Australia Has Its Very Own "Area 51"

In the heart of Australia’s scorching Red Center, some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from the nearest city, lies a top-secret military communications base that few people know about – and even fewer have visited. Officially known as the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap – or just Pine Gap for short – the off-limits facility is operated by both Australia and the United States, and is sometimes likened to Area 51 due to its secretive nature and fiercely guarded perimeters.

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Established at the height of the Cold War, Pine Gap came into being when the two nations signed a treaty in 1966 agreeing to set up an intelligence base just outside Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory. At the time, the project was presented to the public as a space research facility, although in reality it was being run by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to gather data from American spy satellites regarding Soviet missiles and nuclear capabilities.

For the next few decades, Pine Gap remained under US control, and even the Australian Prime Minister was kept in the dark about what actually went on there. However, from the 1980s onwards, the facility’s remit began expanding and the Australian Defence Force was given a greater share of operational authority.

Today, the base hosts around 1,000 personnel, with a more-or-less equal split between Australians and Americans. However, as with Area 51, access to the public is strictly prohibited, and anyone attempting to enter the site will be arrested.

The only way to catch a glimpse of the mysterious facility is therefore from the air, although there’s not much to see apart from what look like dozens of giant golf balls. In reality, these massive spheres are radomes, which house radio antennae that are in constant communication with satellites in Earth’s orbit.

And while little is known about exactly what goes on at Pine Gap, the facility is thought to be a major node in the CIA’s global surveillance operations, providing information on both military and civilian activities around the world as part of the US’s anti-terrorism strategy. The site also gathers intelligence for use in battlefield scenarios and is alleged to have played a major role in coordinating military activities in Iraq during the Gulf War, and later in Afghanistan and Syria.

For these reasons, the site has been the focus of numerous anti-war protests, and several activists have been arrested while trying to breach Pine Gap’s perimeter. Yet while many in Australia have called for an end to the facility’s surveillance and military activities, the US continues to rely on the base’s strategic location to control its spy satellites as they pass over the Asia-Pacific region.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Pine Gap has also become the focus of numerous crackpot conspiracy theories hinting at government cover-ups involving alien spacecraft and other technologies. As with Area 51, however, the reality of what goes on at the site is far less exciting.