Is there a lab equivalent of Area 51, page 1

the factors weighing against the probabilities of such a " secret jungle base " are :

logic , security and logistics

LOGIC : why does the base HAVE to be in the jungle ? only anthropologists and animal behaviorists like goodall and fossey HAVE to travel to the natural habitat of their target study . And these people ` go native ` and blend into the environment – with minimal ecological impact

Real life genetics research into the viability of endangered species is conducted in England , Germany and the USA – with only one junior research assistant actually “ in country “ collecting samples and maintaining tracking equipment which can be monitored via internet connection

SECURITY :

Having a secret jungle base may seem cool – but its really a security nightmare – your base has to have a security force and defensive works – that raise profile and cost

Having virgin jungle 5m from your perimeter means you have no idea whether you are under surveillance , or an attack force is being assembled

Everything you move in and out is seen by any one who wants to wonder what goes on there .

LOGISTICS :

A remote facility that is not self sustaining , requires that every piece of equipment and and every ton of stores / supplies it needs to be shipped out to it

That includes staff – you cannot isolate a cutting edge scientific team in secret for long periods and expect them to come up with breakthroughs in secret

This may sound obvious , but think about how your life would be if you lived 100km from anywhere else ? you have to develop a self sustaining life style or plan to bring everything in in bulk – and store it –

Just imagine having to buy EVERYTHING for a 6 month stay , You cannot just “ dash out to the store “ for anything – everything has to be bunkered , or you do without .

And how do you know what your science team will ACTUALLY need ?? they may start a project on one track – but shift abruptly – and need to develop an entire new focus – how are you going to deal with that , stuck in the middle of no where ?

Every re-supply convoy which visits your “ secret “ base increases its profile

Self sustainability increases your footprint , and you can only support a limited population – Now try to conduct cutting edge scientific research in your basement
its also labour intensive – if you want scientists to actually do research – they cannot be growing their own food too

You will find that for every dollar you send on your " secret jungle base " only 5 cents is actually spent on science – the rest is swallowed up in vastly over inflated operations budgets , a prime real life example is Antarctic climate research – a base on the Ross ice shelf to study climate changes in the Weddell sea will have an operations budget many times that a lab in the Boston suburbs , conducting studiers of weather patterns in new England of a similar scope

all these factors conspire to make the " secret jungle base " a plot device only worthy of bad movies . maybe I just avoid bad movies , but the nearest thing I can think of to a " secret jungle base " of the type you imply was the base in " deep blue sea "

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and that broke every " rule " I have described – there was absolutely zero reason for it to be guilt in the location and configuration it was , other than to advance the dire plot – everything that occurred there could have been conducted in a secure wing at a shore based oceanographic lab , and a shore based lab would have contained the situation in short order

IMHO the only reason " secret jungle bases " occur in bad movies is because if the action was not at a secret jungle base -- the film could be wound up in 5 minutes , with all threat averted , and only one token death

That ladies and gentlemen is why there are “ secret jungle bases “ , besides . Real secret research , already occurs on a massive scale at facilities like the LLNL , Los Alamos , the CDC-P , LM ` skunk works ` , Porton down , Aldermaston etc etc the closest thing you will find to the kind of secret base you want would be the soviet era bioperat facilities and weapons development ` military towns ` - built miles from anywhere .

The big difference is they had at least the benefit of economies of scale – the staff, of 10s of thousands in many cases NEVER left the support city and you had a viable economy curtsey of all the ancillary staff – providing catering , service industries etc to the “ secret “ plant – few who knew exactly what went on in the huge industrial parks that dominated their city . and supplies etc could be shipped in by rail in BULK and more important – the city itself was semi self sustaining – it had its own light industry etc .

A more frightening example is / was the primate research lab located in the DC belt way , according to Richard Preston the facility was just a faceless grey building , but in the mid 90s they had an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in the monkeys which was barely contained [ all within 50m of day to day Washington life ]

Still think you need a secret jungle base ?