Nazi Moonbase Read online

  Over the following decades, research at Area 51 produced a number of advanced designs based on German prototypes. The Northrop YB-49 flying-wing bomber was a straightforward development of the existing YB-35 design dating back to 1941, fitted with jet engines and incorporating several improvements based on the captured Gotha aircraft. Although the design never entered service, it is considered an early ancestor of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.

  Several experiments with disk-shaped aircraft were less successful. Working from anecdotal accounts of Thule and Haunebu saucers and lacking reliable information on the Thule Triebwerk propulsion system, engineers at Area 51 tried to reproduce German saucer craft from first principles. The Vought XF5U “Flying Flapjack,” developed from an earlier design by Charles H. Zimmerman, was a conventional aircraft with a disk-shaped wing rather than a true flying saucer. It was canceled in March 1947 due to disappointing performance.

  Other disk designs were carefully kept out of the public eye – so carefully, in fact, that some commentators have claimed that the “Flying Flapjack” program was never intended as anything more than a smokescreen to explain sightings of disk-shaped aircraft over the continental United States from 1947 onward, leading to the great “saucer scare” of the late 1940s.

  While some progress was made in replicating the Victalen alloy used in German saucer craft, the Americans encountered serious problems with propulsion and control. On June 24, 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold saw a half-moon-shaped aircraft leading a formation of nine disks near Mount Rainier, Washington, and reported their flight as “like a saucer if you skip it across water.” As the rumor spread that these craft came from another world, later UFO sighting reports of disk-shaped craft performing extreme maneuvers were generally attributed to advanced alien aeronautics rather than control problems.

  “UFO” Crashes

  On July 8, 1947, a small experimental disk aircraft crashed on a ranch outside Roswell, New Mexico. Eyewitness descriptions of the wreckage and the crew, and the military’s efforts to suppress the incident, have combined to fuel an almost endless stream of conspiracy theories. Today, the incident is written off as the crash of a high-altitude balloon launched as part of Project Mogul, whose purpose was to detect Soviet nuclear tests using sound waves. In fact, the Roswell wreckage did come from a crashed saucer – but not from an alien spacecraft.

  In an effort to understand and overcome the stability and control problems encountered by their experimental saucer aircraft, the engineers at Area 51 had constructed a series of scaled-down, radio-controlled craft. Some of these were “crewed” by rhesus monkeys – also used in the NASA rocket program – to study the effects of saucer flight on primate physiology. One such craft, with 16 monkeys on board, was shot down near Aztec, New Mexico in March 1948 after drifting over the Los Alamos National Laboratory: despite official attempts at a cover-up, the sight of their charred corpses led to rumors of “childlike” aliens which persisted for many years.

  Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book

  Following the saucer sightings of early 1947, the US Air Force was commissioned to produce a study of UFO reports for publication. The resulting Project Sign was active for most of 1948 before being shut down – allegedly for classifying too many reports as “unknown” – and replaced by Project Grudge, which sought to quash any theories about extraterrestrial origin. In August 1949, Project Grudge issued a 600-page report that concluded quite firmly that there was no such thing as flying saucers.

  However, not everyone in the US military was satisfied with the Grudge report. In 1952 another study was commissioned under the name Project Blue Book. This ran until 1970, and remains the best-known official study of UFOs. Like its predecessor, though, Blue Book concluded that all of the 12,618 UFO reports it had studied could be explained by phenomena other than flying saucers.

  Some of the Blue Book report is still redacted, allegedly to protect the identities of named witnesses. However, at least some of this material refers to incidents where saucers buzzed other aircraft, which were probably “hot dogging” test pilots exploring the limits of what even an American saucer craft could do. It is also noticeable that most of the early saucer sightings took place in southern California, Arizona, and Nevada – all within reach of the Area 51 facility. After American saucer research shut down, this type of sighting disappears from the record almost completely.

  The famous “Silverman” photo actually shows the corpse of a rhesus monkey recovered from the crash of an experimental disk craft, probably at Aztec, New Mexico. The photograph was later played down as an April Fools’ hoax. (PD)

  The Base

  The planning of Einherjar faced Kammler with many challenges. Given the hostility of the lunar environment, it was imperative that the Walhalla base should be designed for rapid – if not instant – construction, using only materials brought from Earth. It had to be placed in a location that gave it a clear view of Earth for the Mjölnir bombardment phase, but this location also had to be somewhat concealed, to protect the base from discovery and counterattack for as long as possible. If possible, too, there should be easy access to lunar minerals and other resources that would be needed for the planned scientific projects.

  Moonbase Myths

  For as long as people have been writing about the Nazi moonbase, there have been two enduring myths: that the base is on the dark side of the Moon, and that it is shaped like a swastika. Both are completely incorrect.

  Symbolism aside, a swastika-shaped building is impractical, especially if personnel are restricted to the inside. It simply takes too long to move from the end of one arm to the end of another, and connecting passages rapidly become choked with traffic.

  A base located on the dark side of the Moon is also impractical. While it is not literally dark, the far side of the Moon faces away from the Earth, making it impossible to observe – or fire upon – the Earth from a location there. Kammler and his followers needed to be able to keep a watch on the Earth, monitor radio transmissions, and aim their planned Wunderwaffen at the United States and other targets.

  Location

  Haunebu III scouts completed several survey missions in 1946 and 1947, while final preparations for Einherjar were under way at Neuschwabenland. Possible sites were examined around the edges of the Sea of Tranquility and in the mountain range south of the Ptolemaeus crater.

  The site Kammler eventually chose was the Aristarchus crater, in the northwest of the Moon’s near side. At 24.9 miles across and 2.3 miles deep, the crater allowed room for the planned base to grow while remaining small enough to be defensible in the event of an attack. The shadows of the crater’s rim would help conceal the base from any Earth-based telescope then in existence. The nearby Aristarchus Plateau showed signs of volcanic origin, holding out the hope of much-needed metals and minerals.

  Most important of all, though, was the crater’s position on the Earth-facing side of the Moon. Aristarchus gives a good view of the Earth, but is sufficiently offset from the center of the near side to place the base in sunlight at most times. As well as providing vital warmth, sunlight was critical to one of the base’s weapons, for which Kammler had high hopes during the bombardment phase.

  A close-up of the Aristarchus crater. The Nazi base is located on the right of the crater in the portion of the picture currently in shadow. (NASA)

  Layout

  When Kammler was planning the Bifrost Protocol and the construction of the Walhalla base, Germany’s heavy industry was under considerable strain. American daylight raids were crippling Germany’s industrial capacity, and the advancing Red Army was overrunning vital oilfields and mines, choking the supply of raw materials. As the SS head of Wunderwaffen production, Kammler had access to a wide range of existing projects, but he could not commission any special projects of his own. Therefore, he decided to design the Walhalla base around existing craft and structures, all of which could easily be transported to the Moon.

  The base was laid out using the escape
d Haunebu fleet as primary structures. The huge Haunebu IV acts as the command center and provides accommodation for the base’s personnel. The Haunebu III craft are laid out in a circle around it, connected by tunnels made up of the pressurized fuselage sections from Focke-Wulf Ta 400 high-altitude bombers.

  Some commentators, unable to give up the romantic idea of a swastika ground-plan, have suggested that the layout of the Walhalla base is a form of the Black Sun emblem, but this is unlikely. Nothing in Kammler’s history shows him to be anything other than a ruthless pragmatist, and the wheel-shaped layout is simply the most practical given the components on hand. It connects every part of the base in a way that minimizes distance and offers multiple routes between two points in case a particular tunnel should be damaged, blocked, or simply jammed with other traffic.

  Accommodation

  The Haunebu IV sits at the center of the base. The upper levels are devoted to command and communications, the middle levels to accommodation, and the lower levels to maintenance and logistics.

  The middle levels of the Haunebu IV were originally designed as a series of bomb bays to carry the nuclear and other weapons that the craft was designed to drop on the continental United States. As part of the craft’s final fitting-out in Antarctica, the bay doors were sealed shut and the space converted to a series of bunkrooms and cabins some four stories high.

  The Haunebu IV’s Thule Triebwerk 9b power source is located in the lower levels of the craft, along with SM-Schweber maneuvering motors and associated equipment and couplings. After landing the underside weapon positions were stripped and their weapons moved to upper mountings: this created space for a series of maintenance workshops and supply stores. These levels are also hard-sealed to the underground storage bays and mineral processing plant that were excavated underneath the craft.

  THE FOCKE-WULF TA 400

  The Focke-Wulf Ta 400 was one of the contenders for the Amerikabomber project. Although the Messerschmitt Me 264 was the front-runner, Reich Air Ministry documents from 1944 and 1945 show that Kammler demanded unusually extensive manufacturing tests on the Ta 400’s pressurized fuselage sections. Cabin pressurization allowed an aircraft to operate at higher altitudes, out of reach of all but the heaviest flak and the most advanced fighters, and Kammler claimed the test runs were necessary to perfect this new design feature, which would surely be useful even if the Ta 400 was not put into full production.

  Under the pretense of his manufacturing tests, Kammler supplied himself with enough of the pressurized bomber fuselages to link all the Haunebu craft and turn the Walhalla base into a single structure.

  Laboratories

  After landing, the Haunebu III craft were adapted for use as laboratories and workshops. In addition to food production and waste processing functions, they house several E-IV branches devoted to weapon development, genetic engineering, and other research, which are described in a later chapter.

  Construction

  The initial phase of construction was necessarily brief. The smaller saucers lifted the fuselage-passages into place around the Haunebu IV before landing themselves, and welding crews connected the base together, working both inside the base and outside on the lunar surface. After initial pressurization, smoke was used to detect flaws and leaks, which were patched from the outside. A Glocke vril generator was brought from Neuschwabenland to power the base, and air recyclers from Type XXVI U-boats were adapted to provide basic life support.

  As the base expanded, underground chambers were dug using vril power, and mineral extraction sites were set up both beneath the base and out on the Aristarchus Plateau. Pressure bulkheads were added to the Haunebu craft, creating a hard seal with the lunar bedrock, and the excavated chambers were sealed using a compound called Klebstoff X, which had been developed as an adhesive to speed construction of aircraft and U-boats. By 1972, it was estimated that as much as 75 percent of the Walhalla base was located underground.

  Artist’s impression of the Ta-400. The pressurized fuselage sections were used as connecting tunnels, running between the Haunebu craft that formed the main structures of the base. (Artwork Hauke Kock)

  The Dräger Pressure Suit

  Any activity on the lunar surface requires a pressure suit. During the first phase of construction, Walhalla’s crew used a modified version of the Dräger suit, which had been developed for high-altitude aircraft such as the Horten Ho 229.

  Based on the diving suits which were Dräger’s main product, it was made of laminated silk and rubber with a helmet made of a clear rigid plastic. It performed reasonably well at high altitude except for an unfortunate tendency to inflate like a balloon, restricting a pilot’s movements and pressing the visor painfully into the face.

  Kammler issued a new specification for a rigid suit and concealed it within a Navy requirement for a deep-diving suit for salvage teams. This project resulted in the Schwerenraumanzug (SRA) heavy space suit, which featured metal joints and an armored helmet.

  Developments of the SRA were reportedly in use as late as the 1970s. Kampfrüstung Siegfried was a class of power armor developed for heavy infantry use as well as construction, and larger versions include the Kraftbein heavy-lifting walker.

  The development of the hardened Dräger space suit was hidden within a Kriegsmarine requirement for advanced diving gear. (Artwork Hauke Kock)

  The Walhalla moonbase was initially made up of components that were shipped from Earth and assembled within the Aristarchus crater.

  A view of the moonbase circa 1967, based on classified images from the American Surveyor program. The Haunebu craft that form the base’s primary structures can clearly be seen, along with the Glocke power source and the V-9 rail gun. The rim of the Aristarchus crater can be seen on the horizon.

  1.The Haunebu IV saucer acted as the command center and provided accommodation for the base’s personnel.

  2.Eight of the smaller Haunebu III saucers were refitted as laboratories and workshops. Their KSK armaments were moved to upper-side mountings and provided the base’s defensive firepower.

  3.A Glocke power source, shipped from a mine in Silesia, provides the base with almost unlimited power.

  4.The base is held together by a network of airtight tunnels, improvised from the pressurized fuselage sections of Ta 400 high-altitude bombers.

  5.The V-9 rail gun, capable of hurling building-sized rocks at Earth, provided the base’s main offensive armament.

  Operations

  The Walhalla base’s various research, development, and manufacturing projects are described in the next chapter. The base’s day-to-day operations are also worthy of mention for the ingenious ways in which the Walhalla’s crew overcame the particular challenges of building and maintaining a base on the Moon.

  The Haunebu III craft were designed with an endurance of seven to eight weeks, about seven times the duration of the Apollo 11 Moon-landing mission in 1969. Performance figures for the Haunebu IV are not available, but it can be assumed that its endurance was at least equal to that of its predecessors. Once on the Moon, though, Kammler and his scientists had to give the problem of sustained life support their most urgent attention.

  NASA’s Surveyor 3 lander on the lunar surface. The Surveyor program mapped a great deal of the lunar surface and provided vital reconnaissance data on the moonbase. (NASA)

  Air

  The Haunebu craft were equipped with air recyclers, and captured SS records show that Kammler took at least 40 air recyclers from the Blohm & Voss yards in Hamburg, where the Type XXVI U-Boat was under development. These were designed to sustain a crew of 33 during voyages lasting several weeks, and would have stretched the performance of the Haunebu oxygen generators considerably.

  Although the specifics of the base’s life support equipment remain a mystery, it is clear that Kammler and his followers were able to create a stable, pressurized environment that has kept Walhalla’s personnel alive for more than three generations.

  Kammler certainly ha
d the personnel and equipment to extract oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen from the lunar soil, either by conventional electrochemical means or by using vril power. Electrolytic oxygen-hydrogen reactors would provide auxiliary power and yield drinkable water as a byproduct.

  Water

  The waste water recyclers aboard the Haunebu craft were designed to sustain each saucer’s crew for no more than two months, and the considerably larger population of the Walhalla base, as well as the needs of food production, made it vital that Kammler and SS E-IV find ways to extract water from the lunar soil. The oxygen-hydrogen reactors mentioned above produced water as a byproduct, but not in sufficient quantities to sustain the colony indefinitely.

  Water ice is present in the surface layers of the Moon, in small and localized patches where comets have crashed into the lunar surface and thrown up enough debris to cover the ice before it can sublimate and be dispersed by the solar wind. A photograph taken by the Luna 13 lander in December 1966 shows what appears to be an abandoned open-cast mine against the southeast wall of the crater where it landed, as well as markings that appear to be tire tracks. The presence of water on the Moon was not confirmed until 2009, but experts believe that the Luna chanced upon an ice extraction site in the shadow of the crater wall.

  Food

  Hydroponics, the science of growing plants without soil, had been developed in the 1930s. One of the earliest successful applications was developed by Pan American Airlines on Wake Island. Later to become famous in World War II, this rocky atoll was an important refueling stop for Pan Am’s Trans-Pacific flights, and the airline grew fresh vegetables for their passengers when the cost of shipping them in proved prohibitive.