Transcription
Welcome to another Wasteland Spotlight, my friends. Today, we're taking a journey out to pull the covers off of a once secret and now ruined aerospace facility in the desert southwestern United States. This is the Northre Grumman RCS facility out in Tahhon Ranch, California.
Once a location testing highly classified stealth aircraft technology, today the site sits quietly against the foothills of the Tahachi Mountains. strangely silent and mysteriously unvandalized or even dirty. Quite unlike any other abandoned location I visited out here, especially one that's been empty for 15 years, supposedly empty.
Anyway, there are rumors that the site is still being used for secret research either by Northrup or the US government, with sightings of strange unidentified aircraft still happening to this day. In the course of researching the site, I have run up against many such eyewitness accounts and stories of underground facilities that may be using the ruins on the surface as a convenient cover. Covers I'm going to try to pull aside. So, join me today as we explore one of the darkly mysterious and more out of the way corners of the world. And welcome to the wasteland.
Driving out to the location, I covered the initial time during the night and then made a brief camp at a secluded spot. Mostly, I wanted to pass through the surrounding towns and populated areas at night just in case locals may be on the lookout for people heading out here. I saw no lights of any kind up in the direction of the facility other than the nav lights on some of the radio towers nearby. Posting up for a while to have a meal and let the sun come up gave me time to let any initial curiosity about my presence fade away. Then I set out in daylight.
Originally, I drove up one of the main service trails towards the place just to get a bit of a distance look from the front. Long before I reached the point where the trail may become monitored, I turned off onto little used old rancher paths. Quite a few of these have been blocked off by fences and gates, so I spent quite some time finding a good route from the southwest. I didn't want to come from the northeast where most others have flown drones from because as I've said before, the easy ways in and out are usually the monitored ways. After getting my look from the front of the place, I turned off. And that's when my path became tricky almost immediately.
The trails up and down these rolling foothills have seen quite a bit of damage from rain and such over the years, and they aren't really repaired because they just aren't used anymore. The trail down this hill was a trap for sure. I found another slightly less questionable way down and then just let the Jeep do what Jeeps do. Not entirely comfortable here with stock tires sitting at an angle on the side of a very moist hill. But what are you going to do? Sure as hell wasn't going to leave. Usually the term allterrain is two lies for the price of one when it comes to tires. But as rental cars go, a Jeep is usually better at this sort of thing than most other choices.
As a side note, always bring a rental on trips like this. The kind of trips where you may have to unass the AO PDQ with all gear humped on my back in the event of an opposing force arriving in theater. I would be staying on foot and heading for the hills quite literally. The rental stays behind obviously having been stolen by road bandits or whatever. always get the full coverage. That also applies if my mentally challenged self happens to roll this thing down the hill ass over tea kettle.
Now that I was clear of the biggest of the off-road driving challenges, I set off on a very roundabout way to reach the south side of the target area. We can see a little bit of the facility in the distance from one of the higher points on the route and even get a look at the front guard gate area, but I didn't want to go anywhere near that. At least not yet. never come in from the direction that people are supposed to come in. I wanted to get to it, but the plan is the plan. So, first I would continue heading slightly away from it, mostly because of all the cattle fencing out here that I couldn't cross. And as we should know by now, what can't be crossed must be driven around. And so, I did just that to eventually arrive at the initial point for my mission run. But that trip ended up being much more of a pain than I originally expected it to be.
Between the fences at every turn to the washed out and sometimes non-existent trails, Mr. Murphy of Murphy's Law of Fame made an appearance at every opportunity. In case you aren't familiar with Murphy's Law, it basically states that anything that can go wrong in an operation will go wrong. And so there I was getting the full experience of the Kern County, California scenic route. But eventually I was on track and traveling along the base of the foothills towards the target. Finally, I crested one last hill and I could see it in the distance. I made a quick stop to take a look and that showed me a very clean and unspoiled facility with no outward signs of occupation by anyone and most importantly no vehicles, at least not out in the open. I sat here for a moment as fair game, giving any legal authority one last chance to tell me something or inform me of my rights. But barring that, all bets were off and it would be time to get low and on foot. And that's exactly what I did next.
I approached the facility from the southwest just behind the last hill. Getting to the top, I took a brief look before launching the drone for the initial scouting flight and the aerial portion of the recon, some of which you saw at the beginning of the video. Let's take a look at the rest now. It looks close, but there is still some distance here, so I'll speed things up a bit. Coming in for an initial orbit of the facility, I am struck once again by the seeming lack of both graffiti and vandalism to the place. As my regular viewers should know by now, uh places like this tend to be well picked over and destroyed within a few years of being abandoned. But this place has sat empty for 15 years now since the closure in 2011. And the clean, uncluttered look makes me a bit uneasy.
Another oddity here is the fact that almost all the doors appear to have been just left wide open, which is not something that a company normally does when closing down a facility of any kind. At least access doesn't seem like it'll be a problem. Right now, at this point, I already have an idea tickling the back of my mind about what purpose this place serves, but I'm going to leave that talk for a little bit later. I'm telling you, if I didn't know better right now, I would say that this place was barely closed down just a short time ago. Or at least maybe someone's been caretaking for the place all these years. There aren't even any tumble weeds or other natural types of debris to break up the uncanny lack of artificial debris. Still, official record, as well as satellite imagery, clearly tells us that this place has been closed and empty since 2011. But despite the official information, that is a hard and unrealistic pill to swallow. It's not like I took any real great care to conceal myself or my approach here. So, if no one is watching, then what is keeping the looters, vandals, and the rest of them away? That main hanger should have been the sight of at least one illegal rave by now?
Something I do check from the air early on is that strange concrete fixture that I noticed in the satellite footage before I came out here. Now, if you saw my mission briefing video for this exploration, then you know what I'm talking about. And if not, I'll link that video above right here from up here. Now, that fixture appears to be nothing more than an old mounting point for a large tank or something perhaps. And at the time of this filming, it looks like it's filled with water.
Okay, this first little building is what I believe to be the facility operations and security office. Uh, not much more than an old mobile home or one of those temporary buildings that they put in place on construction sites. And yet, even this wood, plastic, and fiberglass structure seems to have weathered the years exceptionally well. Behind this sits what may have been a small shop or facilities maintenance building. Some large piece of machinery outside that we'll look closer at once we go in on foot. Moving on from there, we head over to the secondary hanger area. Several of which appear to be the only places that are closed up around here. I'll definitely be paying them all a visit.
As we drift along the front, we can start to see some signs of destruction and damage to things like air conditioner housings and power junction boxes. Perhaps a few intrepid copper thieves did make it in after all. Or maybe that's just how it's meant to look. In all my years of exploring abandoned places in this desert, I've never seen such a big and bright facility as this that wasn't completely covered in graffiti pretty quickly. Anyway, as we finish moving down the line of hangers, we get to what has been marked on some of those other research materials as the main generator building. And this one seems to be closed up tight, at least from the front. As we swing around, we can see a lot of machinery space to the back, but it looks more like air processing stuff to me. So, I guess we'll see.
In the meantime, let's float down behind the hanger areas. Again, there is some damage visible, but not very much. And it appears to be more of a careful deconstruction of components than what you would normally see with copper strippers. Plenty of open doors. And at the end up there, it appears that the final hanger isn't a hanger at all, but a building within a building, which is interesting. As we swing around for a little closeup of the main hangar area, I can tell you that my curiosity is in full swing here, and I'm looking forward to going in. Seeing that there is absolutely zero sign of any recent presence, I might not have to move quite as hard and fast as I was anticipating. But I will reserve that decision for when I get down there and have a look at some of the camera imp placements. As we know, when I went to the abandoned prison, it appeared empty as well. And look how that turned out. Okay, that's a wrap for the aerial recon portion. So, let's get down there for some real close encounters.
All right. Well, here we go. As I start my run on foot, I do immediately notice this small square structure way off in the distance. And I'm not sure what it is. It's definitely too late to go investigate it now. Something to figure out later. Crossing this last little ravine between me and the fence line, I can see that the fence isn't completely intact. This break in the fence runs right along with what appears to be a drainage area from the facility. And that offers me some excellent cover for the initial entry.
And as I do make my careful entry here, I want to talk about yet another prepper tip. Uh something I'm actually demonstrating right now at this portion of the video with my actions. Because I'm not just filming here. I'm actively using the highresolution zoom of my smartphone camera to get closer looks at the buildings and the various devices that I see which could be security devices or other intrusion countermeasures. One of the fallacies I see repeated a lot amongst uh traditional preppers is the idea that your smartphone is useless after the grid goes down. If you got no service, then what good is the thing? It's just a brick then, right? Wrong. Actually, your smartphone is one of the most important tools that you will have post collapse, at least for the years that you can actually keep it running. And seeing as how I know people right now who have working smartphones that are over 10 years old, that shouldn't be much of a problem. The camera alone on a good device is worth its weight in gold post collapse. In addition to low light functions and high resolution zoom, some good ruggedized phones even have fleer thermal optics built right in that along with the thousands of books, maps, and high-res satellite images that a phone can store and a whole slew of onboard sensors you can use. A phone will be even more important after collapse than it is before. That's why it is so important to have one set aside and shielded against water, fire, and even EMP damage. And yes, that video is coming. But for now, let's get back to this one.
I can see that the doors had combination keypad locks on them, which is to be expected. I can also see signs that the door has been pried at. So, um, in this editing process, I'm going to be jumping back and forth between my handheld phone camera and the FPV camera mounted up on my shoulder, depending on which one has the best shot of a particular spot. So, I apologize uh I apologize a bit in advance for the switching back and forth, and I'll try to keep it to a minimum. I will also try and cut out more of the walking time between buildings. I know we don't want this thing to be a 2-hour movie.
Coming up on the back of the shop or garage area here, and we'll give it a quick walk through. Not too much of interest to see here. And like I said, I will move a bit quicker through some areas just in case someone is coming to boot me out. We want to make sure we get the important stuff first. With that being said, it's off to the front office. And it looks like I was right about the site security office being here as well. Locked up tight, but let's see if there's another way in. And it would seem that there is. Emergency siren. Nah, I think I'm going to leave that one alone. Small cleanup area between some bathrooms here. alarm panel up on the wall. So, I'm assuming now crossing this threshold that we've moved into a more secure area of the building. This door leads over to about where the security area should be, but it's also locked.
Now, back here, we seem to have some sort of a ready room or something with a a planning wall. looks like magnets with code words that can be moved around to maybe show asset locations within the facility. Um, if anyone has any idea what some of these code words refer to, please let me know down in the comments. Now, moving through here definitely gets us into that security section, and that's where things get a bit more interesting. Looks like everything was carefully disconnected from this panel here rather than ripped out or cut by looters. So, I'm guessing this stuff was taken by Northrup on their way out. But looks like they forgot something though. This here is what I later learned to be a Cisco systems adaptive security device left behind on this server rack. It was used for firewall and security of wireless access points. But the really interesting part was this, a compact flash memory card, which I immediately put back. Of course, after copying the contents to my field laptop, those contents turned out to be many gibberish document files. So, no doubt encrypted. Still trying to figure that part out, but there are 304 document files for a total of 94 megabytes. When you're talking about text, that's actually quite a bit. More on that later. Looks like some kind of power access or switching room back here and not much else. Although we can definitely see that it was left in a condition that is not the condition it would have been left in had the copper thieves actually been here.
Time to head to the next spot. And that next spot would be the primary control building for the old radar array that used to be fired out at the runways. They used to sit out here along these metal railings in front of the building. Massive dishes that would shoot radar waves out at the aircraft mounted on pylons above the old runways. That was one way they were testing the effectiveness of stealth technology, seeing what kind of radar returns they could get from the aircraft. That is the general purpose of this facility. This plywood here is very rotted and I can hear it cracking as I walk on it. So this entire building was the control center for the radar arrays that sat just outside. Lots of fire suppression technology in here for sure. Halon dump systems and whatnot, which really isn't all that surprising given the levels of energy they were dealing with here. Yet here we have another miraculously dust-free electrical panel after sitting these last 15 years. No dirt, no vandalism, no corrosion. Winners play by the rules, huh? Not entirely accurate in my opinion. Um, in my book, winners achieve success or a victory over the playing field or the opposing force and then they write the new rules that all the other players in the future end up having to abide by. But that's a bit outside of our scope today. Again, I do want to call attention to how dustfree and clean these electrical panels are. The entire place, really. You know, where's the packrat nests? I've seen them make piles out of every conceivable material left out here in the desert. But I'm supposed to believe that they didn't like this carpet at all. All this good stuff and not a dropping in sight. Where's my rodents? Where's my hunter virus? 15 years and no one took a single dump in here. That seems suspicious.
That is one of my biggest issues here as I walk around. This site is just too clean. The buildings are clean. The cracked asphalt is clean. And even what little apparent vandalism and wire stripping that there is looks like it was done just too clean. Almost like it may have been staged. To someone that isn't very familiar with other abandoned locations in the general region and such, maybe this looks normal. But to someone who has spent a significant amount of time in modern ruins, this is very much outside the norm. Our standard desert raiders don't do it like this. And between them, the high winds, baking sun, and destructive critters, nothing stays this clean and tidy for 15 years.
Okay, this first hanger is the one that I'm simply calling the forward hanger because of its positioning with the connected buildings and such. Perhaps it was a maintenance bay or something else, but the door isn't all that big. And right after I talk about how clean this whole place is, this one's a mess. Got a very big owl right there. That's cool. I bet he knows what's going on around here. Ton of casings on the ground here and a few shells. Place is covered with them. Lots of 223. That wouldn't really be out of the ordinary for an abandoned site either, except that there aren't any bullet holes in anything. like not a single one that I can find, which is strange. I actually walked around looking off camera for a while, but I got nothing. I'm guessing like a chemical or gas alarm here. Wires intact, unstripped, of course. Another phone here. And it looks like commonly needed numbers were just written right on the wall. Someone should call Bill. Maybe that's the owl. And this is super interesting. Okay, they have a form here, like a checklist for bomb threats. I actually found these in multiple places around the facility near phones. They must have got a lot of threats to have this. And they're they're all about what to ask the person who called in. You know, when's it going to explode? Where is the bomb now? Did you place the bomb? Is the bomb in the room with us? I mean, that's some diehard bureaucracy right there. Can you imagine trying to be a serious terrorist, calling in a bomb threat, and the guy who answers the phone is like, "Oh, that's terrible. Would you mind taking our survey before you go? Could you rate your experience? It really helps us out." I mean, damn, that really takes the wind out of the sales right there.
Got a full kitchen here, even with a hooded stove and a full-size oven. I'm thinking more than just like break room stuff. They probably had a a full staff here to make uh, you know, to make coffee and cook lunches and such for the executives and others who were putting in long hours. And besides, it's not like you could just order a pizza out here. I figure a lot of these offices are where the higher-ups worked, uh, supervisors and such. This little part of the facility seems a bit nicer, and that's usually a clear indicator that the big wig spent some time here. Extra secure bars on the windows. We wouldn't want the uh wouldn't want the staff to escape. I've noticed a lot of different types of combination locks and other locks on these doors, which definitely brings to mind the fact that they were working on a lot of classified stuff here. Still no real signs of packrats or other rodents, and that's still very, very odd. I wonder what the seven-year plan was. Got a bunch of old random papers here dated from the 1940s. So, probably not very relevant. I'm guessing uh inner office memos and such. Normally, this kind of stuff would have me hovering longer, but these are obviously old copies of even older material, and I do still have to keep moving. more fancy locks. Um, in the interest of getting this video out on time, I'm going to cut down on my customary chatter a little bit for this uh this little period. The voice over takes longer than I would like for processing, and you guys are much more interested in what I'm seeing rather than what I think about it. There's quite a bit to show here and just in case I miss things being in a hurry, I want to provide as much of the actual footage as possible for all of you out there to go over. I'll chime in here and there, but for now, let's just get the show on the road.
Got something like another small server. room here, a mail room perhaps. Lots of these inter office memo envelopes laying around and lots of names and dates here which could be interesting bits of intel for someone. All right, time to start some walkthroughs of these front hanger areas. Looks Like whoever did come here was unable to pry the doors and decided to force their way through the rollup door here. I did stick my head inside, but since it was completely empty, I didn't bother going all the way. Time is of the essence, after all.
This is that part that I noticed during the overflight, the sort of building within a building. And now I'm guessing that these offices we see here were probably uh probably for working on more classified projects or materials. Uh these gates that seal the offices away are kind of similar to what you would see in a jail to prevent people from going back and forth or in and out without authorization. Employees making use of these spaces would probably have been locked in to keep uh whatever they were working on safe and sound. I can see over here. It looks like someone rammed one of the gates at some point.
This is back around to the first hanger that I saw when I entered the site. I wanted to check it out before I headed down to the area behind the hangers to the power generation building. So, let's see what's in here. Black Widow's down here. I feel about spiders the same way Indiana Jones felt about snakes. Yuck. more phone numbers for me to be curious about. I swear I'm going to try calling some of these later. And of course, we've got yet another bomb threat checklist. These pens back here are interesting. I'm thinking possibly some kind of decontamination rinse off stations or something. I'm not sure, guys. I actually learn a lot of stuff that I didn't know by reading what you guys drop in the comments. So, you know, it's it's more than just about the algorithm, okay? So, if you know something about some of this stuff or anything else here, drop it down in the comments. I really do appreciate that stuff quite a bit.
Okay, coming up over here. This is listed in the materials I have as the main generator building. So, I definitely want to give it a look. These are absolutely massive air filtration systems. And that seems a bit excessive for whatever generators they may have had out here. And I'm not sure what this little room is at all. Okay, at this point, let's circle around to the front. The doors on this building are the only ones that I have seen with no exterior handles. And it also does look like a halfass attempt to pry him open was made, but suspiciously it didn't really go all the way. Main door here is also locked up tight and with a weird combination in addition to the keypad lock. The prying attempt here looks even more halfass, especially given the obvious strength put behind the hanger doors elsewhere. That to me is very suspicious.
Continuing back around, at this point, I am very curious about this one building apparently being the only one that is still locked up tight. And if we remember from our materials, this was the one marked as the generator building, meaning that it would be the absolute number one target of any looters or copper thieves. So why has it been left alone? Something else that doesn't sit right is the massive amount of air filtration we're seeing here. And remember from our drone fly over, those exhaust stacks on the roof. Or could they be intakes? Maybe that's what I started thinking. I decided to give the air filters a closer look. Yeah, great. There better not be any spiders in here.
Okay, this is where it gets real interesting, folks. Now, uh, Anders over at the Uncanny Expeditions YouTube channel that, uh, that I originally found out about this place through, um, he mentioned that he had information of some underground components to this facility. Uh, underground sections that may still be in use. Okay. And this right here, my friends, this goes down. Now, when I start to think about it, I'm thinking that this was never a generator building at all. Something you would definitely need for an underground facility is a way to pump in and filter an air supply. And that's exactly what I think we're looking at here. This was obviously providing a massive volume of air to somewhere. But where do I have any HVAC viewers in the audience who may want to educate me about just how big a system I'm looking at here? Hello.
Okay, as much as I wanted to keep poking around the air pumping building and maybe try to find my way down there, I wasn't really equipped for that or for the potential consequences. I had to stay on mission and get my footage and discoveries out and leave anything else for the next wave of investigation. That means it was time to head up to the main hanger.
On the way up this little hill, I did find the remains of one of the facil's old camera surveillance towers, which had apparently been cut down. this smaller building along With the 300,000galon water tank sitting outside was the primary emergency firefighting and suppression system for the facility. I'm guessing that all the water for the various sprinklers and such was pumped directly from here. Copper thieves just left that behind, huh? That sounds plausible.
That is a very big big door and a very big hanger apparently left wide open for the last 15 years. Notice all the many many tumble weeds and such that have been blown inside over the years. This uh this ceiling mounted crane was not cheap and yet here it sits completely wasted. Your tax dollars at work, right? Remarkably good condition, though. They definitely kept the bathrooms under some Pretty heavy lock and key. And we see another use of that strange combination lock here. This looks like an electrical access room. And there is one of our exterior camera systems that seems to be nonfunctional. At least let's hope it's nonfunctional. Anyway, And here is another example of an overly large air filtration system. But even still, given that this hanger is more than twice the size of that other building, it still doesn't have half the air moving capacity that we saw down there. So that keeps it in my mind wondering where all that air was going.
Time to take a quick drone flight out to the ends of the flight lines and also to the other array station closer to the front of the facility. This is the triangular object that Anders discovered and checked out in his video, which I will link above here. I suggest giving it a watch as he did an excellent job inspecting the flight lines, pylon bases, and also this tiny Dorito, which is why I will not be going out there this time. I will, however, take a quick trip over to the outlying antenna array control shack. This was supposed to be for the newer arrays used for radar cross-section testing here. And it would be nice to hike out there, but given that it's much closer to the front guard shack and the time considerations here, I'm going to leave it undisturbed for now.
So now my plan for the rest of this mission is to get the hell out of here and make my way back around to where the regular road is. Then in my traditional manner, I will do a little recon by fire by driving directly up to the front gate just to see what kind of reaction I can get, if any. That can also answer a few questions here. But first, let's get back to the Jeep.
One quick side stop on the way out just to get a closer look at that fixture that I originally saw on the satellite imagery. I had thought that this was something and I still can't quite explain how it seemed to come and go between those years on the shots, but from up close here, it really does just look like some sort of a tank platform. Oh well.
Okay, so I did end up moving pretty quick to get out of there, and I decided to take a road that ran parallel to the facility since I'm not worried about discovery. Now, as I approached along for where I could see the gate house, I noticed that a little ways off to the side and not visible from the main road that there was a small building that had power lines run down to it. Given my other discoveries and the info that I had before coming here, I'm wondering if that could also be a small underground entrance. There's no way to drive over there now and definitely no time to hike it, but there is just enough time and testicular fortitude left to take a run right at the gate. So, let's do that.
Definitely no one home physically, but that camera looks to be in much better shape than the ones inside. and this solar one as well. Time to play tourist and wave to the cameras. Let's see what we can see without crossing the perimeter. It wasn't until I came over here to look at these outuildings and the antenna array in the distance that I heard something. A beeping sound. I will enhance the audio here so hopefully you can hear it. It seemed to be coming from that small shipping container. in her building there. I have no idea what that was, but I decided I wasn't going to press my luck finding out today.
That's a wrap. I still have a lot of afteraction review to do and a lot of research as well, and I could definitely use your help in that. Opinions, ideas, things I may have missed. Drop them in the comments and I'll be on top of it. Anders, if you're watching, run with it. I think we definitely may have something going on here with the air system heading down into who knows what and a single building that is sealed up on top of all the other stuff. It's definitely a mystery, but hopefully we crack the nut just a little bit more today. All right, my friends. Until next time, stay safe and stay ready. It's a wasteland out there.