Machrihanish AFB, Scotland's AREA 51

Posted on the old board by Scottish Investigator

Machrihanish AFB is on the Mull Of Kintyre peninsula in South West Scotland. It has over the years been used in testing many planes including the F-117A in its 'black' days.

But it has also been linked with the testing of the possible 'aurora' hypersonic airplane and there is evidence to support a plane capable of such speeds operating here with the locals often reporting terrific sonic booms rippling through the sky near the base.

>>The news about the base first came out after an RAF Radar Man picked up a unidentified object travelling at MACH3+. An airplane having to accelerate on take off to reach such speed could easily operate from Machrihanish with its 3mile + runway. It is so large as Machrihanish is a Emergency Airfield Overflow (EAOF) site.

>>The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute investigated earth tremors and strange shock waves across the Fresian Coast. They reckon the cause was that of a sonic boom from an airplane travelling at 4,000Mph

>>To support the claim of mysterious aircraft being flown here and over the whole of Scotland the
United States Air Force was operating there w/ a possible large secret underground facility that is rumoured to be guarded by elite US Navy SEALs troops. The base�s runway is also east/west facing making it easy for secret airplanes to land unnoticed (even though the population near-by is small to say the least).

>>More support for the operating of secret aircraft here is the Chris Gibson sighting. He was working on the Galveston Key oilrig when he and colleagues looked up only to see two F-111s and a large triangular aircraft refuelling from a KC-135 tanker.

However, the Americans left the now reported to be deactivated Machrihanish after a crash of a Boeing Chinook helicopter which had all of Britain�s top intelligence officers in Northern Ireland on it. The original reasons for the crash were human error and computer software failing. But there is a third cause and that is a sonic boom from an aircraft going into a high Mach speed.

Machrihanish has a skeleton staff but is still guarded like Fort Knox.

The chairman of the Scottish Earth Mysteries Research Ron Halliday claims that parts of Scotland are being used in the same way as AREA 51 to test mysterious aircraft. Apparently the MoD owns large areas of land in Scotland much that is hard to access and no body as any idea why they own it. Halliday believes that flying disks could be hid in mountain sides in Scotland and be flown at night and the highlands has very sparse small to large areas of housing making it easy to test these planes with no one seeing.

Also any investigations made to the MoD about UFO sightings in Scotland are always dismissed as quick as a flash as though they know something but do not want anything to come out of it.

Though as with AREA 51 we will likely never know what activities were being carried out at the base or over the skies of Scotland.

oh yeah, more machrihanish info can be found by going to www.area51researchcenter.com...

Reply on the old board by mindshift

Terra Server allows you to look at other places... if they didn't I highly doubt these would be the 'Hot Spots' on the website:

Hot Spots
Baghdad, Iraq
Islamabad, Pakistan
Invasion Of Normandy Imagery
Khyber Pass, Pakistan
Jalalabad, Afghanistan

I guess a lot of people are looking to see if they can spot Osama bin Laden. Man... if those are 1 meter resolution pictures, I'd love to see what the CIA, FBI, and NSA has access to. What.. like 1 inch resolution? Sheesh.. That'd be like able to see facial expressions on people clearly!

And Simon is right about the X and Y co-ordinates. You can only search by name for the US.

------

This is the best I could find in 10 minutes: archive.spaceimaging.com... .3.0.jpg

Geographical information for Machrihanish, Scotland:
Longitude: -5.73309
Latitude: 55.4226
(gathered from www.whereonearth.com...)

Reply on the old board by phait

If you go here:

www.ordsvy.gov.uk...

and then click on the big green 'get map' button then simply click on the mull of kintyre area you can zoom in to machrahanish. Interesting thing is that Campbeltown Airport is shown but not Machrahanish itself, although the strip etc is indicated, it is not indicated as an RAF base.

Reply on the old board by zion

I have just received this in an email;
(don't know if it's true though...)

Hey fellow BT ers. Hows everyone doing ? Well, just found out last
nite from a reliable source within the Royal Air Force that
Machrihanish will become a fully "official" operating base as of
sometime next year. Its going to be one the main bases for the New
joint helicopter strike force. A lot of new hangars etc are going to
be built aswell as multilple helicopter landing areas. The base wil
be operating Chinooks, puma's, lynx and most likely some Apaches will
be there aswell. Also suppose to be a few C-130 Hercs and possibly C-
17 Globemasters going to be there.
That should make for some damn fine photos and some fantastic radio
intercepts. Ill keep you guys up to date with any new news i get.

Take it easy

Kev

=======
Can anyone confirm this?

Reply on the old board by phait

well I'm sure that some of the members on this board will be able to verify it in the full test of time...

Did your source say where he actually got it from? I would've that sooner or later either the RAF or the House of Commons will have it recorded somewhere, maybe even the GAO asits gonna eat up our pounds keeping that baby going.

While serving with the Army, I spent a night at the RAF base, as a stopover, on the way further north. It was part of a joint RAF/Army exercise. The base runway is huge. We were camped at the north end of the runway so didn't see much of the place, but it's easy to see how something secret could be hidden and tested there.

Regarding the Chinook crash. I heard a rumour that it was caused because they were testing Aurora there at the time.

i lives in skotland, not near makrihanish, but ive been once. it was windy

i heard a lot of activity in the air, loud jet engines, but could never see anything in the sky, so i dont doubt they're testing really fast planes

RAF Machrihanish was closed during the mid 1990's after the USA's SEALS unit 2 were relocated to Germany. It remains on a care & maintainance basis.

It is unlikely that secret testing takes place at the site now as a factory manufacturing wind turbines has been built near the hangers and the base housing units have been purchased by a private developer and are now available to buy (www.soundofkintyre.co.uk...).

Runway 30/12 remains the longest runway in Scotland and one of the longest in Europe and is still listed as an Emergency Airfield Overflow Site.

Commerical services are operated from the opposite end of the runway by Loganair on behalf of British Airways Express.

Interesting point of note, the crash scene at the start of the 1985 movie "White Nights" was filmed at RAF Machrihanish, the location having been chosen due to the local scenery being similar to that in Siberia.

I've just returned from the base, not very heavily guarded anymore, British Marines are there, gaydon hanger was pretty big inside, they still have secret acts sign up at the entrance etc. I saw two guard towers from a distance and was to that it was an ex nuclear facility... But basically I didn’t see a sign of anything unusual except an abandoned RAF police station with electricity and a working radio, it also had various doors with radiation signs (not due to asbestos because there was only one locked room with a sign saying that...)

Come on guys! I think you are reading abit more into this than really exists. For starters US Navy SEALs do not guard military installations, why spend all that time and money training them so that they can do the job of a security officer. Secondly Navy SEALs were based in Scotland during the 'Cold War' so they could be inserted into 'rear areas' by either aircraft or submarine, anyone who knows their history, knows there was a US Navy installation at Holy Loch. And remember that RAF Mac was to be used as a anti-submarine and maritime reconnasiance base during a conflict with the Soviets and that the nuclear weapons stored there would have likely to have been depth charges or torpedoes. I am not arguing the fact that secret projects don't exist and that things don't go on, but at least look logically at things and at least read a few books from the library they are very good at giving some very important clues in all of this. I am willing to discuss this further if anyone wishes to.

I reckon when the government say its closed, Its actually still being used no matter how deserted it looks.

Quite interesting to hear as I live in Scotland to though to be honest do not have a clue where Mackhinrash is, could somebody give me a clue as to where it is near?

Originally posted by marcopolo
Quite interesting to hear as I live in Scotland to though to be honest do not have a clue where Mackhinrash is, could somebody give me a clue as to where it is near?

Check out google maps

There are now some better sat pics on multimap if anyone is interested!

Thanks Bramski, shame its a bit to far from me or else I would have definately checked it out lol.

Sweetman's book claims that the Mach 3 radar blip was seen before the SR-71 was publicly released, faster than any known craft at the time. Or so I believe. If so, then it either was an SR-71 or something faster.

Has anyone ever heard of some sort of alien life round macharnish. Most people suspect this is the main reason for bases like area 51 and S4. Although area 51 also does secret flight testing.

This is a good site to look at if you are interested in secret bases past and present in the UK: www.freerepublic.com...

RAF Macrihanish is in there somewhere. I think you'll just have to dig a bit deeper.

This is a much better site and gives pics etc:
homepage.ntlworld.com...

[edit on 1-1-2007 by fritz]

Hey, Ive been sitting at my comp when I hear a strange noise coming form the sky, sort of like a soft oom-mmmm (lol I know that looks silly), and afterwards an average plane noise and then it started again, someone mentioned the sound of a "sonic-boom" earlier in this thread, Im just speculating, was wondering if someone here can help me with this?

Machrihanish is now closed. The MOD recently declared the base as surplus to requirement. I'm not sure what the plans are for the former RAF base now. Perhaps it will be returned to agricultual land.

I was stationed there in the early 90s. Honestly guys/gals, there is nothing of interest at that base, there is no underground area and the SSA was always empty whilst I was there. This would be the last place in the UK to do secret testing as all around the airfield you are surrounded by hills that are open to the public, with a cheap pair of binoculars you can see everything.

As for the alien influence, I think someone's been to Campbeltown and mistaken the locals.

I have been to the site where the Chinook crashed several times and if you ever get there you will understand why it happened, this was just a tragic accident.

I spent little over 2 years there and had a ball of a time, we were forever signing local lasses onto the base, hell even a few of my mates (civvies) from Edinburgh came over for the weekend and we put them up in the regular barrack block, I bet they can't out at Groom lake.

I,m an ex adult warrant officer of the ATC,i finished 12 years ago.One of the girl cadets went into the RAF,and became a driver.She went a great many times to Macrahanish,and more than once she was ordered to stay in the car after dropping off the bigwig she had taken there. She was not interested in the slightest as to what was going on,but my interest was greatly aroused.Can anyone put up a photo of this base,as i would like to get some idea of the size etc.
She did have her camera taken away on one occasion,as i remember.
I am v curiose,even after all these years.
At 63,i have just got access to a computer!!!!!

i live near the area n jets do fly over but nothing different just the usal activity in that area.

To Anon ex warrant,

Download google earth if you haven't already got it and then view RAF Mach, it has now been snapped by satellite in glorious high res.

This base has a couple of hills nest to it that the public can access and with a SMALL set of binoculars you could view the entire base.

Logan air used to fly into the base running a passenger service from Glasgow twice a day, do you really think that a top secret installation would allow paying passenger flights?