Buried under Greenland’s ice: The secret US Army base Nasa rediscovered in 2024
NASA has rediscovered the remains of Camp Century, a secret US military base built under the Greenland ice sheet in 1959. The base, originally intended for nuclear missile testing, now poses environmental concerns as melting ice threatens to expose buried toxic waste and machinery.
Why it matters
The rediscovery highlights the intersection of Cold War military history and modern climate change, raising questions about the environmental legacy of abandoned infrastructure in the Arctic.
Imagine building a secret base under a vast ice sheet, only to abandon it half a decade later!That’s what the United States of America did over half a century ago. Beneath Greenland’s ice sheet, the US Army once hid a secret base that almost vanished from history. Back in 1959, engineers dug out Camp Century: not just a cold-climate research station, but the staging ground for a wild military experiment. Behind official talk of science and engineering, planners hoped to test whether America could install nuclear missiles in a network of tunnels and caverns gouged from the ice, invisible to enemies and unreachable in a crisis.For years, the base stayed out of sight, sealed up and forgotten as heavy snow and shifting ice layers piled on top. In April 2024, Camp Century emerged back into the spotlight.
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