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[ZoeB]

A place where I used to work. Now decommissioned, so I can talk about it a bit.

When you're stuck deep underground for long periods, you lose track of things like whether it's day or night outside, or if long enough, what season it is. So such places aren't the bare and spartan locations usually associated with secret squirrel stuff in the publuc imagination. Secure complexes can be quite large and airy. Apart from the tastefully decorated pillars and low ceilings.

Here's a shot of the rec room during decommissioning.



Entry to the bunker complex was via the sub sub basement of a secure office building some distance away. To get to this stage, you already had to have gone through the Maxwell Smart stuff, going through what seemed to be just another cupboard door in a corridor in the basement. The armed guards etc were a long way behind you by this stage.

This was the entry foyer to the tunnel leading to the complex.



The view from the tunnel entrance looking out, showing the "nondescript cupboard door" leading to the real world outside, and just another corridor in the sub sub basement. There wasn't much traffic, so if someone entered the door and didn exit for a few days, weeks or months it wasn't noticeable. Security through obscurity, or just plain being nondescript and unremarkable.

Apart from the emergency exit, with its long, long spiral staircase leading up to what looked on the surface like a utilities box about the size of a Tardis, * this was the only access point.



One of the many equipment rooms, with some of the gear too obsolete to salvage.



The view in the corridor, just outside where I used to work, oddly enough, doing stuff. There were many such corridors leading to various sections.



One of the security doors between sections. Everything highly compartmentalised, Need To Know regardless of clearance.



Another one, again with reminders of the outside world.



* - which caused some mirth during evacuation drills. Bystanders would see a door in a utilities box far away from any building open, and a hundred people would emerge from it....

[Welu]

That is fascinating. Just looking as a person with no experience and knowledge, it simply looks cool. My first thought looking at the photos was that I'd love to film in that kind of location.

[Kugai]

Cool

I wonder if some rich guy now owns it and has his private hideout there.

[Akima]

Reminds me of the closing scenes of an old movie.

I've never worked in a place like that (I doubt I could get the security-clearance in the first place), but I have worked for long periods in windowless underground computer-rooms, and you do lose track of time, and emerge, blinking and disoriented, into the sunlight...

[ankhtahr]

I'm in the logistics team of the Chaos Communication Congress, Europe's largest hacker congress, so I spend almost a month in the storage area, which is one enormous 7000mē room, 8.35m high, no windows and always bright as the day. The only thing you notice from the outside world is that sometimes the semis which are delivering equipment are wet or snowy. You lose your sense of time first, then you get nosebleed from the dry, conditioned air. I can't imagine working even longer in a smaller facility.

Thank you so much for showing this, because I honestly thought facilities like this only existed in movies. I love places with secrets.

[ZoeB]

.
Thank you so much for showing this, because I honestly thought facilities like this only existed in movies. I love places with secrets.

Ah but the reason I'm posting the data is because they're not secrets any more.
You might see some of the stuff that's secret now in a few decades, when it too is declassified for the historians.

[Metope]

Don't know a thing about data stuff, but this looks like living and working in Norway during winter. Last job I had there sported some serious blinds during the few hours of daylight (read:not sunlight, it's always overcast or snowing) we got between noon and 3, so any free time would be dark anyway. Fun!

[Neko_Ali]

Cool

I wonder if some rich guy now owns it and has his private hideout there.

Quietly stroking his cat and planning to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!