Raven Rock

Military 5 Minutes

Pretty unimpressive, isn’t it?  Would you believe me if I told you there is a whole military installation built under there?  Maybe a different photo would help…

This is a story I found when I went searching for interesting places to see in PA…only you aren’t allowed in…and shhhhh…it’s supposed to be a secret…LOL

When Raven Rock Mountain Complex was being built in southern Pennsylvania during the late 1940s, locals jokingly called it “Harry’s Hole” for President Harry Truman. Residents would hold picnics while watching the excavations and blastings. Many worked on its construction.

It was never completely a secret. But it stayed close to one for a while, mainly because no one said anything, said Garrett Graff, a journalist and author of the new book “Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself – While the Rest of Us Die.”

“This was relatively well known to the locals who worked there or had family who worked there,” Graff told PhillyVoice in an interview. “They just kept it quiet.”

The lid on Raven Rock has slowly been peeled. Located just north of the Maryland border, three hours west of Philadelphia and a short distance from Washington, D.C., it’s clearly labeled on Google Maps and been documented in books and articles.

It also isn’t a relic. Raven Rock is fully operational, and should the United States break out into nuclear war, it’s where defense operations would likely be centered.

“Raven Rock is the place where nuclear war in the United States would begin,” Graff said.

The Raven Rock Mountain Complex was carved into the ground during a period of panic.

As the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack loomed, “ordinary families were being encouraged to dig fallout shelters in their backyards,” investigative journalist Eric Schlosser wrote in his 2013 book “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety.”

At the same time, the military and government were digging holes of their own. A bomb shelter had been built below the East Wing of the White House for President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II, a bunker that was expanded during Truman’s administration.

Planning for a Soviet attack, however, “made it seem necessary to move America’s commander-in-chief someplace even deeper underground,” according to Schlosser.

The result was a bunker inside Raven Rock Mountain, and it was massive. Per “Command and Control”:

“Known as Site R, it sat about a half a mile inside Raven Rock and another half a mile below the mountain’s peak. It had power stations, underground water reservoirs, a small chapel, clusters of three-story buildings set within vast caverns, and enough beds to accommodate two thousand high-ranking officials from the Pentagon, the State Department, and the National Security Council.”

Graff said you can add to that list police and fire departments, a cafeteria, and “everything else you would find in a normal small city.”

The complex was finished in 1953 and has operated 24 hours a day, every day since 1961. 

Some of the bunker’s facilities are located on or around the mountain, such as the fire department sitting on the peak. Most of the complex, however, is underground. Once the blast doors seal, Raven Rock’s dwellers can live there for weeks at a time. 

‘Portals’ A and B are visible at the Raven Rock Mountain Complex near Waynesboro in southern Pennsylvania in this image from GoogleEarth. Once the blast doors are sealed, dwellers can live there for weeks at a time.

After the Cold War, many bunkers built in anticipation of nuclear apocalypse became obsolete, such as the fallout shelter underneath a West Virginia resort that’s now a museum.

Others, like Raven Rock, were kept operational — but barely. That changed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“It was more in mothball status,” Graff said. “It wasn’t quite as dramatic as someone walking into the mountain and turning on the lights, but operational-wise, that’s what happened on 9/11.”

The government kicked Raven Rock into gear. The facilities underwent a large expansion, Graff said. About 100 people work there under normal circumstances, but it can now hold about 5,000 in an emergency.

“Raven Rock today is a much more capable and larger facility than it was during the height of the Cold War,” Graff said.

In the days following the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney famously used Raven Rock as one of several secret hideaways while his office tried to shield his whereabouts.

“We know it’s there, we know why it’s there, and that’s as much as we know” — Richard Starliper, mayor of nearby Waynesboro, Pennsylvania.

Graff clarified there’s no evidence Cheney spent the day of the attacks there, but he definitely went afterward. Some defense officials, like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, were taken directly to the mountain complex.

Raven Rock is one of two very similar facilities meant to house officials in case of an attack, with the other being the Mount Weather complex in Virginia. Mount Weather is run by FEMA, and would house most of the civilian government in an emergency.

The Pentagon runs Raven Rock, and it’s where national security would operate in the event of catastrophe or war, like if a President were to truly release “fire and fury” on North Korea — or vice versa.

“If at this exact moment the president decides he wants to launch nuclear war, or North Korea does, and for whatever reason he’s not able to reach the Pentagon, he would call Raven Rock,” Graff said.

Considering the heavy responsibility the complex would carry in the wake of tragedy, it’s not surprising the government has tried keeping a tight lip on Raven Rock. But there have been blips.

While working on their 2008 book “A Nuclear Family Vacation,” defense reporters Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger were seemingly accidentally given information regarding a conference at Raven Rock about underground military facilities.

The reporters simply asked a point of contact for the conference about the event after coming across a notice for it on a Pentagon agency’s website. They were handed informational packets distributed to attendees that highlighted the level of secrecy surrounding Raven Rock, which was referred to as RRMC.

“Guidance” for those attending the conference included the following rules: “Avoid conversations about RRMC with unauthorized personnel,” “Do not confirm or deny information about RRMC to reporters or radio stations,” and “Do not post RRMC information on internet web pages.”

It continues: “Remember: The more the public knows about this facility, the more our adversaries do, and the more vulnerable we become.”

A few days after the reporters obtained the information, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency took down the notice about the conference. Hodge and Weinberger presumed someone at the Pentagon got in trouble.

Only in the past quarter century since the Cold War has information about Raven Rock become more public, “a testament to the limited communications technologies of the era” when it was constructed, according to Graff.

Raven Rock’s relationship with the surrounding community has changed too, particularly since the closure of the Fort Ritchie Army base across the border in Maryland. Some residents of nearby Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, who formerly worked at Fort Ritchie would be stationed at Raven Rock, according to the town’s mayor, Richard Starliper.

“These days you have no idea who works there or what they do,” Starliper said.

The complex is both a mystery and not at all, a sentiment summed up rather appropriately by the Waynesboro mayor.

“We know it’s there,” he said, “we know why it’s there, and that’s as much as we know.”

***There is an unprovable rumor that is interesting***

“I don`t know if it’s true or not,” a Waynesboro resident says, “But there`s supposed to be an underground tunnel from Virginia where they could drive up if they wanted to.”

The resident is referring to the popular rumor that there is an elaborate underground network of tunnels between Washington D.C., nearby Camp David, and Raven Rock so the President or Vice President could escape harm if disaster strikes.

That rumor, according to one D.C. Insider, is categorically false.

SOURCE:

https://www.phillyvoice.com/story-behind-gigantic-not-so-secret-pennsylvania-bunker-where-nuclear-war-us-would-begin/

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181 thoughts on “Raven Rock”

  3. “Romney Attacks George Santos: ‘There’s Only Room For One Fake Republican In Congress’”
    POLITICS · Feb 9, 2023 · BabylonBee.com

    WASHINGTON, DC — Tensions among Republican members of Congress are on the rise after Utah Senator Mitt Romney confronted New York Congressman George Santos in the House chamber prior to President Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, with Romney reportedly telling Santos that there is only room for one fake Republican in Congress.

    “Who does he think he is?” Romney was heard asking his staffers yesterday in the hallways of the Capitol. “There are some of us who have worked our entire lives to be fake conservatives! We’re the ones who have earned the right to sell out the Republican party, not this two-bit, fly-by-night con artist!”

    When reached for comment, Congressman Santos seemed to take the high road. “While I’m disappointed to hear this from Mitt after the years I spent working as a Mormon missionary with his father, I understand that I am one of the new faces on Capitol Hill,” Santos said to reporters. “I’m coming in at the bottom of the totem pole, and I have to prove myself. When I helped Steve Jobs start Apple in his garage in the mid-70s, it was the same thing.”

    When told of Santos’s comments, Romney was not amused. “This guy gives dishonest politicians a bad name, and I won’t stand for it,” Romney said. “George Santos — if that is indeed his real name — needs to leave the lying and fake conservative act to the experts.”

    At publishing time, Senator Romney was hard at work preparing an articulate speech that would simultaneously vilify Santos and pledge deep, personal loyalty to strong conservative values that he would immediately abandon and vote against at the soonest opportunity.”

    Liked by 1 person

  4. “AOC Insists There Are No Hysterectomies Performed On Minors Because Most Of Them Are Too Busy In The Mines”
    POLITICS · Feb 8, 2023 · BabylonBee.com

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — During a tense Congressional Hearing, deductive polymath Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put a widespread conspiracy theory to rest when she vocally insisted that there were no hysterectomies being performed on minors because most of them are too busy working in the mines anyway.

    The truth-filled gavel drop utterly destroyed the claim by conservatives that the Boston Children’s Hospital was performing the irreparable surgeries on minors.

    “How can minors find the time to travel via minecart to far-away Boston when they’re busy mining for coal, iron, and lapis lazuli,” explained Ocasio-Cortez to an awestruck chamber. “And it’s not just minors who aren’t getting hysterectomies; neither are lumberjacks, farmers, nor blacksmiths.”

    The phenom of reason and intellect then adjusted her smart-looking glasses and conceded that yes, some villagers did receive hysterectomies, but only if they had enough emeralds, which were hard to come by because they were “even more rarer than diamonds.”

    At publishing time, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez had stunned all by pointing out hysterectomies weren’t even real because no one had hysters in their bodies in the first place.”

    Liked by 1 person

  5. “Behavior Analysis of Jordan Trishton Walker — It’s all there. All the signs. The Tells. Louis Conte and I compare notes.”

    James Lyons-Weiler
    13 min ago

    EXCERPT: “I’m fan of behavior analysis – which I why I feel lucky to have a friend in Louis Conte. Last night while the rest of the country had their eyes glued on or averted from Biden’s SOU speech, Louis and I decided to compare notes on our analysis of Jordan Trishton Walker’s confessions, reveals, delight at getting away with it… and meltdown.
    (Video)
    You can also read about Louis’ impressions at his new Substack (“Truth Be Told”), and about his course at IPAK-EDU that is starting very soon “Truth and Deception”, which I recommend (now only $90!!!). Louis will teach you trade secrets on how to know when someone is not, let’s say… exactly being forthright.”
    —————–
    In Vino Veritas – “In wine, there is truth.”
    “Project Veritas records Jordan Trishton Walker disclosing that Pfizer is secretly enhancing Coronaviruses. When confronted, Walker erupts.”

    Louis Conte
    23 hr ago

    EXCERPT: “Louis Conte’s The Truth be Told: Exploring corruption, controversy, and deception in today’s world from the perspective of a forensic psychophysiologist (Polygraph Examiner).

    Louis Conte is a professional Polygraph Examiner, investigator, and writer. In addition to the thousands of offenders he interviewed over his thirty-three years in law enforcement, Conte has conducted over fourteen hundred polygraph examinations. He uses well-honed observation skills to ferret out the truth. Observation and careful attention to words and behavior often reveal the truth.”

    https://louisconte.substack.com/p/in-vino-veritas-in-wine-there-is

    Liked by 1 person

  6. NF: I’m going to excerpt some of the personal stuff – the rest you can find at the link.

    “Personal Sovereignty — The right to be free is like a muscle, it has to be exercised to stay strong”

    Robert W Malone MD, MS
    13 min ago

    EXCERPTS: “Jill and I are in Florida this week. Traveling for a number of private events. From there, we go home for a day and then we are off to the UK for three days to attend an important meeting with a number of members of parliament, and while there I will also have an in-studio interview on London Real. Then home for a day and we turn right around to go to a Brownstone Institute symposium for two days. From there, we have ten days at home before we hit the road again for CPAC, Washington DC – where I will be speaking.

    But back at the farm, over the past two months, we have had four colts born, and we have been lucky enough to be on the farm for all of the births so far. We have one more birth left to go and unfortunately, this time we are going to miss it. That birth, will be managed by Olivia, our farm manager. All I can say is how lucky we are to have such a capable person working for us.

    The last foal born on Feb 2nd was a little premature. So last week, in-between interviews, writing and doing more set-up for the studio, we were taking care of this little guy.


    Lusitano colt: Travertine CAL (Travers). By our stallion Jade and Maeve CAL

    “Travers” is a double dilute (he has two creme genes), so his coloration will always be light and his eyes will stay light blue.

    In the meantime, our neighbor’s son needed a part-time job, so we have a bit more help with farm chores. Always a good thing, and he has picked up some of the stall cleaning duties. Jill ended up with a fair amount of shoveling last week. Baby horses and their dams make big messes. Stall cleaning seems like good exercise, but the truth is, after reaching 60 years and beyond, it gets a little hard on the back. However, Jill hates leaving all the stalls for the staff, so she will often clean stalls to lesson their load. Farm chores don’t do themselves, that is for sure!

    Other winter jobs still will need to be done, and we are working through them. This month, we need MUST get dormant oil sprayed on the fruit trees. Dormant oil is a non-toxic way to control bugs. The idea being that oil, when sprayed on fruit trees before the buds swell, will suffocate insects and their eggs. This cuts way down on insect damage to the fruit trees.

    Over the course of the past five years, we have planted about 50 fruit trees, as well as many other trees and bushes on the farm and the back forest. We have a long-term vision and goal of creating a of a walking path that winds by the creek and up through the forest and quarry pond, that is more like a botanical garden. So, each year we plant a unique tree here or native bush there. It is a slow process. But highly rewarding.

    So it is on the farm. Winter chores are easier, the birthing season is hard, now we have to start to breed the newly open (fertile) mares, and soon the planting, weeding, bug patrol, fence mending, raking, mowing, weed whipping and bush hogging will all need to be done. Jill wants new raised planters for her vegetable garden this year. It never ends.

    Jill has arranged for more guinea fowl to be purchased, as our flock as dwindled to four thanks to the appetite of the local red foxes which most definitely includes fresh poultry. She is on the hunt for some Icelandic chickens also. The Japanese beetles were horrendous last year, and we have had good success with guineas in the past. Not to mention, the guineas help reduce our tick population.

    The idea of Galt’s Gulch is very real for us.

    When we built our houses, and yes – we do have two houses on the farm- we didn’t build big, fancy houses. Instead, we built modestly sized, well appointed, energy efficient homes. By having two such houses on the farm, we can host other physicians, attorneys, film crews, people in the movement, and we even have had a whistleblower or two come stay at the farm. It is a retreat and a workspace for not only us, but for others too. The farm and the forest are a canvas to be creative and rejuvenate. Not by relaxing or having spa time but by working, creating and having a space to talk and strategize.”

    https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/personal-sovereignty

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  7. the entire article details an arrest of a man transporting drugs but failed to mention the 28yr old’s name
    entire story
    FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — A 28-year-old Fairfax County man is facing serious charges after police said he was transporting more than $500,000 worth of narcotics.

    Detectives with the Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD) said that the man was transporting drugs into the county from out of state.

    Tuesday night, police said they saw the man enter the county and conducted a traffic stop. Detectives said they found 63 pounds of marijuana, 1,000 tins of multiple THC gummies, 270 small jars of THC wax (2.5 grams each), 800 additional grams of THC wax, 500 THC vape cartridges/pens and 300 THC-infused drinks inside the vehicle.

    Following his arrest, a search warrant was executed at his home, where detectives said they seized 13 pounds of marijuana flower, 800 tins of THC gummies, a pound of Psilocybin, 50 jars (2.5 grams each) of wax, 100 THC vape cartridge and $60,000 in U.S. currency.

    The man was arrested and charged with two counts of possession with the intent to distribute marijuana, transportation of marijuana into the Commonwealth of Virginia, and possession with the intent to distribute a narcotic.

    He was held on a secure bond.

    https://wjla.com/news/local/fairfax-county-drugs-weed-marijuana-28-year-old-man-charged-transporting-500k-worth-narcotics-thc-pot-nova-cash-police-dmv

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  8. bflyjesusgrl 🍊 😎MEGA MAGA GAME ON😎
    bflyjesusgrl 🍊 😎MEGA MAGA GAME ON😎(@bflyjesusgrl)Online
    Coyote
    February 9, 2023 12:23

    Todd Bensman on Warroom – He’s been telling of new ploy by Creepy admin of bringing in illegals. Months ago they created app, illegals pre-register, wait in MX to be processed, then get bussed/escorted through ports of entry and handed over to BP and released into the country. This method does not include them in illegal apprehension stats, thereby reducing official #’s of illegals being reported. Liars hiding data! 🙄🙄🙄 Today he revealed that program actually grants them temporary legal status and gives them 2yr work permits. Thousands are signing up and pouring in through this illegal back door process. Creepy just can’t grant citizenship to millions! We need to be raising cane to our Reps!! HURRY UP LAWSUITS AND COURTS!!!

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Very long piece….

    “Dangerously funny — The left’s all-out war on satire is really a fight over truth—and every citizen’s right to speak it”

    Seth Dillon
    1 hr ago

    EXCERPT: “The joke is in the headline. That’s where it all starts. If the headline doesn’t land with a funny punchline, then nobody laughs. And if nobody laughs, nobody shares. And if nobody shares, site traffic dies and nobody clicks on the ads by mistake anymore, and my wife starts grumbling about how we used to make more money. The headline, with its humorous hook, is everything.

    When I took ownership of the Babylon Bee in the spring of 2018, I was excited to start pitching headlines. I wanted to contribute creatively. I wanted to see my own work published on the front page of the world’s most trusted, factually accurate news source. It was all just made-up stuff, anyway. How hard could it be?
    —————-
    So many things are off limits in comedy now, and people think that represents progress. They think we’ve improved morally because we make fun of fewer things. I think the opposite is true. I think we’re more depraved than ever because we’re affirming and accepting what we should be ridiculing and rejecting.

    So how did we get here? How did we get to a place where insane ideas are not just popular, but sacred? How did we get to a point where it’s considered hateful to tell the truth, even in jest?

    I think the answer is as simple and straightforward as this: Instead of laughing at absurdity, we accepted it. Instead of ­ridiculing bad ideas, we ­tolerated them. The absurd has become sacred only because it hasn’t been ­sufficiently mocked.

    But isn’t mockery mean and cruel? Well, that depends. We’re not talking about mockery for the ­purpose of putting people down and making them feel bad. We’re talking about using it as a tool to expose foolishness. Mockery of this kind is a moral imperative for the obvious reason that bad ideas taken seriously have catastrophic consequences. Ask any of the mutilated teens who now regret their gender transition surgery, or any inmate at a women’s-only prison whose “female” cellmate got her pregnant. Imagine if the ideas that produced these results had been laughed at instead of lauded.

    C.S. Lewis said, “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” This is as true now as it’s ever been. Bad ideas are everywhere, and social media increases the speed with which they spread, infecting minds all over the world. There can never be enough opposition to them.

    In a recent interview with actress Gina Carano, podcaster Joe Rogan said, “The funniest parody comedy now is coming from the Babylon Bee. They’re so consistently funny. Because the funniest [stuff] right now is woke [stuff]. And that’s the [stuff] that people on the left can’t touch.” The absurd has become sacred only because it hasn’t been sufficiently mocked. He’s right, but it’s not just that wokeness is ­hysterical. It also happens to be harmful.

    When we interviewed Elon Musk on our podcast last December—yes, we have a podcast that’s been described by critics as “audible” and “lengthy”—he called wokeness a mind virus and said it’s one of the greatest threats to modern civilization. I asked him why he thought it was so dangerous and destructive. He paused to think for a moment, then said, “At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.”

    I couldn’t agree more. At the Babylon Bee, we’re just satirists. We write jokes on the internet for a living. Every day we try—and often fail—to produce fake news that’s funnier than what politicians and proselytizers are doing in real life. That’s our humble calling. But somehow we’ve found ourselves on the front lines of a battle for the preservation of freedom and the restoration of sanity.

    I’m not sure how that happened. But I do know that satire is never more necessary than when reality and rationality are under attack. You can’t refute claims rooted in relativism, where truth itself is a moving target. You can’t reason with people who’ve abandoned rationality on purpose. But you can—and, indeed, you must—ridicule their bad ideas. Nothing, after all, undercuts lunacy and lies like laughter.

    This brilliant piece—unrivaled by any other written work of any age, past or present—was originally published in World Magazine. Did you enjoy reading this as much as I hated writing it? If so, get on the list.”

    https://sethdillon.substack.com/p/dangerously-funny

    Liked by 1 person

  12. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

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        1. this sunday.
          i am an eagles fan but i can never watch them…I yell at them and they never hear me thru the tv so i yell louder.
          it’s really unpleasant for hubby…LOL
          so I let him watch in peace

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