Cold War Radar Station

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers:

            Today, I thought I would write about the abandoned Cold War radar station that exists in Saipan. I had always seen the radar station from afar and had been told that the U.S. Air Force had abandoned it many years ago.  Surprisingly, it took a lot of searching to find any historical information about it.  I’m sure articles exist within the Saipan Tribune website concerning the radar station, but the way their website is set up one would need to know the exact date or title of an article to find an article. 

                The radar station was built on Mt. Petosukara, the adjacent “hill” from the soon to be abandoned Far East Broadcasting radio station.  The actual name of the abandoned facility is PACBAR (what that stands for I’m not sure).  The construction of the facility began in February 1988 and ended in May 1989.  The station remained active through part of the 1990’s and then was abandoned.  In my research I could not find the year of its actual abandonment, but I assume it was shortly after August 1991 (or a few years later) because that is when the Cold War ended… It could be that it didn’t stop functioning for a few years after the Cold War because tensions were still high and relationships between nations needed to be mended.

            According to the government .pdf document I read through the website globalsecurity.org the main purpose of the facility was, “…to detect, track, and identify low earth orbit satellites,

and newly launched satellites from the Far East and the Soviet Union.”  If you want to wait for the .pdf to download to your computer (the nearly 600 page report) concerning the construction of the facility the website I found my information from is:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/report/enviro/PacbarMitigation.pdf

     The neat thing about the document is that you can see actual outlines of the whole facility and what it originally looked like and included, much of which is either missing or covered by jungle.  The funny thing about the facility now is that the 7 ft high fence that surrounded the facility is now gone, the 30 ft “clear zone” is now covered by jungle, and main buildings (flammable storage, pump chlorinator building, 30,000 gallon water tank, 2-15,000 gallon diesel fuel storage tanks) have now either disappeared or been swallowed by jungle. 

     While I was at the station, some Asian guys came out of a nice van/suv with the latest in paintball gear and their guns looked just like sniper rifles.  Apparently abandoned stations make for great paintball sites haha.  I also took pictures of some of the graffiti inside the building.  I like how the “Saipan Anarchists” drew a cute flower within their mark… too funny (For those not local 670 is the area code in Saipan).  The picture of Managaha and the Saipan Lagoon is from one of the overlooks on the way up to the radar station.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.   

Sincerely, Grant