This story starts out like all the best films do. It’s the end of 1940, and high-ranking officials from the U.S. and Denmark have gathered at the Americans’ request. In the background, an unusual offer is presented: The U.S. wants to buy a piece of Greenland for $100 million. This marks the beginning of a negotiation with a dramatic conclusion, one that has recently come to light through NASA’s radar technology.
NASA’s discovery. In April 2024, during a flight over Greenland, NASA detected something unusual: the remains of what appeared to be a military base. Further analysis confirmed that it was Camp Century, a secret base established by the U.S. in 1959 during the Cold War.
This discovery was made possible by NASA’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, which was initially employed to map the inner layers of the ice sheet. The images captured revealed the base’s structures with unprecedented clarity, although some distortions were present due to the technology used.
Camp Century. Designed to accommodate up to 200 soldiers, the “city” was abandoned in 1967. It then became buried under more than 100 feet of ice and snow, along with tons of radioactive waste from its nuclear reactor. Originally intended for polar research, this site now lies hidden in the frozen desert, and its history is more complex than it may appear.
Background. In the context of the Cold War, there was reasonable doubt: Why would the U.S. want a piece of that inhospitable and icy part of the planet, especially when it offered nothing less than $100 million at the time? In response to this question, the U.S. delegation stated that the country was looking to establish an air base. Additionally, the military was interested in having permanent access to the ice sheet in order to develop various techniques for constructing structures on and beneath the ice.
What did Denmark do? While Denmark didn’t agree to the sale, the European country felt a sense of gratitude after World War II. As such, the Danish government granted the Americans permission to establish their air base and allowed Army engineers to explore and find a desolate, flat, remote area of the ice sheet where they could experiment with construction techniques. As a result, the U.S. initiated two projects: Thule Air Base (now Pituffik Space Base) and another initiative located 150 miles away, which was dubbed “a city under the ice.”
This is Camp Century, as seen by NASA’s air radar.
Camp Century. This was the code name for an ambitious project. Located about 150 miles from Thule Air Base, Camp Century was constructed between 1959 and 1960. The compound consisted of 21 steel tunnels totaling 9,800 feet. It also housed various facilities, including sleeping quarters, a hospital, recreational areas, a kitchen, and a nuclear plant that supplied power for light and heat throughout the compound, all run by a PM-2 nuclear reactor.
The base was designed to accommodate 200 people and employed innovative technology, such as wells that melted ice into fresh water and advanced ventilation systems. Despite facing extremely low temperatures of -70 degrees Fahrenheit and winds reaching up to 120 mph, the base offered a safe haven against nuclear attack. It also featured interconnected tunnels and an electric train system for internal transportation. However, the instability of the ice ultimately rendered the entire plan untenable, and the project was abandoned in 1967.
The iconic cover of the February 1960 issue of Popular Science on the advantages of the project.
Nuclear weapons. Years and decades passed without any word on the subject until the mid-1990s when Danish researchers revealed declassified U.S. documents. These documents disclosed that the U.S. had routinely flown nuclear weapons over Greenland in the 1960s. Additionally, contrary to the public statements made by the U.S. government when signing the agreement with Denmark, the files also revealed that Americans had stored nuclear weapons at Thule Air Base.
Researchers also revealed that the Danish government had known about the Americans’ practices all along and had been misleading its citizens for 30 years, a scandal that became known in Denmark as “Thulegate.”
Project Iceworm. Shortly after, a report detailing a project drastically different from what had been presented at the time uncovered a huge revelation. Codenamed Project Iceworm, the plan aimed to determine the feasibility of digging deep vertical shafts into the Greenland ice.
The intention behind this was to conceal up to 2,100 nuclear missile silos and 60 launch control centers. The U.S. Army would move these missiles via underground trains to avoid detection, ensuring a rapid response, if necessary, particularly in light of the nearby Soviet enclaves.
Further revelations. The declassified documents also revealed that nuclear missiles, referred to as “Iceman,” were an unreleased variant intended for experiments under ice. It was also discovered that Army engineers initially experimented with ice-building techniques in a secret Greenland facility known as Camp Fistclench. This research camp eventually led to the construction of Camp Century, which was established to test advanced “nuclear” ice designs while publicly presenting it as a scientific initiative.
A valuable scientific research base. Despite its abandonment, Camp Century continues to provide valuable insights. The initial research conducted there allowed engineers to drill deep into the Greenland ice sheet and extract some of the first deep ice cores. This marked a significant breakthrough in science because researchers were able to obtain material that had previously been inaccessible.
Today, these ice cores remain crucial for scientific understanding. In particular, chemical analyses of the ice sheets have helped establish a connection between atmospheric greenhouse gases and global temperatures. These analyses contribute to a better understanding of past climate conditions and can help project the potential impacts of climate change in the future.
Image | Tina Rolf | National Archives
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