An adventurer's heart must be brave. Determination must be stronger than the fear to reach what few others are willing to overcome. Such travels are not for the weak of heart.
Between the years of 1956 and 1961 during the Cold War an underground bunker in Glastonbury, Connecticut known as the Nike Missile Silo was an active military base where soldiers were stationed to guard four Nike missiles, radar controlled anti-aircraft warheads. Eventually, as technology improved and the missiles proved themselves to be increasingly hazardous to civilians and soldiers alike, the Nike Missile Silo in Glastonbury was decommissioned in 1961.
Sites like these still stand in secluded areas in small towns or state forests, often without the locals having any knowledge of their existence. In most cases, the only evidence on the surface of a bunker is a broad slab of concrete resembling a parking lot. This is how they stay hidden from view and are so well preserved.
On July 7th, 2020 my father and I determined to journey to find abandoned bunker. Through the websites of other adventures and using an aerial map, we were able to determine that the site was nearly a mile into the dense woodland. No vehicle could penetrate the dense forest, so we would need to park on the nearest street and hike into the forest on foot. A simple yellow gate on rusted posts marked the starting point for finding the site. A long drive into the secluded, rolling New England hills brought us to the winding gravel road where we found the yellow gate set back from the road. It would have been easy to pass by without noticing it if we did not know what we were looking for.
A gravel path winds up the steep hillside, guarded by the looming trees and the bombardment of deer flies. Deer flies are biting, blood sucking pests that dive bomb anything that move. We ran to escape their torment, nearly missing a few crumbling concrete structures as well as a massive rusted water tank. Though we swiftly scouted, we saw no signs of the bunker so we continued our trek up the hillside.
The paths diverge into hiking trails and we quickly lost our way following different trail markers that took us far into the woods. Along the way, we stumbled upon the ruins of several guard buildings, possible offices, and perhaps even the barracks where the soldiers slept. But even after hours of searching, we were struggling to find the opening to underground bunker. Then, we had a stroke of luck.
Seemingly from nowhere like a guardian angel in blue spandex shorts, a skeleton of a man on a mountain bike dressed in a blue compression biking uniform rode juddering down the mountainside. His bright yellow helmet nodded violently under the bumps of his wheels as the bike squeaked in protest of the rough terrain. Slowing his speed, he bid us a friendly good morning before we asked him for directions toward the bunker. Self-assuredly, the man took out his phone to pull up a map dotted and lined with biking trails. Between the multicolored lines traced across the screen, he pointed out a section of land on the opposite side of the mountain where he informed us that the cement slab could be found, but that we'd need to find out own way in since the official entrance had been buried under rubble and dirt.
Thanking the quirky man for his assistance, we turned back up the trail we had strayed down and made our way to the road which curved around the base of the mountain. A second yellow gate covered in graffiti and mounted to rusted posts greeted us as we rounded the curve of the road. Wrapping cloths around our faces to keep the deer flies out of our mouths and noses as we walked, we trekked once more into the woods. Hiking up the opposite side of the mountain from where we had been, we followed an old trail through the forest which climbed steeply upward. After some time, we came to a fork in the path. Directly to our right off the paths, a crumbled pile of cement of a forgotten foundation stands hidden by the underbrush. The forked trails eventually meet up again ahead, but the trail to the left runs alongside another crumbled foundation where the path on the right is surrounded only by dense forest. Once the paths have merged. it leads upward until finally reaching a large clearing with a cement floor resembling a parking lot. To anyone else, this would be an anticlimactic find. But to anyone who knows what lies beneath, it was the threshold of history. Next was to find our way into the tunnels below.
The area surrounding the bare cement slab would seem desolate to the untrained eye. But upon further inspection, small grates covered by rocks and dirt, narrow ducts leading downward with fans rusted in place, and slopes of concrete leading down into the dirt are scattered around the woods. After searching for a while, we discovered a small pit dug into the side of a foundation that sloped downward into darkness. The opening was only barely as broad as my father's shoulders, and so narrow that I had to take off my backpack and lower it in ahead of me. Instantly the hole opens up into a concrete hallway with a dirt floor. The ceiling was so low that we had to crawl on our hands and knees, and at some points had to army crawl on our stomachs. Once, after I had tried strapping my backpack back on, I became wedged between the dirt floor and the cement ceiling because of the pack and had to wiggle myself free.
Horrifyingly, the low ceiling above us was decorated with interweaving spider webs and large black spiders with long black legs dangled just above our heads. Keeping my eyes trained on the dirt floor, I force myself not to look up as I scrambled forward blindly into the darkness. I tried not to think about where the spiders were as my backpack scraped the ceiling or the webs stuck to my sweaty skin. After a long crawl into the darkness, the tunnel dropped off into a ledge of a massive room. The room was probably the size of a basketball court and was bathed in complete darkness. The way we had descended and had crawled through the tunnel headfirst, there was no other option but to pull our head and shoulders through first and drop down into the room blindly. Anything could be waiting there in the shadows, but motivated by the progress we had made so far and eager to escape the spiders dangling inches from our faces, we dropped down into the massive room.
The first thing that I noticed was the immediate temperature change. The woods above had been in the mid 80 to 90 degrees, but the cement bunker below ranged in the comfortable 70's. The dripping of moisture from the ceiling echoed around the room and our labored breaths seemed to resonate. Our footsteps thundered as we dropped down to the floor of the room. Drawing our flashlights we had packed in our bags, we cast our lights across the pitch black room. The beams barely cast a pinprick of light in the vast darkness, but allowed us to inspect our surroundings. Years of graffiti lined the cement walls atop of the original painted messages on the walls from when the soldiers had occupied this bunker. Warnings like "How to treat a Shock Victim", "Warning: Explosives", and other such messages were inscribed on the wall in crisp military writing. There was something chilling about standing in that spot and reading the same messages they had read while stationed here.
Some beer cans, trash, and broken furniture cluttered the floor as well as broken pipes, electrical components, and other remnants of human activity over the years. While examining the painted signs left by the soldiers on the bunker walls, my father got my attention by waving me onward toward the far corner of the room. In a narrow gap in the wall, the dirt floor sloped upward and turned the corner with the promise of another room. This hole was even smaller than the previous. The spiders draped down possessively over the entryway and the graffiti warned us of the opening with messages like, "The Devil's Cave", "Gates of Hell", and "Get Out". "666", upside down crosses, and other ominous symbols also dotted the walls surrounding this tiny cave leading up toward another room. But we had gotten this far, and wouldn't be swayed from pressing onward into the darkness.
Claustrophobic, covered in spider webs, scratched, and exhausted, we dropped down into a room even broader and darker than the last. Barely any graffiti disturbed these inner walls, as though few others had dared to venture this deep into the freezing cold clutches of the concrete labyrinth. The light from our flashlight was consumed by the gaping maw of the blackness beyond and barely illuminated the ground at our feet and the closet section of wall. Even the ceiling in this room was so high that the shadows lurked closely by under the light's faint glow.
My father made the gruesome observation that if someone were to roll a stone or cement slab over the hole we had descended through that we could be trapped down here forever. And he was right, there were no other paths leading in or out, same the reason why the bunker was so completely pitch black.
We explored a utility closet where an electric panel had crumbled away from the wall. Ironically, a doorway marked as a fire exit had collapsed and was filled in by dirt, leading nowhere. Out of pure fascination, we turned out our lights in this room to realize that the room was so completely isolated from light to such an extent that a hand in front of one's face was completely camouflaged by blackness. The eyes search so desperately for light that wild shapes and colors are created by the imagination and specters emerge from the absolute longing for sight. Anxiety quickly sets in and panic rises in the darkness since anything could be standing directly in front of you and you would have no way of knowing. The mind becomes inventive and plays tricks in the dark.
After thoroughly exploring these winding concrete tunnels and chambers, pulling the spider webs from our hair, and spooking ourselves silly, we decided to ascend from the bunker. Without flashlights, we would undoubtedly never find our way out through the tiny hole we had entered from in the wall overhead. Army crawling on our stomachs through the dirt, we crept out from the Devil's cave, through the gates of hell, and back into the main chamber where we pulled ourselves back up into the dirt tunnel toward the surface. For the tiny bit of sunlight penetrating through the tunnel, I was grateful. And when my feet were planted firmly on the surface after crawling through the infested bunker, I released a sigh of relief that I hadn't realized I was holding.
The Nike Missile Silo is a terrifying, dark, infested, dripping, concrete time capsule clinging onto the residual fear of soldier awaiting orders to fire the warhead missiles stored with them. This is not a place for the claustrophobic, arachnophobic, or the weak of heart.
But to the brazened adventurers unswayed by tight tunnels, massive spiders, and oppressive darkness, the Nike Missile Silo is a thrilling expedition to undertake.
Those who are up for the challenge, face your fears on this journey into history and self discovery.
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