Greetings, from North America’s Uranium Ghost Towns

North America has its own Chernobyl(s). There are gold rush ghost towns, and then there are uranium ghosting towns; settlements which grew out of the “uranium fever” of the first part of the 20th century and testaments to an era when fear of nuclear war led to an unprecedented rush for a previously low-value mineral. But…

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This Ghost Town was aiming Nuclear Missiles at America from just 200km Away

When looking at abandoned places, I often think, ‘how sad’, and, ‘if only it could come back to life’. This place? Not so much. This is the secret Soviet city of Gudym, which once held enough nuclear weapons to wipe out half a continent. And during the height of the Cold War, had things gone south,…

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The Poisoned Paradise Island

We all know that America conducted nuclear bomb testing during the Cold War, somewhere out there, far away from us. Whatever damage was done has probably been healed by now, right? The above picture of a beautiful paradise island, listed as one of the top diving sites in the world, may seem idyllic but it’s…

The Most Beautiful Ruin In Chernobyl

It is the ferris wheel in Pripyat’s abandoned amusement park that gets the most attention. For intrepid explorers to Chernobyl’s iconic Exclusion Zone, the bright yellow seats of the fun fair ride provide a stark contrast to the concrete ruins, lying desolate all around. But on the outskirts of the small city, there is one particular…

Inside America’s Secret Atomic City

Most of the 75,000 residents of Oak Ridge, Tennessee had no idea they were processing uranium until the bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. They had settled in the mysterious town, a “secret city”, with very little knowledge of what they would do there, other than the promise that their work was going to help…

The 1970s Cold War Era Home Built 26 Feet Underground

You wouldn’t happen to be in the market for a 1970s underground family home, equipped to live in for up to a year without resurfacing in the event of a nuclear missile strike that wipes out humanity, would ya? Because it just so happens one has just come onto the market. And this piece of real estate…

Don’t Trust that Giant Abandoned Listening Device in Chernobyl

It looks like something out of a science fiction movie– close– it’s inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone. A former top secret military object used by the Soviet Union, the mysterious giant antenna system called the Duga-3, was the origin of an extremely powerful but anonymous signal between 1976 to 1989. The sharp, tapping signal came without warning,…

Casablanca & other American Film Classics being Preserved inside a Nuclear Bunker

I wrote an article a few years ago about “lost films”, which include the original film-adaptation of The Great Gatsby, an Alfred Hitchcock picture, several Oscar-winning movies and countless masterpieces that all vanished. More American silent films have been lost than have actually been preserved and more than half of sound films made in the U.S…

The Luxury Hotel with a Secret Cold War Bunker built for Congress

For thirty years, a luxury resort hotel in West Virginia played host to the world’s wealthiest holidaymakers, all the while covertly moonlighting as the secret underground bunker built to house the United States government in the event of a nuclear fallout… In preparation for a nuclear attack, every last member of the legislative branch would…

Take a Tour of a 1964 Underground Fallout Home

I found this little gem of a photo series on my weekly fish through the LIFE archives, accompanied by just a few clues to the full story behind it. Filed under “Underground House in Denver, photographed in 1964 by Robert W Kelley”, I did a quick Google search of underground homes built or exhibited in 1964. The most…