Invisible Themepark

Author: Lee Wallender

  • Titan Missile Underground Launch Complex Cutaway

    Titan Missile Underground Launch Complex

    The Titan II Missile Underground Launch Complex (Large Image) is classic Cold War-era cutaway stuff.  At the Titan Missile Museum in Arizona, you can tour the entire facility.  As their brochure states:

    The Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) was the first liquid propellant missile that could be launched from underground. Equipped with a nine-megaton thermonuclear warhead, the Titan II was capable of reaching its target—more than half a world away—in less than thirty minutes. The preserved Titan II missile site, officially known as complex 571-7, was completed and turned over to the U.S. Air Force in 1963. Until 1987, when the last Titan II was deactivated, 54 Titan II
    missile complexes across the United States stood “on alert” 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

    A cutaway from Fortune Magazine (1960) is a bit more artful and fanciful, and looks more like the cover of a sci-fi paperback than a true cutaway:

  • “Fail-Safe’s” Secret Spaces

    Fail-Safe, the 1964 movie with Henry Fonda, Walter Mattheu, and yes, Dom DeLuise, is full of secret places.  In fact, with the exception of the very beginning (when Walter Mattheu, tough guy that he is, slaps a woman and says, “You’re not my kind”), most everything takes place in the President’s bunker, the War Room, or an enclosed boardroom.

    President’s Bunker

    Henry Fonda closes the door, and that’s it.  Now it’s just Fonda and a young Tom Hanks-looking Larry Hagman; a desk; telephone set; pitcher of water with glasses; and a big, giant air conditioning vent.

    War Room

    Classic war room with the “big board.”  Unfortunately, the parody Dr. Strangelove has a much cooler war room.

    Conference Room

    A V-shaped conference table and a podium for war-monger Walter Mattheu to pontificate.  Unlike Fonda and Hagman in the bunker, these generals and civilian Mattheu have plenty of coffee to tide them through the beginning of World War III.

  • Hidden Room Latch

    90% of this video is worthless–mostly, a slightly pudgy guy looking around suspiciously, as if someone were following him.  There’s also the not-insignificant matter of the Indiana Jones soundtrack.

    But at the :48 second mark you do get to see how the interior latch of a secret door works.  After the guy pulls the book back (why is it always a book?  I notice the Kipling book…that should be enough of a giveaway…how many people read Kipling anymore?  Obviously, it’s a 25 cent book he picked up at a used book store), it pulls a string.  Let him describe:

    I attached a gate latch at the top back of the bookcase, latching into its counterpart inside the doorframe. I used a rubberband to make sure the latch stays down for when the door is closed. A system of two pulleys feeds a string from the latch down through a hole by the secret book.





  • Pripyat, Abandoned City of Chernobyl

    Pripyat, Abandoned City of Chernobyl

    I’ve seen a number of images of Pripyat, the city that was summarily abandoned after Chernobyl, but this one takes the cake. I love the starkness and contrast of black and white.

    What is Pripyat?

    Pripyat was a planned town and a factory town. It was an artificial town that was built from scratch in 1970 for Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant workers.

    Where is Pripyat?

    Pripyat is located in northern Ukraine. Pripyat was located about 3 km from the plant.

    How Many People Lived in Pripyat?

    About 50,000 people lived in Pripyat before the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

    Is It Safe To Visit Pripyat?

    This is debatable. In 1999, Tim Mousseau, Professor of Biological Sciences from the University of South Carolina, made one of the first visits to Pripyat to study the effects of the disaster on the area’s wildlife. The site appears safe to visit, but ingesting wildlife and plants from the area is not advisable.

    Why is Pripyat Considered an Apocalyptic or Ballardian Landscape?

    Modern-day apocalypse stories focus on urban spaces that are largely intact: quickly depopulated and left to nature’s decay. Because of the grave nature of the Chernobyl accident, Pripyat emptied out fast, residents leaving behind everything.

    Pripyat – Abandoned Building

    Pripyat Ferris Wheel

    Is there image more forlorn and ready-made for Hollywood than that of an abandoned ferris wheel in a nuclear-stricken city?

  • Covert Drug Smuggler Submarine

    In September 2008, the U.S. Coast Guard seized a 59-foot submarine 370 miles SW of Guatemala.  The submarine contained four crew members and 237 (!) bales of cocaine.

    An anomaly?  No, because less than a week alter, another 60 footer was seized.

    Between the two submersibles about seven tons of coke worth nearly $200 million was seized.

    These subs are built in the jungles of Guatemala and then trucked over to the coast.  The subs can range over 5,000 miles.

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