• Matt Blaze@federate.socialOP
    2·
    22 days ago

    From 1958 through 1980, this incongruous four story (82 foot) monolith was the centerpiece of the “Almaden Air Force Station”, a long-range radar site that was part of NORAD’s SAGE early warning system. The blast-hardened concrete building served as the platform for an FPS-24 radar system, a massive 120 foot wide reflector that emitted a 5 megawatt VHF pulse, continuously rotating at 5 RPM.

    Notoriously, the signal disrupted TV and radio reception throughout the San Jose area.

    • Matt Blaze@federate.socialOP
      1·
      22 days ago

      It’s unclear if the SAGE system would have actually been effective in detecting incoming bombers, which presumably would have employed radar jammers and other countermeasures. Fortunately, we never found out.

      The huge rotating antenna (not shown) was removed shortly after the site’s decommissioning in 1980, but the building, a prominent local landmark visible from downtown San Jose, has been preserved.

      • Matt Blaze@federate.socialOP
        1·
        22 days ago

        I have mixed feelings about these cold war relics. On the one hand, they’re artifacts of what was perhaps humanity’s most dangerous folly to date, locking the world in a deadly game where the stakes only went up with each round. This doesn’t seem like something to commemorate or celebrate.

        On the other hand, these objects, many now destroyed or decayed, serve as visible evidence of just how close to oblivion we are willing to go. And looked at from the right angle, they have stories to tell.

        • Dan McDonald@hostux.social
          1·
          22 days ago

          @mattblaze@federate.social

          File in the same category as Auschwitz-as-museum, perhaps? As slave-plantation that actual condemns slavery (vs. that fucking thing in LA that burned down… 🔥 )?

        • Chuck@chaos.social
          1·
          22 days ago

          @mattblaze@federate.social One can only learn from history if you remember it right? Too many people today don’t really understand the destruction that a single nuclear weapon can wreak. That the bombs dropped in Japan would be considered “tactical” today. These edifices serve to remind us a bit of that threat.

        • Orrock@sfba.social
          1·
          22 days ago

          @mattblaze@federate.social plus all those bomb shelters. I remember one girl hosting sleepovers in the one her parents built. Must have been circa 1961