The Pyramid of North Dakota

Dylan Thuras is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Dylan is a travel blogger and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Joshua Foer.

000418l3.jpg

In the middle of the expansive North Dakota landscape a small pyramid appears, but there is nothing ancient about this pyramid

The Safeguard Program was developed in the 1960s to shoot down incoming Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles. Built at a cost of 6 billion dollars in Nekoma, North Dakota, the site was a massive complex of missile silos, a giant pyramid-shaped radar system, and dozens of launching silos for surface-to-air missiles tipped with thermonuclear warheads.

However due to both its expense, and concern over its effectiveness and the danger of detonating defensive nuclear warheads over friendly territory, the program was shut down before it was even operational. Today its a military-industrial shell in the middle of nowhere, or in the words of Kaluz who added this great site to the Atlas, "a monument to man's fear and ignorance."

More on the Atlas, and thanks Kaluz for the great submission!