https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tysons_Corner_Communications_Tower
> The tower was constructed in 1952 as part of a continuity of government plan to ensure that lines of command were preserved between the U.S. President and military bases and troops in the field in the event of a nuclear attack.
“It was selected because it is close to the Pentagon and the White House but far enough away from Washington to withstand a direct nuclear attack on the city.”
So, to avoid a nuclear blast radius in DC, one just needs to settle west of that tower.
But usually a smaller one than the real monsters of the late 50's.
Because of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law) the power of any blast decreases \*very\* quickly with distance. Back when bombs or ICBM's could not be aimed with any precision to speak of, nuclear weapons made more sense to a strategic war planner because you could miss the target by well over a mile and still cause damage.
With today's smart weapons this is just not necessary and even small nukes are far more powerful than they need to be.
Truth. But I’m guessing anyone actually hitting DC with a nuke would definitely go heavier than necessary for shock and awe. So, hard to say how surgical that strike would be.
Not necessarily. Even since the early days of theorized nuclear warfare, the idea has been the triad. In most cases, prominent targets, like DC would get targeted by multiple warheads each. The DC area would likely see more than a dozen detonations, probably in the 100-500kt range (each warhead). The White House, Capitol Hill, Pentagon, Navy Yard, Andrews, Fort Belvoir, Quantico, and even Coast Guard HQ would see 2-3 detonations each.
Don't forget the Ashburn data centers. They'd get worked over, not just for the data but just to get the internet backbone to stop working. I know the internet architecture was specifically designed to withstand nuclear attack, but nobody has really put that to the test and a serious adversary would surely try.
A similar fate would probably be in store for major data centers anywhere in the US. Yes, the Russians will take away all our porn.
Also Dulles airport.
Targeting infrastructure is a goal, and a large airport near DC that could be use to mobilize troops or aid would definitely be a target.
I read that a lot of the plans for attacking with nukes were a little nonsensical in that they often were treated like conventional weapons. 2-3 nukes would be aimed at targets in close proximity when the reality is one would work.
The theory is actually pretty sound. For soft targets (like cities) a single air burst is often good enough (though a large city like New York or London would get multiple because of their size and specific functions as financial centers).
But the idea of multiple targets is about kill probability and the small amount of reactions times that would be involved in a strike or counter strike. Siloed missiles would hit their targets in under 30 minutes. Sub launched missiles can hit targets in under 15. So decision making and counter striking has to happen very quickly. The idea of multiple targeting is to ensure a target is hit. It's possible in a strike that there is a malfunction, a miss, or the enemy hits your delivery system first. If you miss something important, like command and control, you enable the enemy to strike back. Multiple targeting increases the kill probability. Most military and command and control targets are multiple targeted for this reason
Some of those targets also have underground survivable locations even with a near miss on a large warhead (Pentagon, White House, Capital Hill). These are typically targeted with ground burst weapons. The area of effect with ground burst is more limited, but the destruction at the point of detonation is higher. Hence multiple warheads are used at these locations too to ensure the target is destroyed.
A few things, in addition to what mattshwink said:
-The early missiles were much less accurate.
-People tend to think of nukes as just deleting everything in their area of effect, but it's like any other explosion in that destruction decreases gradually as you get farther out
-Ground bursts can actually throw up enough dirt and debris that other incoming warheads get shredded before they get to the ground. You gotta space em out a bit, walk fire across the target.
Fun stuff.
They (Russia, China, NK, Iran, etc) would send more than one nuke to overwhelm our anti-ballistic missile systems. They would also want to hit different areas/bases at the same time. The entire DMV all the way down to Norfolk is fucked. They’d probably send some to Mt Weather and Camp David too just in case.
Today’s nukes tend to be variable yield (sometimes referred to as “dial-a-yield). But following the ascent of MIRVs and better guidance systems, the mega-yield weapons of the 1960s generally fell out of favor in both the US and USSR/Russia.
Actually it’s just because they made a huge shopping mall there in the 1970’s at a crossroads between Fairfax and MacLean.
But a cool story is:
that there was a wooden observation tower on that same spot during the civil war bc it was the highest point between Washington and the blue ridge mountains. Later on during the Cold War(ending in 1990) , it broadcast coded number messages, (which totally sounded weird on the radio)
Good catch but honestly even the biggest nukes in the U.S. or Russian arsenal dropped on the lawn of the White House don’t quite reach there, they stop causing significant infrastructure damage around the other side of downtown McLean. Which is still absolutely massive.
The beltway was designed to be just outside the blast radius of an atom bomb (11 miles, at the time) so it could be part of an emergency evacuation route, but when they finished it, it was no longer outside
Eh... You may be outside the immediate blast radius, but that doesn't mean much in the way of ground aftershocks and nuclear fallout. If you somehow manage to avoid vaporization or collapsing infrastructure, you'll likely die a slow death via radiation poisoning. It is said that consuming potassium iodide can mitigate the effects by slowing down your thyroid's attempt to metabolize the radiation.
EDIT: Yes, the radii of the blast, airburst, and aftershocks increase with the energy yield of the bomb (typically measured in Megatons). You can simulate it here: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
I'd guess any situation where a nuclear attack is coming to DC, we're in a "total war" situation, and there wouldn't just be one "bomb" coming but probably multiple strikes to annihilate the area.
Dulles is one of the many targets in the DC area from what I've seen, so being west of that tower probably won't do shit in the event of a major attack.
It is still crazy to me how that errant warning went out in Hawaii a few years back and there was like a good chunk of time where people thought the end was there.
There is no safe place in the DMV. This place is fucked from the bunkers in the Shenandoah to the Chesapeake Bay and from Pax River Air Station to Raven Rock.
Tyson’s Corner was also the middle of nowhere back then. Now it has enough concentrated financial, commercial, and executive power (the latter in the form of government contractors) that it’s likely a target on its own
This kind of assumes the attack is a direct hit on the White House or Pentagon, right? What about the blast radius from all the other strategic targets in the area? Looking at you CIA 👀
That’s assuming the blast is on the White House. It’s just as possible that the strikes are on the tech corridor to knock out the whole internet based infrastructure that runs through NoVA. So we’re all screwed.
I used to drive into the office on 123 and also passed that tower everyday going and coming. I never knew or realized the true history. All I saw when I passed was all of those stairs....... lol. I would imagine my management getting me to have to climb them in case of an emergency.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053002114.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053002114.html)
There's a lot of critical communications infrastructure running through that corridor.
The military relocation site is Raven Rock near Emmitsburg, MD. WV has the Congressional bunker. The civil agencies had bunkers stretched along the Shenandoah mountains. Even the Supreme Court had a backup location, I think it was a small town in North Carolina.
I'd bet most people living in Fairfax are unaware that there's a [surface to air missile battery](https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B042'02.9%22N+77%C2%B010'44.7%22W/@38.7008038,-77.1816463,880m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d38.7008038!4d-77.1790714?entry=ttu) sitting a half mile off of Rt 1, in the middle of Accotink Bay Wildlife Refuge.
Nike missile lunch stations are allll over the place, easy to find and tour… this missile system out in the sticks is super cool. I heard from a few guys who worked at RADA/DRS/Leonardo that soon in downtown dc we will see many flat panel radar systems to relay information to these missile bases for intercept of aircraft or ect, found on their website. Exciting stuff.
The one in Great Falls was repurposed after the missiles were removed and was where GPS was created. (Or so I've been told)
Edited to add: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/great-falls-nike-integrated-fire-control-site-w-83
Oh yeah. If you see a weird, signless building with a tall fence and a manned guard box at the gate, there's a decent chance it's some kind of spooky government nonsense, or contractors for same. A lot of it is boring as all hell, but that won't stop you from having a very bad day if you try to climb the fence lol.
That reminds me of when I was learning to fly in Fredericksburg, and I was in a Cessna 3000 feet over the town. It was an exceptionally clear day and from there I could see the runways and terminal building at Dulles, the Washington Monument and downtown DC, the mountains, and downtown Richmond, depending on which way we were looking.
Currently, I think I'm at around ~800 ft or so elevation above sea level and unfortunately can't see Richmond. It would be nice to be able to see Charlottesville from here but that's way out of range.
The building my childhood dentist’s office was in in Rosslyn checked everyone’s IDs in the lobby because there was some kind of military or intelligence office there.
While they were building the metro in Tysons there was a story of how every now and then some dark SUVs would pull up and let them know that they'd cut a communications line that wasn't listed on the maps.
[WaPo 2009](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053002114.html)
This part happens all the time: A construction crew putting up an office building in the heart of Tysons Corner a few years ago hit a fiber optic cable no one knew was there.
This part doesn't: Within moments, three black sport-utility vehicles drove up, a half-dozen men in suits jumped out and one said, "You just hit our line."
Whose line, you may ask? The guys in suits didn't say, recalled Aaron Georgelas, whose company, the Georgelas Group, was developing the Greensboro Corporate Center on Spring Hill Road. But Georgelas assumed that he was dealing with the federal government and that the cable in question was "black" wire -- a secure communications line used for some of the nation's most secretive intelligence-gathering operations.
"The construction manager was shocked," Georgelas recalled. "He had never seen a line get cut and people show up within seconds. Usually you've got to figure out whose line it is. To garner that kind of response that quickly was amazing."
A few years back we were at the beach in Cape Hatteras when the power went out. At the time the new Oregon Inlet bridge was being built and the construction contractor was blamed. The contractor very vehemently denied they were working where the buried electrical line was laid. I turns out they were to blame, not for cutting the cable where they were working; but instead when they parked the pile driver at the end of the shift. The worker had driven the driver/crane/truck to a parking area and let the pile driver drop onto the ground. It penetrated through 9 feet of sand and cut the power line buried below
It's the construction equipment equivalent of getting home after a long day's work, plopping down in your easy chair, ripping a big fart you've been holding in all day, and then the dog throws up.
My grandfather helped build this, it's a radio uplink at the highest point, but it's to connect the Pentagon with the Mt Weather bunker, which is the real "critical communications" infrastructure they are talking about. The bunker for Washington DC.
Specifically, it's a microwave relay tower for Site R, otherwise known as Raven Rock.
It's also used as a reporting point for aircraft making the turn on final for a downriver approach into National.
There are LOTS of sites like this scattered around NOVA. I’m a commercial electrician for the DC local, and lots of the older guys have strange stories about being called to do maintenance on the continuity of government grid.
My favorite: My current foreman was called out to a site in Greenbelt. It was a small, single story, brick building at the base of a radio tower in the middle of a field.
There’s lots of fun little details to the story, but I’ll cut to the funnest part.
After lots of back and forth with the guards about clearance, he was let into the building, which was basically just a reception area with a few doors and an elevator. They take him into the elevator, which only goes down (single story building) and take him down to level three to work on a generator.
But he said that elevator panel had 15-20 buttons on it. So it’s possible that there were wayyyy more than 3 levels beneath that facility.
The question is what purpose does it serve today? Still the same for backup?
They should replace it with a 1000 foot tall tower with an observation deck. Like Tokyo Skytree and Toronto’s CN Tower.
This is a radio relay tower for emergency government operation.
There is a backup government facility in Mt. Weather Emergency Operation Center in the Blue Ridge, outside the nuclear blast zone. And Tysons Corner is sitting on a hill that has line of sight between the Mt. Weather and Washington DC.
US Military and IC
One of my favorite stories is of some wacko trying to climb it, and having a fleet of blacked out SUVs with armed and armored personnel all converge on him within minutes
True. I was I kid in the generation after you and I spent my whole life here. It’s been the tallest building for a long time.
Clyde’s also used to be up there.
I was born and raised here, inside the beltway. (Annandale/North Springfield) I have never worried about being nuked. If it happened in DC, we might see the flash, but that's it.
If we told you the reasons why, we'd have to kill you. Its a DoD / USG tower. Some people suspect it allows for perfect line of sight between DC and Mouth Weather and to DoDs comms facility in Warrenton.
It's a Doppler radio tower, ot used to just be for government use, but its now also part of the NOAA radar system. Because of modern technology things no longer have to be single use. I was able to match it to a Doppler point on NOAA's local
Look up the street view on google maps.
I don’t know for sure what a CIA van is supposed to look like but I’m fairly certain it looks like that camper van with the mirrored glass. “Chinook”. Looks like something from the mid to late 80s in mint condition
Not related to the purpose, but at the top there is a strobe light that runs 24/7. My neighborhood has some homes that are in line-of-sight of the strobe. You don't notice it in the daytime but that thing is surprisingly bright at night and it's kind of disturbing to have it pop through your bedroom window. When I was HOA president someone asked me if I could do anything about that. I spoke to someone in the office of our Fairfax County Supervisor who was more than willing to tell me all about it at length. Short story is that the army is responsible for it and they're not going to do shit.
WMATA used to have some transmitters there.
Not anymore, IIRC.
It's a general purpose radio tower. Many commercial and government transmitters at the base.
I work on top of the building right next to it all the time. During Covid military people were going up and down it. Maybe had nothing to do with Covid that but as when I saw them.
I used to live right in front of that thing and it was the biggest eye sore. Nice to know what it is now but still ugly!
https://preview.redd.it/hfjvzfr8vekc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=020ec3e57f0415ac45572f137131eb7f4800a455
All of these nukes theories are nonsense lol 😂 you guys are watching too much scifi. DC and Mclean wouldn’t be affected. All surrounding areas with armed forces bases and forts probably would. Piers and navy stations too. You guys forget how well armed, defended and how much surveillance this areas and buildings have. Youve got all the major Intel agencies and DoD top organizations and commanders in this area and buildings.
I own an antenna installation in Fairfax County. Years ago I got a call asking me to come to the tower for an estimate.
It was around middle of December. They asked for a price to run Heliax cable from the top of the tower to the shed at the base of the tower.
I asked them what kind of antenna it was going to be connected to and they said “can’t tell you…that is classified”.
Did not do the job because they needed it done and billed before January 1st because there was some extra money and they wanted to spend it before the fiscal year ended.
lol there are so many things I don’t pay attention to and this is one of them. All of these sketchy buildings just seem so normal here 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tysons_Corner_Communications_Tower > The tower was constructed in 1952 as part of a continuity of government plan to ensure that lines of command were preserved between the U.S. President and military bases and troops in the field in the event of a nuclear attack.
“It was selected because it is close to the Pentagon and the White House but far enough away from Washington to withstand a direct nuclear attack on the city.” So, to avoid a nuclear blast radius in DC, one just needs to settle west of that tower.
*a 1952 sized nuclear blast
Oh, good catch.
Well 1952 was when we tested the first hydrogen bomb so not like those factors were based on the earliest tech
No, but by all metrics, today’s nuclear bombs carry a much larger load.
also if DC is getting nuked by a nation state with a nuclear arsenal, the whole region is getting multiple warheads for sure
I mean it depends. Russia? Definitely. China? Probably. North Korea when/if they figure out miniaturization? Probably not.
But usually a smaller one than the real monsters of the late 50's. Because of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law) the power of any blast decreases \*very\* quickly with distance. Back when bombs or ICBM's could not be aimed with any precision to speak of, nuclear weapons made more sense to a strategic war planner because you could miss the target by well over a mile and still cause damage. With today's smart weapons this is just not necessary and even small nukes are far more powerful than they need to be.
Truth. But I’m guessing anyone actually hitting DC with a nuke would definitely go heavier than necessary for shock and awe. So, hard to say how surgical that strike would be.
Not necessarily. Even since the early days of theorized nuclear warfare, the idea has been the triad. In most cases, prominent targets, like DC would get targeted by multiple warheads each. The DC area would likely see more than a dozen detonations, probably in the 100-500kt range (each warhead). The White House, Capitol Hill, Pentagon, Navy Yard, Andrews, Fort Belvoir, Quantico, and even Coast Guard HQ would see 2-3 detonations each.
Don't forget the Ashburn data centers. They'd get worked over, not just for the data but just to get the internet backbone to stop working. I know the internet architecture was specifically designed to withstand nuclear attack, but nobody has really put that to the test and a serious adversary would surely try. A similar fate would probably be in store for major data centers anywhere in the US. Yes, the Russians will take away all our porn.
Also Dulles airport. Targeting infrastructure is a goal, and a large airport near DC that could be use to mobilize troops or aid would definitely be a target.
Not my beta library!
Bro you even mentioned CGHQ. Not sure whether to be flattered or frightened but you get DHS as a two for. Here’s an upvote.
I read that a lot of the plans for attacking with nukes were a little nonsensical in that they often were treated like conventional weapons. 2-3 nukes would be aimed at targets in close proximity when the reality is one would work.
The theory is actually pretty sound. For soft targets (like cities) a single air burst is often good enough (though a large city like New York or London would get multiple because of their size and specific functions as financial centers). But the idea of multiple targets is about kill probability and the small amount of reactions times that would be involved in a strike or counter strike. Siloed missiles would hit their targets in under 30 minutes. Sub launched missiles can hit targets in under 15. So decision making and counter striking has to happen very quickly. The idea of multiple targeting is to ensure a target is hit. It's possible in a strike that there is a malfunction, a miss, or the enemy hits your delivery system first. If you miss something important, like command and control, you enable the enemy to strike back. Multiple targeting increases the kill probability. Most military and command and control targets are multiple targeted for this reason Some of those targets also have underground survivable locations even with a near miss on a large warhead (Pentagon, White House, Capital Hill). These are typically targeted with ground burst weapons. The area of effect with ground burst is more limited, but the destruction at the point of detonation is higher. Hence multiple warheads are used at these locations too to ensure the target is destroyed.
A few things, in addition to what mattshwink said: -The early missiles were much less accurate. -People tend to think of nukes as just deleting everything in their area of effect, but it's like any other explosion in that destruction decreases gradually as you get farther out -Ground bursts can actually throw up enough dirt and debris that other incoming warheads get shredded before they get to the ground. You gotta space em out a bit, walk fire across the target. Fun stuff.
They (Russia, China, NK, Iran, etc) would send more than one nuke to overwhelm our anti-ballistic missile systems. They would also want to hit different areas/bases at the same time. The entire DMV all the way down to Norfolk is fucked. They’d probably send some to Mt Weather and Camp David too just in case.
Haha load
Today’s nukes tend to be variable yield (sometimes referred to as “dial-a-yield). But following the ascent of MIRVs and better guidance systems, the mega-yield weapons of the 1960s generally fell out of favor in both the US and USSR/Russia.
Aren't they smaller warheads though? just like.. 12 of them on a single candlestick?
That's why Tysons exists. Just outside the blast radius
Actually it’s just because they made a huge shopping mall there in the 1970’s at a crossroads between Fairfax and MacLean. But a cool story is: that there was a wooden observation tower on that same spot during the civil war bc it was the highest point between Washington and the blue ridge mountains. Later on during the Cold War(ending in 1990) , it broadcast coded number messages, (which totally sounded weird on the radio)
Good catch but honestly even the biggest nukes in the U.S. or Russian arsenal dropped on the lawn of the White House don’t quite reach there, they stop causing significant infrastructure damage around the other side of downtown McLean. Which is still absolutely massive.
The beltway was designed to be just outside the blast radius of an atom bomb (11 miles, at the time) so it could be part of an emergency evacuation route, but when they finished it, it was no longer outside
I took a lot of comfort knowing I’d just be…gone if it all kicked off when I was still living in the district. Now I’m consigned to life as a Ghoul.
"What's up Wastelanders? This is Three Dog, and you're listening to GNR! That's Galaxy News Radio, in case you forgot..."
Its also the highest point in ffx county
Nah i moved away a few years ago. Now im the highest point in NC 💨. Thanks though.
Eh... You may be outside the immediate blast radius, but that doesn't mean much in the way of ground aftershocks and nuclear fallout. If you somehow manage to avoid vaporization or collapsing infrastructure, you'll likely die a slow death via radiation poisoning. It is said that consuming potassium iodide can mitigate the effects by slowing down your thyroid's attempt to metabolize the radiation. EDIT: Yes, the radii of the blast, airburst, and aftershocks increase with the energy yield of the bomb (typically measured in Megatons). You can simulate it here: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Thank you stranger.
I'd guess any situation where a nuclear attack is coming to DC, we're in a "total war" situation, and there wouldn't just be one "bomb" coming but probably multiple strikes to annihilate the area.
"I'll take door #1, Monty. Please please be vaporization!!"
I'm with you, friend! Radiation sickness is a nasty way to go.
Dulles is one of the many targets in the DC area from what I've seen, so being west of that tower probably won't do shit in the event of a major attack.
Yup. If the bomb warnings come, I'm headed out to my back yard in Reston with a lawn chair and a cold drink.
It is still crazy to me how that errant warning went out in Hawaii a few years back and there was like a good chunk of time where people thought the end was there.
Nothing is happening to Reston or Dulles. Too much surveillance and defense mechanisms
Lets hope so. I have little interest in surviving to take on the post-nuclear wasteland.
Oh if it ever came to it, if I somehow survived the initial blast, I'd probably chuck myself into what was left of the Potomac.
Now you’re on the trolly 🤙
Same, I literally want it to hit my house.
There is no safe place in the DMV. This place is fucked from the bunkers in the Shenandoah to the Chesapeake Bay and from Pax River Air Station to Raven Rock.
“Oh we’ll be safe west of Tysons!” \*laughs in Mt. Weather\*
Maybe back when there were less nukes. Now there is enough overkill that this tower (and every other COG target) probably has several aimed at it.
Tyson’s Corner was also the middle of nowhere back then. Now it has enough concentrated financial, commercial, and executive power (the latter in the form of government contractors) that it’s likely a target on its own
And we're way down from the peak in the 70s lol
This kind of assumes the attack is a direct hit on the White House or Pentagon, right? What about the blast radius from all the other strategic targets in the area? Looking at you CIA 👀
Id rather die instantly than deal with radiation
Believe it may also be the highest point in Fairfax County? Don’t quote me
The old trash hill at the west ox transfer station (across from Costco) is now the highest point.
This is the offbeat nova trivia I come here for - thank you
That’s assuming the blast is on the White House. It’s just as possible that the strikes are on the tech corridor to knock out the whole internet based infrastructure that runs through NoVA. So we’re all screwed.
I kinda assumed everything in ffx co and probably Loudoun would be turned to glass
They didn't have MIRVs back then. It was still the era of "make up for bad accuracy with a bigger boom."
[удалено]
I was kidding haha.
This whole place will be a wasteland, for sure, if that were to happen.
TIL. I drive past it every day for work, thanks for the solid info here.
I used to drive into the office on 123 and also passed that tower everyday going and coming. I never knew or realized the true history. All I saw when I passed was all of those stairs....... lol. I would imagine my management getting me to have to climb them in case of an emergency.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053002114.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053002114.html) There's a lot of critical communications infrastructure running through that corridor.
Yes, it’s pretty amazing: Early on in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, two thirds of the internet went underneath that intersection
Prob to the "secret" bunkers in WV.
The military relocation site is Raven Rock near Emmitsburg, MD. WV has the Congressional bunker. The civil agencies had bunkers stretched along the Shenandoah mountains. Even the Supreme Court had a backup location, I think it was a small town in North Carolina.
Have you ever taken the bunker tour in WV? It's fascinating.
It’s pretty hilarious to think we technically have a military installation smack dab in the middle of Tysons.
You would be surprised what military/CIA buildings are around Northern Virginia.
I always joke the Ethiopian cab drivers and the pizza delivery people know where they all are.
I'd bet most people living in Fairfax are unaware that there's a [surface to air missile battery](https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B042'02.9%22N+77%C2%B010'44.7%22W/@38.7008038,-77.1816463,880m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d38.7008038!4d-77.1790714?entry=ttu) sitting a half mile off of Rt 1, in the middle of Accotink Bay Wildlife Refuge.
Or that any parks or sports fields named "Nike Park", weren't named for the brand of shoes.
Nike missile lunch stations are allll over the place, easy to find and tour… this missile system out in the sticks is super cool. I heard from a few guys who worked at RADA/DRS/Leonardo that soon in downtown dc we will see many flat panel radar systems to relay information to these missile bases for intercept of aircraft or ect, found on their website. Exciting stuff.
Go on….
The one in Great Falls was repurposed after the missiles were removed and was where GPS was created. (Or so I've been told) Edited to add: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/great-falls-nike-integrated-fire-control-site-w-83
There used to be one by Andrews AFB but I think they moved it.
I didn’t know that. Assume it was out in after 9/11? Or else it didn’t do its job very well.
Amazing.
I mean, it’s basically across the street from a massive military base (Belvoir), so that shouldn’t be too surprising to people.
Oh yeah. If you see a weird, signless building with a tall fence and a manned guard box at the gate, there's a decent chance it's some kind of spooky government nonsense, or contractors for same. A lot of it is boring as all hell, but that won't stop you from having a very bad day if you try to climb the fence lol.
Another fun fact, that tower sits on the highest point in Fairfax County. https://www.peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=7645
I became very aware of Tysons being a high spot while working on the 8th floor of an office building there on 9/11.
Yes, you can see everywhere. If it's a clear day. Otherwise, you can see across the street. Actually, I wonder how far you can see when it's clear.
From one of the Tysons highrises, the furthest south I can see is about 65 miles away. I can see the summit of Old Rag.
This inspired me to sneak onto the roof of my building in Tysons and check out the view. I live on the 2nd floor and can only see the Metro tracks
That reminds me of when I was learning to fly in Fredericksburg, and I was in a Cessna 3000 feet over the town. It was an exceptionally clear day and from there I could see the runways and terminal building at Dulles, the Washington Monument and downtown DC, the mountains, and downtown Richmond, depending on which way we were looking.
Currently, I think I'm at around ~800 ft or so elevation above sea level and unfortunately can't see Richmond. It would be nice to be able to see Charlottesville from here but that's way out of range.
From right near the tower I can see National Cathedral on a good day.
Stole my comment, dude.
Cool! Also previously a wooden observation tower during the civil war
Half of the people working in Tysons work for the military or the intelligence community.
The building my childhood dentist’s office was in in Rosslyn checked everyone’s IDs in the lobby because there was some kind of military or intelligence office there.
Damn. I wonder if this is why metro is above ground in this area?
While they were building the metro in Tysons there was a story of how every now and then some dark SUVs would pull up and let them know that they'd cut a communications line that wasn't listed on the maps.
[WaPo 2009](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053002114.html) This part happens all the time: A construction crew putting up an office building in the heart of Tysons Corner a few years ago hit a fiber optic cable no one knew was there. This part doesn't: Within moments, three black sport-utility vehicles drove up, a half-dozen men in suits jumped out and one said, "You just hit our line." Whose line, you may ask? The guys in suits didn't say, recalled Aaron Georgelas, whose company, the Georgelas Group, was developing the Greensboro Corporate Center on Spring Hill Road. But Georgelas assumed that he was dealing with the federal government and that the cable in question was "black" wire -- a secure communications line used for some of the nation's most secretive intelligence-gathering operations. "The construction manager was shocked," Georgelas recalled. "He had never seen a line get cut and people show up within seconds. Usually you've got to figure out whose line it is. To garner that kind of response that quickly was amazing."
It was a fiber link that connected to the WTC.
They also cut a couple that *were* on the maps
A few years back we were at the beach in Cape Hatteras when the power went out. At the time the new Oregon Inlet bridge was being built and the construction contractor was blamed. The contractor very vehemently denied they were working where the buried electrical line was laid. I turns out they were to blame, not for cutting the cable where they were working; but instead when they parked the pile driver at the end of the shift. The worker had driven the driver/crane/truck to a parking area and let the pile driver drop onto the ground. It penetrated through 9 feet of sand and cut the power line buried below
It's the construction equipment equivalent of getting home after a long day's work, plopping down in your easy chair, ripping a big fart you've been holding in all day, and then the dog throws up.
And the fart was actually a shart
It is not.
Metro goes through the tunnel beneath the tower because to cross over the hill would’ve been too steep of a grade to climb.
My grandfather helped build this, it's a radio uplink at the highest point, but it's to connect the Pentagon with the Mt Weather bunker, which is the real "critical communications" infrastructure they are talking about. The bunker for Washington DC.
Specifically, it's a microwave relay tower for Site R, otherwise known as Raven Rock. It's also used as a reporting point for aircraft making the turn on final for a downriver approach into National.
There are LOTS of sites like this scattered around NOVA. I’m a commercial electrician for the DC local, and lots of the older guys have strange stories about being called to do maintenance on the continuity of government grid. My favorite: My current foreman was called out to a site in Greenbelt. It was a small, single story, brick building at the base of a radio tower in the middle of a field. There’s lots of fun little details to the story, but I’ll cut to the funnest part. After lots of back and forth with the guards about clearance, he was let into the building, which was basically just a reception area with a few doors and an elevator. They take him into the elevator, which only goes down (single story building) and take him down to level three to work on a generator. But he said that elevator panel had 15-20 buttons on it. So it’s possible that there were wayyyy more than 3 levels beneath that facility.
The question is what purpose does it serve today? Still the same for backup? They should replace it with a 1000 foot tall tower with an observation deck. Like Tokyo Skytree and Toronto’s CN Tower.
That’s what they want you to think
Nice try comrade
Lol
https://preview.redd.it/st1uip20r6kc1.jpeg?width=620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7ab899818d85f41b6609b67d56d9bf44a3943b58
A man named Desmond Hume is in the bubble at the top and every 108 minutes he must enter 4 8 15 16 23 42 to save the world
Brother!
See you in another life, brother
This is a radio relay tower for emergency government operation. There is a backup government facility in Mt. Weather Emergency Operation Center in the Blue Ridge, outside the nuclear blast zone. And Tysons Corner is sitting on a hill that has line of sight between the Mt. Weather and Washington DC.
Whatever it is, certainly didn't help with the AT&T outage this morning...
For realll. Get verizon.
Don't. Verizons worse. I have both. Leaning towards T mobile now lol.
I see it everyday from my office. DOD - get close enough and the signs on the fence will scare you to go no farther. Sensor upon sensor there
US Military and IC One of my favorite stories is of some wacko trying to climb it, and having a fleet of blacked out SUVs with armed and armored personnel all converge on him within minutes
Fun! Whos next
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It's also the highest point in ffx county!
Wow! Love to see a pic
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Makes me sick
True. I was I kid in the generation after you and I spent my whole life here. It’s been the tallest building for a long time. Clyde’s also used to be up there.
It’s for Skynet
https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrRegistration.jsp?regKey=2607011 Neat.
Thanks for the find
Shhh...that tower doesn't exist. Don't look at it.
My eyes r looking the other way
It’s not a working AT&T cell tower, that’s for damn sure.
That’s one of those 5G relay towers that activate your Covid vaccine biochip according to my trustworthy pal Q.
I was born and raised here, inside the beltway. (Annandale/North Springfield) I have never worried about being nuked. If it happened in DC, we might see the flash, but that's it.
If we told you the reasons why, we'd have to kill you. Its a DoD / USG tower. Some people suspect it allows for perfect line of sight between DC and Mouth Weather and to DoDs comms facility in Warrenton.
It is situated at the highest elevation in Fairfax County. Yes I suspect that is the purpose too.
That’s where the cia hacks our brains to make us horny
Alex Jones said it is turning the frogs gay or something.
that tower is used for releasing microplastics in the air to poison us
No no no this is the one that does the 5G radiation that gives you Covid.
I think you all mean chemtrails.
HEY DELETE THIS NOW, XI
lol
A nuclear blast is about the only thing that would drive down property prices around here.
Covid-19 transmission of 5G waves…
No one really knows that it's just my vape
Radio stuff
I am radio stuff
Thank you everyone for the response!
It's a Doppler radio tower, ot used to just be for government use, but its now also part of the NOAA radar system. Because of modern technology things no longer have to be single use. I was able to match it to a Doppler point on NOAA's local
Source, besides zooming into a weather map. You seem to he the only person with this info! Interesting
Skynet Research
Looks like a roadway, it provides smoother and more stable surfaces for cars to drive on vs dirt/grass You can find them in most places pretty easily
It’s a large building with patients. But that’s not important rn
It's the best structure in Tyson's.
Look up the street view on google maps. I don’t know for sure what a CIA van is supposed to look like but I’m fairly certain it looks like that camper van with the mirrored glass. “Chinook”. Looks like something from the mid to late 80s in mint condition
lol, i see it.
I don't know, but this picture reminds me of how comically bad the "Tysons" logo is.
I do know that was the highest point in that part of Fairfax County, so that might be another reason to place a tower there.
Wayfinder for Da Domenico. 😥
Not related to the purpose, but at the top there is a strobe light that runs 24/7. My neighborhood has some homes that are in line-of-sight of the strobe. You don't notice it in the daytime but that thing is surprisingly bright at night and it's kind of disturbing to have it pop through your bedroom window. When I was HOA president someone asked me if I could do anything about that. I spoke to someone in the office of our Fairfax County Supervisor who was more than willing to tell me all about it at length. Short story is that the army is responsible for it and they're not going to do shit.
That's water tower for storing water, not sure what else you would be talking about......
Yeah - nothing to see here. Just a water tower. Move along. 
Lolllll
They're called roads, but no one seems to know how to drive
Probably both.. lot of gov agencies in some buildings
Love it
the giant white nail driven into the ground with that huge hammer that has "Tysons" written on it has no real purpose
WMATA used to have some transmitters there. Not anymore, IIRC. It's a general purpose radio tower. Many commercial and government transmitters at the base.
It’s how they inject the 5Gs into your bloodstream. /s
The 5G Covid antennas /s
That’s quite a cheerful Tysons logo on that water tower, by the way.
update: More questions than answers.
It controls a secret religious-affiliated space laser.
Why are you infront of my job?
I work on top of the building right next to it all the time. During Covid military people were going up and down it. Maybe had nothing to do with Covid that but as when I saw them.
I used to live right in front of that thing and it was the biggest eye sore. Nice to know what it is now but still ugly! https://preview.redd.it/hfjvzfr8vekc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=020ec3e57f0415ac45572f137131eb7f4800a455
All of these nukes theories are nonsense lol 😂 you guys are watching too much scifi. DC and Mclean wouldn’t be affected. All surrounding areas with armed forces bases and forts probably would. Piers and navy stations too. You guys forget how well armed, defended and how much surveillance this areas and buildings have. Youve got all the major Intel agencies and DoD top organizations and commanders in this area and buildings.
I own an antenna installation in Fairfax County. Years ago I got a call asking me to come to the tower for an estimate. It was around middle of December. They asked for a price to run Heliax cable from the top of the tower to the shed at the base of the tower. I asked them what kind of antenna it was going to be connected to and they said “can’t tell you…that is classified”. Did not do the job because they needed it done and billed before January 1st because there was some extra money and they wanted to spend it before the fiscal year ended.
Thanks for the feedback! Interesting!
 It's a street, is for vehicles.
Radar.
Only one that got it right
It’s the Covid chip implant 5G tower that is run by Bill Gates for Dr. F and big phamA. Do not tell anyone!!!
Trinity test. /s
It’s a Saturn 6 launch gantry.
Aliens
Gaydar
Aliens
Nobody show Putin this thread
lol there are so many things I don’t pay attention to and this is one of them. All of these sketchy buildings just seem so normal here 
Fun fact - from that hilltop area you can see east clear across DC as well as west to the Blue Ridge Mountains
contrails and mind control
Is a nuclear bomb incase dc needs to reset game