Military bases in Antarctica?

My g/f's brother works for Raytheon. He is in the Army Reseve but works for the Navy. All of a sudden he had to go to Antarctica for a month to install some new system there. Hes kind of a jerk so I dont ask him any questions. Are there military bases there? What could possible be of interest there its freezing?

A lot of the major powers of the world (UK, Australia, Russia, and I'm sure some others) all have bases on Antartica. All are scientific, and I'm pretty sure the American ones are run by the military. I know the McMurdo Base (American) is huge in comparison to all the others. I think it staffs a couple thousand people, too. It's all science though, no wars or anything being fought down there (though others may beg to differ.)

well, it's summer there,. Which usually means a lot of resupply and maintinace type stuff that they normally can't do becasue it is dark and cold

With a bit of fanatasy : maybe there is a second HAARP faccillity at the southpole to help have more control in modulating the ionisphere.

www-star.stanford.edu...

[edit on 2-2-2005 by Countermeasures]

All U.S bases in Antartica are run by the NSF (National Science Foundation)
Supported by the Raytheon Polar Services Company. The military routinely resupplies
these bases and also provides emergency airlift. As far as I know
the Military has no active role in these bases except for logistical support

Here is an interesting site for further info.

rpsc.raytheon.com...

Under the Antartic treaty the US cant have a military bases up there.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Antartic Treaty, December 1, 1959

The Governments of Argentina, Australia Belgium, Chile, the French Republic, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the Union of South Africa, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America,

Recognizing that it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord;

Article I
1. Antarctica shall be used for peaceful purposes only. There shall be prohibited, inter alia, any measures of a military nature, such as the establishment of military bases and fortifications, the carrying out of military maneuvers, as well as the testing of any types of weapons.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I guess if you were not a member of the treaty you could try to put a military base up there, but I doubt the member countries would like that too much.


www.yale.edu...

I can't say for sure that this applies to your question, but I do know that they are building new facilities at several of the US stations as we speak.

The US Navy has personnel at several of the stations. That said, the international treaty dictates that no participating country will engage in "military" operations in Antarctica.

This is not surprising since the Navy is loosely associated with NOAA which
has a fairly good presence in Antartica

With that being said the NSF keeps pretty tight tabs on the installations down
there and does not allow any visitors that have not been pre approved in a
lengthy process. They have even turned down adventurers visiting the South
Pole station or severly limiting their access. Thus making the South Pole
station the most isolated and restricted installation in the world!

Check out (google) Ratheon Polar Supply, here is a link that lists all the positions they are recruiting for. Antartica is the next boom town, so to speak, given the various governments that conduct research, and the tourism industry that is quickly developing .
www.polar.org...

The Navy used to run something called Operation Deep Freeze. They even gave campaign ribbons for people who wintered over in Antarctica. But yeah like people said, it's all scientific. I knew a supply officer who was stationed there for
2 years. From what he said, it's really boring. Not like a supply officer would know any operational details though. I'm not clear on exactly how many people are there, but he told me that most personnel leave for the winter. It's only maybe a few hundred that stay during the worst part of the season. It's so cold that you do not go outside unless you have a specific task that needs to be done. Basically they keep some people around to just maintain the base.

Back in the 90's i was maintaince for C-141's and worked on a transient aircraft from Mcguier AFB on it's way to none other than Antartica. The plane was loaded to the gills with high exposives and m-60 machine guns- susposidly going to fly non stop there aerial refeuling all the way. does make one wonder.

i just came back from the other end of the globe after a year at the US's northern most base. Thule Greenland used to be a super secret facility and there is TONS of history up there- most of it still classified. Do an internet search about "camp TOTO" or "Century city" sometime. With what has been done in the past at Thule only lends more validity to theories of something going on at the South pole.

There is something there for sure that major powers want in on, that's why we [UK] fought in the Falklands to have the right for land in Antartica [all neighbouring countries split the land].

If there was anything big going on in Antarctica or any other remote location we'd know from satellites.

That's what people say about Area51.

Didn't a satellite photo of an airstrip at area 51 eventually come out though?

I don't have any knowledge of recent activities in Antarctica, but things seemed a little heated down there in the 40s. The Germans were aggressively targeting whalers down there and established a base at Neuschwabbenland, then Argentina laid claim to British possessions down there during the war. Britain was so offended that they diverted a few ships from the war effort to go establish a presence. One of the ships was a troop carrier but the brits claim there was no substantial number of troops- just a crew to establish a weather station.

After the war, the US Navy all of a sudden put together a crash operation to go to Antarctica. They even sent a brand new aircraft carrier that was fresh off its shakedown cruise and NOT ready for operations. The whole mission was put together within a single year, from conception to execution. They landed in two prongs and converged on the area that Germany called Neuschwabbenland in a pincer move, then moved inland from there. They left over a month early, without waiting for a second chance to map a couple of areas that had been obscured earlier by weather, without their land expedition reaching the south pole. They just decided it was time to go home early.
Last but not least, when a PBY aircraft was downed by a strange phenomenon similiar to "foo fighters" which had harassed bomber crews over Germany in the war, the surviving crewman were airdropped RIFLES immediately upon being located. What in the bloody bloody hell do you need a rifle for in Antarctica?

Call me paranoid, but Antarctica was and may or may not still be home to bases which are not widely acknowledged to exist.

I am also intrigued by the ban on military forces there. That is unique in all of the world isn't it? What could be somewhere that we would make it illegal to send troops there and say that no nation could lay claim to the land? Once again I'm going WAY out there on a completely unfounded limb, but I believe that a something of tremendous scientific, historical, or political value must either have been found or been built there. Ruins? Life? Haarp? I have no clue.

What I'm saying s that shots can be taken of both places, and we still don't know what's going on!

Gotcha Nexus, I was telling Sinnocent .

Antarctica is considerably more restricted though. Did you know that for Americans it's illegal to just go to Antarctica? You have to file your travel plans with the government and go through their red tape.

Also, why would anybody send a satellite directly over antarctica? It would serve little purpose it seems and on top of that, I would assume that if there is anything important there it's not an airstrip like area 51, which means it may not be constructed on the surface.

Something big was going on down there in Oct/04. It was pretty hush-hush but one theory had to do with an incoming asteroid and that it coud be best viewed by scientisits there. Oh, and lot of activity began to happen at the Denver IA. which I suppose is a story unto itself.

Dallas

I will just say that all of the worlds major players have a big intrest in antartica which is odd as we are told its pretty much a ice wasteland. I think that antartica is a place of huge importance to the world, as all of the sceintific work getting done their.....there has to be a reason why.
There is another post on the same topic somewhere on ATS, a group of members were trying to form a expedition group to be able to get into antartica to find out for themselves what is going on down there.
Anyway my thoery is that the first civilization originated from there, and there is some very old ruins under the ice that scientists are trying to examin. Being able to see the root of humanity, will bear great fruit for humanity.