Enter Valhalla: flooded nuclear missile silo a playground for scuba divers
A decommissioned US nuclear missile silo in the US that was abandoned after the Cold War and left to fill up with water for nearly 50 years is now being used as a dive site.
The deserted military site lies below the desert somewhere in Texas, known only to a network of scuba divers who seek to penetrate the depths of the 127 foot deep flooded silo.
The silo is known to divers as Valhalla, a hall in Norse mythology where dead warriors can find peace in the afterlife.
Underwater photographer Brandon Hatcher, 36, explored the unique dive site. “It is really quiet and still in the abandoned silo, and any noise you make echoes”, he said.
“The water was undisturbed – the surface looked like glass before I jumped in.
“I felt completely cut off from the world. The site is in the middle of the desert in a giant wind farm, when you arrive you can only hear the sound of the turbines.
“But once you are underground it’s just you and whoever you’re with… it’s quite surreal.”
Located southwest of Abilene, in Texas, Valhalla Missile Silo is the only site of its kind in the world. It flooded when water started to seep through the four foot thick concrete after it closed in the Sixties.
To get to the pool, divers must carry their equipment down five flights of stairs, through corridors flanked by blast doors and into the derelict control centre.
Divers then enter the silo, a cavernous 172 foot tall chamber below 60 foot wide launch doors.
At the bottom of the pool is a forest of twisted scrap metal – the remains of walkways and staircases and walkways which used to allow technicians access to the nuclear-tipped Atlas rocket housed in the silo.
Brandon, from Atlanta, Georgia, said “It’s pitch black in the water, so if you turn your torch off you can’t see a thing.
“It can be quite disorienting; you don’t know if you are up or down. I had to look at my dive computer to check I was actually moving.
“But the water is very clear so you can see as far as the torch light will reach.
“When I was floating and looking down, I could see my buddies 50 feet below me.”
The missile silo was built by the US government in 1963. The government built a series of intercontinental ballistic missile silos throughout Texas to act as a part of the mutually assured destruction deterrent during the Cold War.
Two years after it was built the Atlas missile became obsolete and the site was decommissioned. The missiles were modified to launch astronauts and satellites into space.
The contents of the silo were sold for salvage, the launch doors sealed and the site was left to fill with groundwater.
Mark and Linda Hannifin bought the silo in 2000 and now offer diver training through their company Dive Valhalla.
The water has been tested to ensure it is not radioactive.
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
