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      The "Q Area" at Loring AFB was the fifth such location put into operation by the USAF, and was the first constructed from the ground up specifically for the maintenance and storage of "special weapons."* The underground building in which I worked was designed to withstand the crash of an airplane and be secure from an assault by armed intruders. It also was built to contain the inadvertent or accidental release of ... well, let's just call it stuff that wasn't supposed to be released!  The top of the structure was a great place to take a little break in all-too-brief Aroostook County summer, and, for some unknown reason, grew wonderful mint from which an excellent tea could be brewed!

     This picture shows "B" and "C" rows. The building to the far left is actually a fake structure, intended as camouflage for the secret "capsule" storage facility located beneath it behind bank vault doors. All this, of course, was sharply delineated by human and K-9 patrolled barbed wire and electric charged fences, hidden away in a swamp far from casual observation or investigation.

- Atop "The Plant" -

     CJ & I visit, 2011:  In the photograph at the top of the page, barely visible as a small black square peeking out from behind the middle of the dark air vent, is the “Spook House.”  When Loring AFB was deactivated the government was required to “clean up” any environmental pollution.  The Spook House, or CAP Building, which once held nuclear weapon cores and/or initiators, had by then for a long, long time been completely sealed closed.  When the engineers drilled a hole through the many-feet thick concrete walls of the building and took a radiation reading, the base commander remarked to the press, “Oh, that’s just a bit of built-up radon gas!”  Believe that one and I’ve got a bridge down in Brooklyn I’d like to sell to you!  Oh, yes, other than the small hole through which I managed to squeeze my Nikon, the bank vault style entrance to this facility is still welded closed.  I wonder why?

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