I am going to play the devils advocate here and question why all of the major underground activity happens out west. It is a curious thing, It is common knowledge locally that there is amassive underground system (not saying this is military or EBE inhabited)under the south St. Louis county area one of the largest in North America or so I am told.

I am not asking this saying that people are wrong or anything like that I am just saying that maybe we in the midwest should keep our eyes a little more open. For instance did anyone else know that there is a massive amount of armaments in the Federal Building in Downtown St. Louis not just handheld or light weaponry but we are talking about tanks and anti aircraft weaponry and so on, I am not sure how forth coming information will be on this if you ask around in fact I am sure that you will get a yeah right which what I am sure you will think in reading this as this is what I thought when I was told and that is what I thought until I was shown.
as you know this is the MEPS center for the local area and I was told about this when I was entering the service and shown one day while we were waiting on test results, I was to say at the very least left in amazement and shock.

Originally posted by geocom
For instance did anyone else know that there is a massive amount of armaments in the Federal Building in Downtown St. Louis not just handheld or light weaponry but we are talking about tanks and anti aircraft weaponry and so on,

I don't mean to sound like this is not true or unbelievable but, what proof do you have of this.. And if that type of equipment is under the middle of Downtown St. Louis. How did they manage to get it in without being noticed? I mean, you can't just slip a tank into your pocket or anything like that... Equipment that size wouldn't go unnoticed...

Hi, First time poster.

I live in the metro east area of St. Louis and this area does have an extensive network of abandon and functioning coal mines. So much so that when I bought my house here I was highly encouraged to purchase home owners insurance specifically to cover coal mine collapses.

Re: The supposed weapons referenced may be to defend St.Louis's most valuable national resource--- BEER!

The items that I saw specifically were the M1A1 Abrams tank
the other items were not necessarily heavy artillery but things like Tow
missles and so on. And as far as how they got there up until the early 90's St. Louis had one of the biggest Armories in the country which has now closed but alot of the property is still owned by the DOD and is sitting dormant waiting to have hazardous materials cleaned up.
There are other properties still owned by the DOD that have been decommissioned for years some of this is located near the Mallinkrodt complex in St. Louis. and there are a lot of military related bases near by
if you include the Reserve and National guard bases which are not usually mentioned on maps or otherwise as military facilities
and lets not forget that even though some of this equipment could be considered heavy armaments it is all transportable by tractor trailor and rail car and I would imagine this is how they got downtown.

[edit on 10/23/2004 by geocom]

The east coast is the oldest part of the country lots of large cities and buildings and the land is taken up. The west coast has a lot of desert land. Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico etc. It's the youngest part of the country. Lots of room, not as densly populated.

SethJaneRob hit it on the head. It is, in fact, simple economics.

Land east of the Mississippi is very expensive, in general, and there is a much higher population density. If you've ever seen one of those night shots from space, you can tell that a vast majority of the light, and in turn population, is in the east.

The government is also the largest land owner in the west, a huge portion of land is owned by the federal and state governments in the west largely because no one wants to live in the middle of a desert or on a sheer rockface.

So it becomes a question of where it's cheaper to builld a base, in the east where most land is privately owned, there are large numbers of people, and there is a premium on land costs? Or in the west where the government already owns most of the land, there aren't many people and what land is privately owned is very cheap.

I don't know why there would be large numbers of military hardware in St. Louis though, but in this case I am betting there's a simple and logical reason. Maybe there is a national guard command post in the buiding, or a motor pool. Just because there is a tank does not mean secret activity is taking place.

It's not unheard of to have strategic military bases within cities though. Milwaukee, for example, had a missile base within the city limits durring the cold war.

Take care all
~ Astral

Most likely what you have seen are some "samples" from the early production runs and probably a lot of the original tooling stored as well. In the '80s a LOT of stuff was buried so that in the event of WWIII with the Soviets, the tooling required for the production of equipment and munitions would "survive" and production could start up again fairly quickly. It would not surprise me that there was enough production equipment stored down there to allow M1's to be produced at some other facility.

I know for a fact that under KC, in one of the limestone cave tunnels there, there is enough production equipment stored there to produce small arms ammuntion. After Viet Nam, they took out about half of Lake City's equipment and stored it in those caves - my uncle was one of the drivers delivering hundreds of crates full of equipment to the cave complex. He was told that all the equipment need to produce small arms ammo (up to .50 cal) was in those crates and all they neede to do was set them up and start crankin' out the rounds.

Somewhere in some dusty archive is probably a listing of what is located where - but I seriously doubt that it is fully operational equipment ready to be manned and used.

Originally posted by thethrall_nb

Originally posted by geocom
For instance did anyone else know that there is a massive amount of armaments in the Federal Building in Downtown St. Louis not just handheld or light weaponry but we are talking about tanks and anti aircraft weaponry and so on,

I don't mean to sound like this is not true or unbelievable but, what proof do you have of this.. And if that type of equipment is under the middle of Downtown St. Louis. How did they manage to get it in without being noticed? I mean, you can't just slip a tank into your pocket or anything like that... Equipment that size wouldn't go unnoticed...

Just where exactly do you surmise that America's domestic tanks are parked? They are all over the place. It should make you feel secure, not conspiratorial. People say stuff like "that wouldn't go unnoticed" all the time on this board and it irritates the hell out of me. You're not noticing it because you're not looking for it. Call your local army recruiter and ask where the nearest Army installation is. It will be very close by and they will have tanks there.

Zip

[edit on 24-10-2004 by Zipdot]

Whoops double post.

Better throw something else out there.

The New York/New Jersey subway systems are hella huge underground facilities. I would suggest they probably rival any other underground systems in the US.

Zip

[edit on 24-10-2004 by Zipdot]

Why out West?

Several Reasons:

1) As one person pointed out, Population density. Nevada for example has i think the lowest population density per square mile.

2) Lots of tech and aviation companies out west.

3) Lots of government owned land that is miles and miles in the middle of BF nowhere. Lots of it is restricted already so new construction can be hidden and none of those pesky environmental regs have to be watched. Every year since Clinton was in office, the sitting president has signed an executive order exempting Groom Lake from the nations environmental laws.

Geology. The SW of the US. is perfect for underground tunneling thus bases are a logical extension.

Originally posted by geocom
I am going to play the devils advocate here and question why all of the major underground activity happens out west. It is a curious thing, It is common knowledge locally that there is amassive underground system (not saying this is military or EBE inhabited)under the south St. Louis county area one of the largest in North America or so I am told.

I am not asking this saying that people are wrong or anything like that I am just saying that maybe we in the midwest should keep our eyes a little more open. For instance did anyone else know that there is a massive amount of armaments in the Federal Building in Downtown St. Louis not just handheld or light weaponry but we are talking about tanks and anti aircraft weaponry and so on, I am not sure how forth coming information will be on this if you ask around in fact I am sure that you will get a yeah right which what I am sure you will think in reading this as this is what I thought when I was told and that is what I thought until I was shown.
as you know this is the MEPS center for the local area and I was told about this when I was entering the service and shown one day while we were waiting on test results, I was to say at the very least left in amazement and shock.

Low Population Density! If you want to hide something, you put it where noone is. The desert has vast streches where noone lives. You put it out west to hide it from people and you put it underground to hide it from satellites.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

The area is full of old salt mines that are used for storage. The Gov has bulk storage of many things there, some for survival.

I agree with posters pointing out the West is the youngest. When our ancestors came to America, they landed on the East Coast and migrated west.

Take a look at a highway map of the USA. You see plenty of areas covered by freeways to the east; to the west there are not a lot of interstates, except around the West Coast. And then there's the fact that the West is desert and mountains.

I've been to Reno myself.

Well, to echo everyone else, population density is probably the number one reason. Is much easier to hide something if there is nobody to see it in the first place. Small populations are probably much easier to convince that nothing abnormal is going on out in the desert as well.

Another reason may be the size of the states. I know it's a stretch, but it may simplify things for the DoD if they plan to build an extensive underground network and can keep everything under one local jurisdiction.

It should make you feel secure, not conspiratorial.

this is exactly what bothers me about the national/state government; i should feel protected not threatened. and as it lays now i do feel constrained by the gov.

the point should be to say 'hey, we are here to protect you from bad stuff" and not 'hey, we are going to protect you from hurting others... if you do something wrong we will be all up in your a$$'

just my prospective, tis all

[edit on 11-11-2004 by Franki]

western states tend to be much higher above sea level .
A good thing if if the seas rise

My 2 cents, since I live "out west"

It's very dry... the location of a lot of the underground Aquifers is well fairly well known...And the water table is generally pretty far down there..

Ok my two cents, since I live in a town of 90k people, drive 15 minutes to the north or south in this town and you are out in the middle of nowhere.
The next biggest town from me has 35k people and is 2 hours away.

Kind of spooky but that's why we have cell phones!