Inside a Nuclear Missile Silo
 

Last Thursday, three friends and I explored a decommissioned missile silo bunker near the town of Deer Trail, Colorado. The site is underground, and the only things visible on the surface are a couple vent shafts and the concrete roof of the access elevator, which is only about three feet high. We were able to get in through a hole that was cut into some grating that is located at the base of a depression in the landscape. The place has been abandoned for decades and is very decrepit. I had brought along a digital camera, but had completely forgot about it until we had been in the place for roughly fourty minutes.

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Here we are going down a tunnel that ran off from the entrance hall. My friend Dave's arm can be seen on the right. The springs on the ceiling were used for light fixtures, so that in case of bombardment, the bulbs wouldn't burst due to shaking.

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Daniel Jr. is on the left and Chris to the right. The tunnel runs for straight for about 300 meters.

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From left to right: Dave, Chris, and Daniel Jr., who was collecting things like batteries and candles in that bucket he found.

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If you believe "orbs" are spirit energy or ghosts, then there you go. I think it's simply a dust particle illuminated by the flash.

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Signs that the silo has been used since it was deactivated. Not quite sure if it was squatters or partying teenagers. There is a Mexican phone card near the cushion on the left, which lends to the idea that illegal immigrants were living there.

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The tunnel veers off to the right...

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ending in this room...

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which is filled with funky water...

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and an even funkier mattress. I'd hate to be the poor soul who slept on that thing.

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A veritable ghost party.

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Dave leads the way through the doorway on the right.

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The demon "Creo" greets us.

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The domed ceiling and what looks to be the remains of a catwalk. Also a lot of dust, I mean "orbs".

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A ladder leading into nowhere. I'm actually under the impression that this room and it's adjacant sister housed smaller missiles than the big daddies located elsewhere in the base. When the place was abandoned, these silos were filled in with dirt.

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Our intrepid explorers (left to right: Daniel Jr., Dave, myself, and Chris) pose with "Creo". A helpful ghost, or "haint" as I like to call them, took the picture for us. My hand is resting on our biggest source of light. It didn't illuminate as far as the other flashlights, but it could light up an entire room. It was also unwieldly when climbing up rusty ladders or balancing along a railing over brakish water and chasms filled with rusty sharp things.

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Creepy grafitti made with childrens hands. Atleast it's just white paint and not blood, eh?

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An old ventilation fan.

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My ugly mug. I like to think that I was the scariest (atleast looking) thing in the place. At this point I was walking over that nasty mattress.

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Going back down the tunnel towards the entrance hall. We were expecting a mutated beast to come shambling out of the darkness at us at any moment.

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Halfway down the tunnel, signs of violence. 30-30 and .45 shell casings lie scattered in the dirt.

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A barrel riddled with bullet holes. In another section of the complex, there were a lot of bullet holes in the walls, and I do mean a lot. If I had to guess, I would estimate a few hundred rounds were fired in the place. I like to pretend that a large and bloody gun battle was waged down there, but in reality it was probably a bunch of rednecks having fun.

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Here we are coming back into the entrace hallway. We had come from the right. The left led to the barracks, which was where the walls were filled with bullet holes. It was also noticably lived in as recently as a couple years ago. Ahead lay the tunnel towards the actual silos, which stretched on for atleast half a mile. In front of Dave is a rotting couch.

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A cable spool used for a table rests in the middle of the intersection. A cooking pot, potatoes, candles, and other junk lay on top.

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The blast doors for the entrance to the complex. On the far side is the cargo elevator that leads to the surface, some 80-100 feet above. We did not come in through this way.

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What I can only assume to be a fuel container graffited to let us know that Theresa rules.

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The other container, informing that Troy was killed by Dave and his body is in the blast, probably after Troy wrote that Dave sucked him first.

And that was the last picture I took. I wanted to take one of the door we had come through to this part of the complex, but my camera mysteriously shut off as I was about to snap it, and it didn't come back on. The batteries were fresh, and I got no low power warning. It was like something sucked all the juice out of it. Perhaps it didn't want me to take a picture of that door?

I was quite annoyed, as I only managed to capture about 10% of the place. Still ahead was the barracks, the missile silos themselves, the tunnels, all the side rooms, the bizarre things like a deflated raft filled with red fluid (maybe blood?) in one of the intersections, the large bird like nest with broken flashlights piled in it, the graffiti on the opposite side of the silo walls which could only be accessed by hanging from the pipes along the wall.

We saw two of the three silos. The first was filled with water until about twenty feet below where the access point was. The water in the second began about sixty feet down. In both, the ceiling was roughly fifty or sixty feet above us, and the far wall was a good sixty feet away as well. Daniel Jr. had brought a spool of twine inside, and tied it to a heavy bolt. He then threw it over the side into the water and we watched as the line ran. When it finally stopped, it had gone down atleast 100 feet. In all, the silos were somewhere around 150-180 feet tall. It was at this time when we heard the only inexplicable sound during the entire adventure. Something hit the wall on the opposite side, and could not be contributed to anything we had done.

After three hours in the place, our lights began to get dim. We still hadn't explored the tunnels that lead to Missile Control 3, but we felt it best to leave before our flashlights died. It would be no fun trying to feel our way out in the dark (infact, it would most definately result in injury or death), and cell phones were useless that far below ground, especially in a place designed to withstand a nuclear blast.

I definately want to go back, this time taking pictures from the start, and hopefully have the camera survive the entire trip. That third silo beckons to me, and I'm left wondering what secrets it holds. Perhaps a dead body or Nazi gold. Who can say?

That's pretty awesome. I wish we had those things in minnesota where i knew about them.

Very cool. That reminds me of when I snuck around an abandoned mental hospital with a group of friends when I was about 12 or so. We found a chair with straps on it and other very creepy things like a jar with a finger. About six months later we told some adults about our adventure (some of us couldn't take the nightmares- not me of course) and found out that some college kids had shot a horror movie there for film school. Don't forget some pepper spray if you go back.. just in case.

I went back last Friday and took over 270 pictures, but I don't really feel compelled to share, seeing how the original post took over an hour of my time and all I got was two responses. Perhaps if a few people ask, I will put some of them up.

nice work...i've never gotten to do that kind of exploring...but the highlight reel is pretty sweet.

filth...http://www.actionsquad.org/

No silos, but some really nice shots from urban adventures all over the city. The St. Paul tunnel missions are some of my favs.

Just found this... very cool. I love to explore abandoned buildings.

And ever since I saw that the US was selling off some of the missle silos, I've wanted to buy one, fix it up and live in it... my wife thinks I'm crazy and swears she will never live underground.

Check out this site: www.infiltration.org

Hmmm...them potatoes don't look all that old. Someone tryin' to cook 'em with all of those tea light candles?
Too many signs of "habitation" for my liking, although I do love exploring that kinda stuff.

That's very cool...

I'm not sure i'd be brave enough to explore it -- but it's very cool to see someone else's adventures

we have one of those in my town but the town sealed it up... i soo wish that darn thing was still open.... your pictures rock

I figure something must have happened that it did not get a lot of notice. The first time I saw this thread was this morning and I didn't have time to check it out then but wanted to make a point of getting back to it later. Exploring something like that is something that would surely interest me.

And like Charlatan, I'd think it cool to convert one of those into some way out underground dwelling but my wife would be damned to live underground too.

That looked like a fun adventure, though maybe a little creepy. Thanks for taking the time to post some of the pictures. I'm interested in seeing a picture of one of the missle if you care to post it?

can you leave directions to that site or PM them to me? i am a coloradoan and woudl love to go there

Man, you guy's got balls. I'd shit my pants in a second in a place like that.

yea, take me!! TFP coloradoan, trip to a decomissioned missile silo!!

Just saw this thread for the first time today. Those are some great pics. If you feel so inclined, maybe just post a few of your favorites from the batch of 270? Or do like 5 at a time a couple days apart, so that this thread keeps getting bumped.

I know how you feel about multiple image posts, don't know how those TB guys do it.

Ah, much better response. I'll try to post something up as soon as I have enough free time.

Akula, the missiles have long since been removed, so no pictures of those. It would be a bit insane if the government left a handful of Titan 2 ICBMs down there to rot.

To my fellow Coloradans, I can't take anyone, since I'm going to boot camp on the 12th. The site lies a bit northwest of the town of Deer Trail, which is about 60 miles east of downtown along I-70. I will try to give you directions now. Go to this link:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp...te=CO&zipcode=
Now zoom in until you can see street names. You want to take 7th Ave (labelled 217) north until you come to E-Cr 22 (I think). The road only goes east, so if you are heading north, make a right turn. The turn off should be a bit rough, as it isn't paved very well. There are a few houses scattered around to the north of the road. Just head along the road, and before it bends back to the north, you should see a smaller, unkempt road continuing on relatively straight. Follow that road until you come to a big round concrete block sticking out of the ground. The entrance to the site is just east of that where the ground dips into a steep depression.

I recommend you let some people know where you are going just in case. Also, bring atleast two or three friends along. Wear boots (steel-toed if you have them) and gloves (leather or similar). I also recommend a coat, pants, and a head covering. Bring atleast two powerful flashlights, and many smaller ones. Make sure the batteries are charged and can last for a long time. It took us four hours to explore everything that was possible without being really risky. Some places are pretty dangerous, and if you fall into one of the silos, you are basically fucked. I would also suggest you bring some sort of protection, since it's hard to say who or what you might run into down there. Both times, Dave was carrying a pistol. I wouldn't bring anything large, like a long gun or a sword, since there are spots where you don't want anything unwieldly to impede your movement.

More pictures to come soon.

Very, very awesome. I'd love to explore something like that.

Quick question... Those potatoes and such on the spool... You found them there like that? They didnt look too rotten, someone had been there very recently...

Ok, here we go.

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This is the entrance elevator, but it isn't the way to get in anymore.

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Here is the group that went this time. From left to right: Chris (my friend), Steve (Chris' brother and also my friend), Sam (Steve's girlfriend), Dave (my friend), Delilah (Dave's sister), Myself, Daniel Jr. (Dave's nephew and also my friend), and Damion (Daniel Jr.'s brother). Even though none of these pictures are sexual in any nature what so ever, and no court would ever convict Halx, I have blacked out the minors to keep with TFP policy.

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The best way to enter the site now. There is another way in, but it involves climbing down a ladder for about eighty feet.

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Some kind of fuel tank just inside the entrance.

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Inside the fuel tank. You can see it is very long, as the flash couldn't capture the back wall. Note: I did not climb inside, merely stuck the camera in and snapped a couple shots.

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Bottom of the fuel tank. Cans and an old rubber glove inside.

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A long dead animal. We reached a concensus that it is probably the corpse of a badger.

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The bottom of a ventilation shaft. If one fell in, it would be a) very painful and b) difficult to climb back out. It's about 12-15 feet down.

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The top of the same vent shaft, a good 30 feet above.

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A ladder into nowhere. One has to wonder what exactly they filled in with all this earth.

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To the right is the way we came in, to the left is the fuel tank, behind me is the badger corpse and the vent shaft, and ahead lies the rest of the complex.

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That hall eventually comes out into this. It's a nice twenty foot fall into pain if you slip through a hole in the catwalk. You do have to go down to get to the actual silos.

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The makeshift bridge someone made to help going over the beams. It is pretty damn scary to cross over, especially the first time you do it.

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One of the many gaps in the catwalk with a good view of the bottom. I also think the way the camera captured the blue light from the flashlight is pretty cool.

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A row of hoppers, most likely to collect dust from the ventilation system.

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The very steep stairs going down.

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And I do mean steep.

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What you have to look forward to landing on if you fall from the catwalk.

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Yep, sure looks like a cushy spot to hit, don't you think.

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Or perhaps you miss the first level and plummet an extra five to ten feet into a crack filled with water.

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A hole filled with oily water. The water is about five feet deep.

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Sam found some fake roses. Pretty weird.

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I was trying to take a picture of this door from the other side when my camera died the last time. It leads from the painful spikey room into...

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The hallway with the creepy table, which is just barely visible in the darkness. To the right are those fuel containers with the yellow graffiti that I took pictures of last time. The first left is to the access elevator, while the second leads down the long hall that featured in the first series. Straight ahead lies the "barracks". To the right of the table is the hall leading to the main silos.

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Blast door to the elevator.

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The elevator motor.

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The elevator shaft. About fifty or sixty feet up to the surface.

Ok, that's enough for now. I still have another 170 or so pictures to browse through, including pictures of the silos, the raft, and the nest. I'll put them up later.

those are really cool pictures... glad you all made it out in one piece

Man, this stuff is cool. If I lived out there, I'd ask to tag along. Totally awesome.

I had missed the word silo in my original post. Thanks for all the cool pictures, seems like quite a large place.

Looking at these pics makes me want to play Half-Life 2 again. :D

Fascinating photos. I commend you on your sense of adventure. Almost started hyperventilating at the thought of going down there.

I want one of these silos even more...

urban exploration is great. you gotta be careful... some people use those place to squat, always go in groups... and bring some kind of weapon in case of an altercation.