The Infinite ArchiveTHE INFINITE ARCHIVEHISTORY · SCIENCE · MYSTERY
A 20-ton blast door closing inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado
A 20-ton blast door closing inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado. Photo: U.S. Air Force (Joann Missey) · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons
Secrets & power · United States · 1958 – today

Underground Bunkers and Secret Bases

Established1958 CE – 2026 CECheyenne Mountain, Colorado, USA

Governments really did build hidden cities under mountains and luxury hotels. The rumored alien base under New Mexico is another story.

During the Cold War the United States built a network of hardened sites to keep the government running after a nuclear attack. Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, carved into granite behind massive blast doors, became fully operational in April 1966 and still houses NORAD and U.S. Northern Command functions. Beneath the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, a bunker for Congress was kept secret for about thirty years until a journalist revealed it in 1992. Raven Rock in Pennsylvania served as an alternate Pentagon.

Loading the full dossier…

Connected dossiers

Area 51: The Secret Base in the DesertComparable case · Secret government facilities.The Underground City of DerinkuyuComparable case · Underground refuges, ancient and modern.

Ask the archive

Have a question about this dossier, or think a claim needs a better source? Send it to the editors.

Questions go to the editors and are not published automatically. Please do not include personal information.

How to read the labels

EstablishedSupported by strong, converging evidence.
ContestedEvidence exists but qualified scholars disagree.
UnresolvedThe question is open; evidence does not settle it.
LegendComes from myth, literature or tradition, not physical evidence.
SpeculativeA hypothesis with little direct evidence so far.

Hero image: A 20-ton blast door closing inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado. Photo: U.S. Air Force (Joann Missey) · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons. Evidence labels describe the written claims, not the image. Version 1 · updated 2026-10-22.