Big Hole (NC secret installation)

Check out this image from Google Maps:

Google Maps

Anybody got ideas? I think it's a communications center. It's out in Pittsboro, NC. I've actually driven out there and up to it but there's a roadblock in front of it. The funny thing to me is the irregularly shaped clearings all around it. Also, ex-employees have reported that there is an expansive underground complex and that the buildings you can see are just the tip of the iceberg. Those two buildings in the middle are the only significant structures on the area, other than the guardposts. The line you see running around it is a barbed-wire fence. Here's another picture:

Pic 2

One of the weirdest things is the bizarre shapes the buildings are in.

Here are the facts I know about it:
-It's run by AT&T under government contract
-There's an AT&T office just down the road from it
-It's definitely an underground complex, the question is what they use it for now
-It was built as an AUTOVON switching center, but now apparently serves a different purpose, because AUTOVON is dead and it is still operational.
-Many of the communications dishes have disappeared over the years
-It is, supposedly, one of about twenty ex-AUTOVON sites to have been fully hardened and equipped to survive everything but a direct hit from a ballistic missile



[edit on 29-12-2005 by holafromdurham]

I dont know if THIS would help you, there is a few web sites if you serch Google.

This is a very intresting pics by the look of the pics.

[edit on 29-12-2005 by picklewalsh]

Check here. It's an old Tropospheric scattering array station. It was used for continunity of government communications during the cold war. I live about 10 miles from the station known as VA-6 which is between Charlottesville and Gordonsville atop Peter's Mountain. Much speculation as to what goes on up there, they are currently renovating. Tropospheric Scatter Array is not used anymore so some of these sites are shutdown and defunct. But yours and mine are not, they are still fully functional for some other use. I know from being a firefighter in the area that anytime we have to go up there for something like a brush fire, the firefighters have to sign a non-disclouser agreement. I've never been up there but I've heard. -muzz

Hello and welcome to ats, you are practically my neighbor

I found this very interesting, as I have traveled by this area many times over the years and I have never read nor heard about this installation.
Thanks for the post.

Man-
That map is awesome. Great find.

What could they be used for now? I mean, communication is all done over encrypted IP tunnels now. I doubt it's doing comm work. But they haven't abandoned them and, in your case, it's under renovation. It appears to me that they're taking on a completely new purpose. Possibly missile defense, possibly research, I have no idea. What I do know is that mine expands for probably 8 or more floors underground. Throw some ideas at me.

I'm always interested by geofront and subterrainean stuff. I did some looking around in several sources of aerial/sattellite imagery (the free stuff, of course) and found a decent shot from above. It's telling that the imagery available for this specific area was restricted to an arbitrarily lesser resolution than that available for anywhere about 100 yards away from it's perimeter. Obviously even if it's scaled back by AT&T, it's probably just a matter of re-tooling. It's still a sensitive area.

Big Hole Aerial Image

In the linked picture, I've marked several things. The orange arrow and red circles refer to the original poster's "pic 2" image from outside the fence. The arrow indicates the probable angle of the viewer, and the red circles indicate the two structures visible in such. The blue circles indicate what the image was unable to show, the main entrances to the facility. The southernmost one appears to be a pedestrian enterance to the semi-sub level. The northern one looks like it could fit a sizable motorvehicle.

If they ever really retire this place, I'd love to buy it. First thing to go in would be a giant swimming pool. If you're going to go swimming, you might as well do it shielded from EMP and nearby nuclear explosions!

Whoa. Whoa. WHOA.

I just read the Independent article. Listen to this quote:



Now that's weird. I mean, I have no reason to believe it, but then again, I have no reason not to, either.

But here's some more about the structure of it:

1. The whole underground portion is suspended from a superstructure ceiling to cushion bomb blasts
   
2. The bottom floor sits on a cradle of gravel and springs
   
3. The walls are one and a half foot thick concrete and are sheathed with copper to protect from EMP pulses
   
4. They have independent emergency generator systems
   
5. They have room, food, and medical supplies to sustain thirty people for at least three weeks
   
6. The have decontamination chambers and air filtration systems for the entire facility
   

This is bizarre. It makes it seem like they almost consider it a possible target from enemy missiles, which is sorta worrisome.

Anyway, interesting stuff. It reminds me of Half-Life, except close to home.

Bighole is just one of the many COG sites around the US. The facilities were upgraded a year or two ago and the networks are being updated too. After 9/11 all COG sites were slated to receive MAJOR updates...and righlty so.

Wait

I know I sound like an idiot, but what does COG stand for??

Wait...continuity of government???

So lemme get this straight...we're talking small-time Mount Weather here?

[edit on 1-1-2006 by holafromdurham]

It's a troposcatter communications link, from back in the days before internet, fiber optics, and reliable high bandwidth satellite communications.

Troposcatter was 1960's tech of how to get "somewhat longer than line-of-sight" communications. Presumably cables were considered vulnerable?

Perhaps this was suitable for 'broadcast' communication to mobile receivers not on a network or something. It was intended for post-nuclear-attack military communications.

I bet that these days they re-use the facilities for secure military internet links.

I am from the lower part of chatham co. The Hole is an old anolog comunication system that has been "hardened". I was mostly solenoid relay switch gear, which is much less suseptible to emp than silicon chips. As far as what is happening there now I have not heard anything but i believe it would be upgrading to a new comunications system. And as far as Randy Pelosi goes, there are a lot of "dreamers" that live in the Pittsboro area. Highway 15-501 and HWY 64 passes within 8 miles of the hole so if it was a note worty event that he witnessed i would expect alot of other observers saw it to as these are haevily traveled roads.