100 Places You Will Never Visit (2 page)

The salvage operation, carried out during July and August 1974, had mixed results. Some of the vessel was recovered, but a large section fell back to the seabed when technical equipment failed. The exact location of the wreck and details of the operation remain top secret, but it has been speculated that the US left the scene with recovered nuclear warheads, code books and operations manuals.

Many believe the wreck lies some 2,800 kilometers (1,500 nautical miles) northwest of the Hawaiian island of Oahu and 2,200 kilometers (1,200 nautical miles) southeast of Petropavlovsk. Why K-129 sank has never been discovered, but theories include an accidental onboard explosion or even a collision with a US vessel. The full truth may come with the declassification of government files in decades to come, but might equally rest with the dead under the sea.

1 MISSILE PLATFORM Designed in the late 1950s, the Soviet Golf II submarine was a diesel-electric vessel with a top speed of 31 km/h (17 knots) on the surface and 22 km/h (12 knots) submerged. It carried three nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, each with a relatively short range of around 150 km (95 miles).

2 SECRET SCAVENGER The Glomar Explorer was built by the US especially for the salvage operation. The vessel’s cover story held that it belonged to a company owned by billionaire industrialist Howard Hughes, and was intended for use in projects to extract minerals from the ocean floor.

2 The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

LOCATION North Pacific Ocean

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

SECRECY OVERVIEW Jurisdiction uncertain: the world’s biggest rubbish dump.

Twice the size of Texas, a mass of non-biodegradable plastic has gathered in the waters of the northern Pacific Ocean. Brought together by ocean currents, this vast body of waste originates from countries all around the world and poses a major long-term threat to the ecosystem. Yet no nation state or major international body has formulated a comprehensive plan for dealing with it.

The responsibility of no single nation, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a truly dirty secret that few outside the community of environmental activists are ready to acknowledge and act upon. The patch has formed from countless tons of rubbish deposited into the sea, 80 percent of it from mainland areas.

The Garbage Patch’s location in the North Pacific is due to a gyre, an ocean current that is very calm at its center but swirls round in a circle, drawing in ever-increasing volumes of floating debris. Ecologists have been forecasting the existence of such a feature since at least the 1980s, but it was only in 1997 that Charles Moore and his crew confirmed the existence of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch while competing in a yachting race. Moore subsequently set up a campaigning body to bring attention to the problem.

Plastic does not degrade like natural materials such as paper or cotton: instead, it breaks down into smaller and smaller harmful compounds over hundreds of years. Tiny bits of plastic found floating in the oceans are sometimes referred to as “mermaid’s tears”—surely a far more romantic name than they deserve. While many sea birds and mammals are killed when they become trapped in plastic debris, even more dangerous are the toxins that the plastics introduce into the food system, which then progress perniciously from the smallest plankton to the largest whale.

Scientists estimate that the Garbage Patch contains three-quarters of a million fragments of plastic per square kilometer (0.4 sq miles). Plastics account for 90 percent of all the rubbish in the world’s oceans, and as much as 70 percent of it sinks, causing untold damage to life on the sea bed. Yet the Great Pacific Garbage Patch remains the floating landfill site that no government seems keen to discuss. It is a safe guess that if it were the Great Pacific Oil Reserve, there would be rather more of a clamor to establish sovereignty.

1 POISONED WATERS Our increasing use of plastics has helped extend humanity’s destructive footprint from the lands on which we live to the deepest parts of the distant ocean—a heavy price to pay for the added convenience of product packaging and the like.

2 DIRTY SECRET The exact impact of the Garbage Patch on the Pacific Ocean’s ecosystem is not known, but new research is constantly increasing our understanding of its effects. What is beyond doubt, however, is that the Garbage Patch poses a real threat of an environmental catastrophe.

3 HAARP research station

LOCATION Gakona, Alaska, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Anchorage, Alaska

SECRECY OVERVIEW Access restricted: an atmospheric research facility under the jurisdiction of the US Department of Defense.

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) describes itself as “a premier facility for the study of ionospheric physics and radio science.” Its stated aim is to “further advance our knowledge of the physical and electrical properties of the Earth’s ionosphere which can affect our military and civilian communication and navigation systems.”

HAARP is funded by the US Air Force and Navy, as well as DARPA to conduct research into the ionosphere—the part of the atmosphere between 55 and 800 kilometers (35–500 miles) above the Earth’s surface. In this region, electrically charged gases can absorb, distort and reflect radio waves, with significant implications for military and civilian communications, navigation, surveillance and detection systems.

Depending on the Sun’s activity at any given time, the Alaskan ionosphere can be characterized as mid-latitude, auroral or polar—thereby offering varying conditions to study. The Gakona region is also well served by transport links but far away from any built-up areas where electric lights and noise could interfere with experiments. The HAARP project began in 1990, and its main phase of construction ended in 2007.

HAARP’s most important element is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (ISRI), a high-power, high-frequency radio transmitter that generates radio signals in the 2.8 to 10 MHz frequency range. The ISRI antenna consists of 180 towers, each 22 meters (72 ft) high and arranged in a large rectangular grid. Some of its signal is absorbed by the ionosphere (the rest bounces back to Earth or carries on up into space), and its effects on the relevant area of the ionosphere are then recorded and analyzed.

Though not a classified project (HAARP invites collaboration with universities throughout North America), entry to the site is restricted to “those having a need to conduct business at the facility.” With its military funding and focus on the distant sky, HAARP has inspired numerous accusations of dark intentions. It has been variously accused of developing an anti-aircraft system through manipulation of the atmosphere, modifying the weather to cause climatic events, tsunamis and earthquakes, and even developing mind-control technology. Its reputation among conspiracy theorists is no doubt aggravated by ISRI’s resemblance to a science-fiction death ray machine.

4 Bohemian Grove

LOCATION Sonoma County, California, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB San Francisco, California

SECRECY OVERVIEW Operations classified: host to an annual gathering of the secretive Bohemian Club.

Set amid beautiful redwood forest in Sonoma County’s Monte Rio, each year Bohemian Grove becomes a holiday camp for some of the world’s most powerful men. Allegations of debauchery and even paganism have been leveled at the events run by the Bohemian Club, while other critics highlight fears that major decisions affecting government and commerce are made in this entirely unregulated atmosphere.

The Bohemian Club is an all-male, private members’ club whose clubhouse is on Taylor Street in San Francisco. It was established in 1872 by staff at the San Francisco Chronicle to serve as a hub for members of the city’s cultural fraternity. However, within a short period it had opened its membership to a wider social strata, and was soon under the effective control of San Francisco’s rich and powerful. The modern image of a Bohemian Club member is a wealthy, white man of a certain age—usually, though not always, with Republican proclivities.

There is currently a 15-year-plus waiting list for membership, which costs an initial US$25,000 and then a further US$5,000 in annual subs. More importantly, you must be approved for membership, which requires gold-standard connections and probably an Ivy League education behind you. Membership has included a formidable array of presidents, including Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and the two Bushes, along with a multitude of other famous names, from Mark Twain and William Randolph Hearst to Clint Eastwood and the Rockefellers.

Bohemian Grove occupies some 1,100 hectares (2,700 acres) of land, though the section devoted to the Club’s summer camp is much smaller. The first camp was held in 1893 on rented land that the Club eventually bought from a local logger in 1899. It now hosts between 2,000 and 3,000 attendees each summer, divided between smaller encampments according to rank and background. The program for this two-week jolly includes a mixture of entertainments, talks and networking events, and begins with the curious Cremation of Care ceremony. As campers look on at the edge of a small lake, appointed members in hooded red robes “sacrifice” an effigy called “Dull Care,” placing it inside a skull on a boat that is set alight and pushed off across the water. This is said to symbolize a dismissal of life’s petty worries for the duration of the gathering. The entire ceremony occurs under the watchful gaze of the club’s mascot, a 12-meter (40-ft) concrete-cast statue known as the Great Owl of Bohemia.

ROAD TO POWER This entrance to Bohemian Grove is discreet enough, but the woods of Sonoma County have long played host to some of the most influential men in history as they let their hair down and reconvene with nature.

For some, the Cremation of Care ceremony is a source of great concern, swollen with pagan, perhaps even Satanic, overtones. Some have wildly suggested that there is even a human sacrifice element to the ritual—an entirely unfounded assertion. Eyewitness reports suggest that the ceremony (and the camp in general) is all rather more redolent of frat-house high jinks. The concern seems less about playing out secret rituals than ensuring middle-aged and older men get to relive their youths—drinking too much, listening to Grateful Dead records, smoking fat cigars and freely weeing against trees.

Perhaps a more legitimate criticism is that the camp allows a clutch of the most influential politicians, businessmen and military figures in the Western world to have a get-together that is willfully opaque. Legend has it, for instance, that the Manhattan Project, which led to the creation of the atom bomb, had an influential planning meeting at Bohemian Grove in 1942. Even if they are not busily establishing a New World Order—as some of the Grovers’ more vehement opponents have it—the mere existence of this private boys’ club supreme does little to persuade the doubters that we live in an open, democratic society.

One defense against allegations that the Club is an elite cabal directing national and international events is its motto, taken from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “Weaving spiders come not here.” Which is to say, members of the Club are not supposed to bring business through the door. Opponents might well respond with: “They would say that, wouldn’t they?”

The perimeter of Bohemian Grove is heavily guarded throughout the year and especially during the summer, although the odd unwanted guest (including a handful of journalists) has managed to find a way in during recent years. By jealously guarding its privacy, the Club provokes fears that Bohemian Grove is an arena for decisions to be made in our name but without our knowledge. The truth might equally be that the membership preserves the air of secrecy because they fear being left red-faced by their antics when let off the leash.

1 POWERFUL FRIENDS Guests at the 1967 Bohemian Grove gathering included two future US Presidents, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, seen here sat either side of the standing Harvey Hancock (once a campaign manager for Nixon). To the other side of Nixon is Glenn Seaborg, winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

2 WISE HEADS Bohemian Grove’s overgrown Great Owl of Bohemia oversees the infamous “Cremation of Care” ceremony, which is in reality nothing more than a bit of frivolity. For many years, the owl was voiced by famed journalist and longtime Grover, Walter Cronkite.

5 Skywalker Ranch

LOCATION Marin County, California, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Novato, California

SECRECY OVERVIEW Access restricted: the private playground of the creator of Star Wars.

Skywalker Ranch covers some 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of land, of which only 6 hectares (15 acres) have been developed. George Lucas began accumulating this enormous estate in 1978, using early proceeds from the runaway success of Star Wars. It serves as a retreat for the film-maker—a place to conduct business privately and get his and his employees’ creative juices flowing away from the public gaze.

Though Lucas himself does not live on site most of the time, security is tight. Members of the public are not welcome, though tours have occasionally been given to journalists, competition winners and a few other fortunate souls. The entrance to the ranch has a guard station and, perhaps unsurprisingly for a film director, banks of cameras to keep a close eye on proceedings (though for visitors, there is a strict “no photography” policy). In short, unless you’re a close buddy of George, a trusted employee or just plain lucky, this is not somewhere that you’re going to get to see.

At the heart of the ranch is the three-story Main House, built in a Victorian style and the site of Lucas’s private offices. There are further buildings for various divisions of his company: the vast Research Library stands out for its huge, art nouveau stained-glass skylight. Elsewhere, there is the Stag Theater for screenings, a guest house, a zoo and even the ranch’s own fire station. For good measure, Lucas can stroll through a vineyard, visit his hill-top observatory or swim in the man-made Lake Ewok.

The ranch also encompasses the Lucasfilm Archives, an Aladdin’s cave for any fan of modern cinema. Designed for the preservation and protection of items related to the great man’s films, it includes props from the Star Wars movies, as well as from Indiana Jones, American Graffiti, Willow and many more. But as if to prove the ranch’s exclusiveness, even President Ronald Reagan had a request to tour the site turned down.