Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, a “Area 51” da Austrália
In the heart of the scorching Red Center of Australia, about 1,500 kilometers from the nearest city, there is a military base of ultra-secret communications that few people know-and even less visited.
Officially known as Joint Defense Facility Pine Gap, or simply Pine Gapthe military base operated together by Australia and the United States, is sometimes compared to the infamous Area 51due to its secret nature and perimeters fiercely kept.
Established at the height of the Cold War, Pine Gap was born in 1966, when the two nations signed a treaty to create a base of intelligence On the outskirts of Alice Springs, in northern Australia, says the.
At the time, the project was presented to the public as an installation of spatial investigationthough in reality it was managed by the CIA to collect data from American spy satellites on nuclear capacities and Soviet missiles.
During the following decades, Pine Gap remained under American control, and Even the Australian Prime Minister was kept in ignorance of what was really going on.
However, from the 1980s, the scope of the installation began to expand and the Australian defense forces began to have higher operational authority at the base.
Currently, the facilities welcome 1,000 employeeswith a more or less equitable distribution between Australians and Americans. However, as in area 51, access to the public is strictly prohibitedand anyone who tries to enter the place will be arrested.
The only way to glimpse the mysterious installation is, therefore, from the air, although There is not much to see In addition to what looks like dozens of giant golf balls.
In fact, these massive spheres are Radics (“radar” + “dome”), structures that protect radio antennas that are in constant communication with satellites in the orbit of the earth.
And although little is known about exactly what is going on in Pine Gap, it is believed that the installation is an important node in surveillance operations CIA Global, providing information on military and civil activities worldwide as part of US anti -terrorism strategy.
The site also collects information for use in battlefield scenarios. Allegedly, played an important role in the coordination of military activities in Iraq during the Gulf War, and later in Afghanistan and in Syria.
For these reasons, the place has been Focus of numerous protestS against the war, and several activists were arrested as they tried to violate the pine gap perimeter.
However, although many in Australia have requested the end of base surveillance and military activities, the US continues to depend on its strategic location to control its spy satellites as they pass over the Asia-Picific region.
Perhaps unsurprising, and as in the case of original area 51, Pine Gap also became a focus of numerous Crazy conspiracy theorieswhich suggest government covering involving alien spaceships and other technologies.
Also as in area 51, however, the reality of what is going on is much less exciting – except, of course, in the plots of Hollywood movies.
