LIMESTONE, Maine — While many outdoor enthusiasts might agree that the Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge may be one of the best-kept secrets in the county, it is irrefutable that much land that the refuge currently occupies was the best kept secret in the county for decades.
Part of the refuge is located on what was formerly the Caribou Air Force Station (located next to the Loring Air Force Base but a completely separate entity); originally titled project Rock Creek, its bunkers were used to house part of the country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons until the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed between President Ronald Regan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev of the former Soviet Union on Dec. 8, 1987.
October 11 through the 17th was National Wildlife Refuge Week and to celebrate, Friends of the Aroostook Wildlife Refuge arranged for Ken Atcheson of the former Caribou Air Force Station to speak with any who attended; about 10 people turned out for what was a very informative and interactive discussion. Atcheson answered questions and educated while entertaining his audience with vivid real-life stories.
Atcheson served in the Air Force from 1952 through 1955 and was stationed at the secret station working security. Forty-five years later, in 2000, Atcheson received the official word that he was free to discuss the station as he pleased, and was finally able to tell his wife, Rhoda, what he did for a living when they first met.
“She had suspicions, but it wasn’t until I was cleared that I could really tell her,” Atcheson said. “She knew I had to wear a gun all the time and all that, but it was kept secret and nobody let it out that I heard about; this was where they stockpiled all the nuclear weapons in the United States was right here,” he added.
Atcheson was quick to quell any nervousness regarding nuclear weapons being housed at the station.
“People think that the units were real dangerous, but they’re not,” he explained. “Until they’re put together and activated, they’re as safe as a can of milk,” he said, adding that the radiation emitted from the units is the same radiation that we get from the sun on a daily basis.
Working at the station, Atcheson wasn’t allowed to refer to the nuclear components as “weapons,” he referred to them only as units. Security was so tight that, despite working at the Caribou Air Force Station and handling security during the loading and unloading of the bombs to and from planes, Atcheson has never seen a single unit.
Tight security is an understatement considering the circumstances that he described: the station was guarded behind four fences, one of which was electric and emitted over 15,000 volts on contact. Guards had the right to shoot anyone advertently or inadvertently trying to gain access to an area that they didn’t have clearance for; though the security was necessary, the guards did use discretion. Atcheson spoke of one instance where a 12-year-old kid hoping to see an airplane had wandered through the woods until he came upon the station; the youth ended up snooping where he certainly shouldn’t have been and, according to Atcheson, the child had no idea just how much firepower was pointed in his direction while the confusion was sorted out.
Not even the pilots who flew the nuclear devices here and there knew what they were hauling, and specific precautions were taken to assure this.
“The bombers would set down on far end of the runway and the pilot and co-pilot would be escorted away,” Atcheson told his audience. “We would bring the units over… I was working security so I didn’t touch them, but the tech people would bring them over and would load them onto these planes or unload them or whatever needed to be done, and the pilot and the co-pilot were never told what it was that they were flying; they weren’t even allowed to look at it,” he described.
“It used to make the pilots and co-pilots so mad that they couldn’t look at them,” Atcheson added, “They’d say ‘I fly that darn plane!’ but, well, they still couldn’t look at the units.”
The weapons were kept in hidden bunkers, which Atcheson described as being “large and concrete, built like a big cave covered in dirt and trees with a concrete front with steel doors that had to be opened with jacks.” The nuclear components were concealed in that earth and concrete shell, guarded on the outside by manned-turret stations that the guards had to be lowered into by a ladder. Security was so tight that it seems they knew when every leaf fell. As a guard, Atcheson made quite the understatement when stated that he’d circled that station “more than a couple of times.”
Once word was allowed to go out about the secret station, rumors abound about the “specifics,” some even speculated that there were enormous underground rooms that you could drive a truck around in.
“We heard the rumors and we just listened, but there were a lot of rumors going around like that one where there was just no truth to it,” he said.
While working in such secretive conditions may seem stressful, Atcheson enjoyed working at the station and said that he worked with a great group of guys.
“It wasn’t much pressure because you got used to it,” he said. “People would ask you something you’d say ‘well I don’t know’ because you couldn’t confirm or deny and pretty soon, no one asked you anything.”
It is obviously no secret that strict measures were placed to keep the station secret.
After returning to the station after one vacation, Atcheson found out that an FBI agent had been investigating the trip and had asked around town what Atcheson had been doing and saying while on leave. “We knew any talker or trouble maker or complainers got shipped right out,” he recalled.
To this day, many are still unaware that there was the Caribou Air Force Station right next to the Loring Air Force Base and it wasn’t too difficult for those who worked at the station to blend in with those who worked at Loring.
A retired farmer, Atcheson returned to the fields to help his son harvest potatoes after his discussion, but Wayne Selfridge, former president of The Friends of Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge, had also worked at the station and took interested individuals on a tour of the station.
During the tour, Selfridge spoke thoroughly about both the history of the Caribou Air Force Station and the Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge. From buildings built to house nuclear detonators to boxes built to house wood duck eggs, Selfridge was able to describe the history of the land.
The land formerly occupied by the Caribou Air Force Station is currently closed to the public while some of the buildings and bunkers are removed. Tours of the bunkers and buildings are available and can be arranged by leaving a message at (207) 328-4634.
The Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge currently has trails open to the public and the Visitors Center and Nature Store are open on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 1 to 4 p.m.
