to purchase water from the reservoirs at Brideport and Topaz just to maintain the lake level. If there was a tunnel wouldn't the lake just completely drain being 4,300 feet above sea level?

Try this on for size. No major mystery:
Hawthorne Detachment
Somewhere in the deserts of Nevada a small Navy detachment, several hundred miles from any ocean, maintains 30 percent of the United State's inventory of underwater mines. Though the desert seems a rather unlikely place for the Navy, Hawthorne is ideal for this NUWES detachment.
Hawthorne was a prosperous mining town when it was all but wiped off the map by a major fire in 1926. Ironically, another devastating fire that same week in another part of the country brought renewed hope to the charred town. This other fire destroyed a multimillion dollar Naval ammunition depot in New Jersey. Hawthorne was chosen to take its place because of its arid climate, its close proximity to the West Coast's Pacific Fleet, and its ability to expand if necessary.
Covering 237 square miles, the new Naval Ammunition Depot (NAD) Hawthorne was commissioned on September 15, 1930 and provided storage and service for ammunition until 1976 when its responsibilities were turned over to the U.S. Army.
Functions involving underwater ordnance were excluded from the charter of the new Hawthorne Army Ammunition Plant. NTS' parent command, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), was charged with providing an organization to administer these functions. NAVSEA turned the job over to NTS, which was the sole NAVSEA field activity in the Western U.S. to have an underwater weapon and mine workload. NTS soon changed its name to Naval Undersea Warfare Engineering Station to reflect its newly diversified mission.

reply to post by johnlear


Having been born and raised in the Keyport Washington area, I can tell you that they build and test torpedos there. In fact, in high school our favorite party site was called Site 9 as that was it's designation in Keyport and that is where they shot unarmed torpedoes across Liberty Bay toward the beach to check the guidance systems. Perhaps that is what they are doing in Nevada. This does not require a great deal of space or depth, but like all military installations, there is security. Just a thought.

I lived at HWAAP for three years while my father was the commanding officer for the entire base and all detachments located there. We hunted and fished every square mile of the lake and most areas of the base and surrounding MFN ranges during all hours of the day and night. There are no sub bases there and Walker Lake has one of the highest levels of alkalai on record; highly corrosive.

The Navy detachment at HWAAP handles mines, toros and other Naval weaponry and has an EOD unit as well. The reason the base is in the middle of nowhere is so if it blows up it won't take a bunch of civilians with it. There is plenty of history published about how and why the base is located there.

While there are some cool factual stories about goigs on there, subs are not part of it.

I lived in Hawthorne for 16 years. I must say we did have our share of odd things that happened but nothing involving a sub in Walker Lake. The high school mascot is the serpents so maybe there is something else in the lake. We had fly-overs from Stealth bombers before they were made known to the public. Odd explosions from the hills west of us. I just always assumed they were detonating old munitions from the depot. As for the bunkers, yeah, there's a lot of them, all over the place. My parents both worked at the base and I had been near these bunkers many times. During Armed Forces Day they would have public train rides that would tour parts of the base. I'm not sure if they still do that today, it was 1998 when I last lived there.

Care to explain how a continuous water chanel from walker lake [ elevation 1100m ] to the pacific [ elevation 0m ] maintains its head ???

It doesn't.

/star

Damn, wish John was still around.

This is a great thread.

Threshers audio recording was recovered and the tapes of the XO's commentary as the Sub goes down is chilling especially when you can hear the screams of the crew men and the sound of the individual bulkheads giving way all to the stoic tone of his commentary. Believe me it is one of the most haunting things that Submarine Officers are exposed to during training.

reply to post by johnlear


I doubt there are under water caves that subs can travel though. Just because such a unit is in the middle of the desert doesn't mean that they perform those activities there. For example if there was a military unit called "The United States Air Force Dairy Farm Unit," yet they have a unit in the middle of Downtown San Francisco; it doesn't mean they are milking cows in downtown SF. They just have some type of interest there, so they put an installation there.

However, I recall an old California Legend .. That during WWII, the US Navy built an installation in Monterey County called "Point Sur Naval Station." It is currently under the command of the United States Naval Postgraduate School. This base was build to supply (according to the myth) submarines with supplies, underground using underwater tunnels. The point of doing this was to conceal the existence of the submarines from the Japanese.

I don't know if this is true. I have been to Point Sur, but never dove into the water to check. There is a huge rock with a lighthouse near by. The water area is very rocky, so tunnels have to be there. Check it out with Google Earth . The coordinates of the base are:

36 18' 18.03" N / 121 53' 14.10" W / at about 62 feet elevation.

[edit on 28-5-2009 by adam_d]

[edit on 28-5-2009 by adam_d]

Originally posted by LT mikey
Threshers audio recording was recovered and the tapes of the XO's commentary as the Sub goes down is chilling especially when you can hear the screams of the crew men and the sound of the individual bulkheads giving way all to the stoic tone of his commentary. Believe me it is one of the most haunting things that Submarine Officers are exposed to during training.

You have listened to these tapes?

How the %@$# did you get your hands on them?

Im a submariner.I read only a few pages here at wrok.The base in Washington is Bangor...I did one patrol out of there,the rest were out of K.B. Georgia.Alot of what i read is false..The crew does know what is goin on for the most part.Im sure there are secrets , being a Nuclear Missile Technician in charge if the big ones makes my division more knowledgeable

reply to post by pimppapa1977


Any idea where one might find these tapes of the XO talking as the Thresher sank? I would really like to hear them

reply to post by LT mikey


please cite this " fact " - as the only voice recordings in existance from the thrsher incident are the underwater telephone exchanges with skylark

Originally posted by NJ Mooch
I didn't remember seeing any flightline areas when I drove through, so am I supposed to think that everyone that trains there is driven in? How far away are the closest airports?

This is my first post and I find the comments here thought provoking.
I don’t know if this has been covered but I used the co-ordinates 38.565998, -118.641357 that that were posted on
1-9-2007 @ 10:58 PM by Syntaxstealth. I had a bit of a look around and it didn’t take too long to find a single runway to the NW of Hawthorne next to route 95 opposite Armory Road in Google Maps but visible only in Satellite view.
(38.544645, -118.635129)
There is evidence of two earlier runways and two small aircraft are visible on the ramp parked side by side. I am not able to find any evidence of an Air Traffic Control tower though. In the time since your post NJ Mooch looks like things are developing there. Runway, taxiways and access road from route 95 all look new.

My experience (I'm a nobody) lost in Nevada north of Laughlin, my husband was driving and we were just sightseeing and driving around off the betten path. He decided to take a dirt road that wasn't on the map (I thought he was stupid) eventually the road was gone and we got lost but what we came accross shocked me! there were pipes sticking out of the ground, they were about 6" across with vent things on the top and they stuck up out of the ground about 2 feet, about 15-20 feet apart kinda random. Then I looked off to my right and saw a truck just sitting there, to far away to see if someone was in it but it looked new. I was scared cause it was getting dark and we were lost (he thought it was cool).Anyway now it's dark and it started to snow so we got the sleeping bags out and hung a tarp over the side of our truck to make a tent and went to sleep. All of a sudden I hear a loud constant humm look up and can't beleave what I see Helicopters! alot of them, they were black, thin and long. They were all in a row one behind the other flying directly over us and I swear only 20 feet above us, at that point I knew we were somewere we should be. we packed up and eventually found our way out. Now what I found out. My brother is a retired 20 year Navy Sargent, he said he was swarn to secretcy but would tell me part of what he knows. He said he was there years ago and it was built and run by the Navy. He told me that THERE IS AN ENTIRE SELF CONTAINED CITY under there, stores, housing, medical, EVERYTHING NEEDED FOR CERTAIN SELECT PEOPLE TO LIVE when and if something bad happens. That is all he would tell me, he was so depressed ofer the whole conversation. Anyway, maybe things like this is why our millatry ends up commiting suiside or become alcoholics, because they know whats really going on, you know, the truth, and it's not something thay can live with.

i know this is a very old thread but i came across it and had to laugh a bit. i use to work out there. Hawthorne Army Depot is just a bunker complex we had to test the weapons every so often. it is the largest site we have. the lake was used for water based weapon systems.