Nike Missile Base

The entrance

So there were more of us than this but not all of us went in either. That small hole near that tree is where we enter.

MOAR ENTARNCE

It's a tight fit (giggity) but all of us were able to get through. You'd have to be cautious, as strangling reebar rods were poking out here and there like spikes.

First room

This was the first room. It's difficult to find a day that this is not flooded. These underground bases are ALL ACROSS THE US. They were made as a defense system for the US in case of invading missile attacks from countries like Russia. Unfortunately as the technologies for missiles improved in time (primarily ICBM), the need for these silos diminished. The "Nike" name came from the name of the missiles, which changed several times and had also been called Ajax.

Our entrance

This is what that hole came down to, very difficult to get down and up.

Dank Memes

So the base had been intentionally buried so hooligans like me don't enter, but I showed them!!! *shakes fist.* Anyways I ate shit because the wall told me to (jk), but that doorway is an escape hatch outside. All rooms with this had been buried. The room to the right had a noise of something drop at one point that sent my cousin and his friend running the eff out of there. Best moment of my life as my girlfriend and his girlfriend at the time sighed in embarrassment.

Wall

Much mud, such water

The next room

Next room looked identical, often these silos had 3+ rooms simply for storing, lifting, then launching the rockets. You see that the dirt is on the right because it is dropped from the doors above, meaning the other part of the room is on the other side of the dirt mound, but completely inaccessible.

whoops

I put this here twice, JUST TO REMIND YOU WHAT I HAD TO GO THROUGH TO GET YOU THESE PICTURES

Outside

From the outside, you can see some openings for ventilation and escape hatches, but going through here means an approximately 15 foot fall, and no way out. I had no other way to get to this room and no rope to rappel down

This small entrance only two of us fit through

Yep, only two of us fit through this...I still wonder how. The below pictures are the result

BUT FIRST

Here is a hangar door, you expect to be able to enter but NEWWWP

yep

This is what you get, and that black part above the sand is water, no a crawl space...so no way to get there through this.

Rooms over

So there's a few small rooms I had to fit myself into with great difficulty. Unfortunately I can't get better pictures at times because the mounds of dirt are pushing me against the walls as is, and therefore there is not actually anything much to the right to show

same here

same here

Hardest part

This was by far one of the dumbest, and most difficult parts...deciding to crawl through here and get stuck because it's clearly barely enough to fit a raccoon through let alone a person. We had to dig and the first person kept getting stuck...a lot. BUT WE MADE IT THROUGH!

next room

At this point it's pitch black, as if the previous room wasn't black enough...best part is we only had our camera flash to lead the way (before smart phone flashlights were cool). Therefore we had to walk and take a lot of pictures of the ground to ensure we don't step somewhere bad, which is good because

I almost fell down here. Believe me that now I regret it but at the time, all the nopes possible were running through my head since I could have died for all i know. Then again, it's a small hole with a pipe, but you just don't think about these things when you're in a pitch black two-three story underground base that smells dank.

top of door

This is the top of a door. We're going back a bit because the previous pic was actually the last room we went to since I had it at that point with all the blackness

Bad path

In the previous pic it was just more dirt. So, we went the opposite direction and found more flooded rooms.

Almost fell!

As soon as we turned the corner, I slid a little and my legs ended up in water as I clawed back on the dirt. Unfortunately the remaining rooms are all flooded and we could only go so far

More of the room

It was at this point that we had too many stops and therefore had to go back. But, thanks for looking! Remember there's about 300 of these across the US, usually surrounding capitals. Therefore, one might be closer to you than you think

comparison

What a nice one that was taken care of looks like from inside. But check them out! This image I took from google