Raven Rock, The Civil Defense Shadow
The Biggest Government Program You Never Heard Of
Please do not despair when you read of this secret Raven Rock Doomsday project upon which billions of your American tax dollars were lavished in the past 80 years. Instead, come to terms with the fact that you are responsible for your and your family’s safety, health, and welfare. There are things you can do to make sure you not only survive, but prosper. Here are a few.
For your family, prepare by educating yourself about the natural and manmade disasters that will impact your family in your lifetime. As the volunteer vice president of The American Civil Defense Association for 16 years, I have worked to create tools that will protect you and your family. TACDA has been doing so for 65 years.
For example, recently I helped upload 65 years of the Journal of Civil Defense so you can learn about natural and manmade disasters and how to prepare for them. Disasters repeat. Be ready. We also offer a blog, handbooks, videos, and many other free resources to help you. There is a a vetted survival store that has items for cost.
Get going today.
Also, the reason I created this Substack American Tactical Civil Defense is to offer tools to help you and your family. As Benjamin Franklin said so well, “Man is a tool-making animal.” As a serial inventor and entrepreneur he understood the importance of human ingenuity and our ability to create and use tools to improve our lives.
To add to your civil defense tool kit, I have dedicated hundreds of hours to writing this American Tactical Civil Defense Substack so you and your family make it through what is coming. I offer it free so everyone who wants to learn it and share it with others is able to do so.
With thousands of hours of previous American civil defense knowledge and experience, I have a duty to you before God to share this specialized information. But only you can demonstrate the stick-to-it-iv-ness to learn it and apply it to your family’s unique circumstances.
Please do.
The Layers of Raven Rock
I’ve been involved in civil defense for American families for over 40 years. I thought I knew the layers of civil defense cake like the wife of a Chesapeake waterman knows the layers of a Smith Island layer cake, but reading the book Raven Rock, I realize I know little.
The layers of Raven Rock (and Mount Weather) were (and are) fare deeper, layered, concealed, secret, hidden, and kept from the American public. Raven Rock is a remarkable story told by Garrett M. Graff in his tome: Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself While the Rest of Us Die.
Raven Rock and Mount Weather operate 24/7/365. Right now. They are not ancient history. They did not shut down once the Berlin Wall came down on November 9th, 1989. Both offer many vital civil defense lessons. Study them to be ready for what is coming.
I have read Graff’s book several times. OK. I’m a civil defense geek. I find it fascinating. Absolutely amazing. Endlessly intellectually stimulating. Civil defense is the Biblical story of surviving God’s manmade disasters and man’s even worse manmade disasters. But I was not prepared for the remarkable story revealed by Garrett M. Graff in this tome. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
How Much did the Raven Rock Program Cost Then and Now
It is easier to understand the Mystery of the Holy Spirit than to understand the Mystery of the Pentagon budget. And that is not by accident. “Black Budget” projects and the American tax money that is paid for projects like Raven Rock are hidden from the American public deliberately.
Graff does a remarkable job of digging out costs of various aspects of Raven Rock in his tome. But he never arrives at a total cost for it because that figure has been kept secret for 80 years and is still kept secret.
My cousin is an accountant at the Pentagon who briefs Congress. He is a genius with numbers. He will never know the real numbers that are spent on Raven Rock or other Black Budget projects. Such numbers are hidden and secret and kept from him, you , me, and the American tax payer who pays for these projects. My cousin and other honest auditors at the Pentagon are never allowed to know those numbers. There is a reason the Pentagon has not ever passed an audit. Don’t take my word for it. Here is what the best Ai search engine, X Ai Grok, has to say.
Bruce Curley @BruceCurley2 “when was the last time the pentagon was audited”
Grok
@grok The Pentagon was last audited on November 15, 2023. Unfortunately, it failed its sixth consecutive audit, as reported by Reuters. The Pentagon has yet to pass a comprehensive audit since the first one was conducted in 2018. It's worth noting that the Department of Defense is the only major federal agency that has never passed an audit. RealClearInvestigations, @RCInvestigates
Dec 21, 2023 Waste of the Day: With $832 Billion Budget, Pentagon Fails Sixth Consecutive Audit http://dlvr.it/T0QpGN
Raven Rock Summary
Here is the short summary if you do not have time to explore the rich knowledge of human nature and military history of the American civil defense program from the back cover of the book.
“The eye-opening true story of the government’s secret plans to survive and rebuilt after a catastrophic attack on U.S. Soil-a narrative that spans from he dawn of the nuclear age to today. For sixty years, the U.S. government has been developing secret Doomsday plans to protect itself int he event of a terrorist or nuclear attack, and the multibillion-dollar Continuity of Government (COG) program takes numerous forms-from its plans to evacuate high-ranking officials to bunkers surrounding Washington, DC, to he prospect of launching nuclear missiles from a Boeing 747 flying high over Nebraska. In Raven Rock, Garrett Graff utilizes thousands of pages of once-classified documents, as well as original interview and visit ss to former and current COG facilities, to track the evolution of the government’s plans and the threats of global war from he Truman administration through the present day. Equal parts a presidential, military, and political history, Raven Rock takes readers through the back channels of government to understand exactly what is at stake if our nation is attacked, and how we’re prepared to respond if it is.”
The most stunning paragraph in this truthful book is this paragraph: “In many ways, after many decades, many billions of dollars, and countless advances in technology, the federal government’s basic plan to escape a catastrophe in Washington remains the same today as it was during that first Operation ALERT during the Eisenhower administration: Run away and hide in the Appalachian Mountains across Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia.” p. 406
Stunning.
Having moved myself and my family from the Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia/Maryland beltway epicenter of any attack on this nation (and having done the circle analysis of what the destruction of the nation’s capital in a nuclear exchange means that is much more likely from the Communist Chinese Party/People’s Liberation Army than it ever was from the old Soviet Union to the safety of the mountains), I find it interesting that those who came before me in the civil defense community undertook the same analysis and reached the same conclusion: the mountains offer safety.
As my now in Heaven Green Beret brother-in-law said so well, “Washington, D.C. could disappear today and all it means for me is I pay fewer taxes.”
I will confess here that the rabbit holes with this area of knowledge are endless. Here is just one example.
“Other new hiding places have taken the place of those that were retired. It you weren’t looking for it, you’d be hard pressed to stumble upon the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory, tucked away in the mountainous corner of the Appalachians where West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia all come together. the Mailing address for the massive thousand-acre facility is Rocket Center, West Virginia, a town that technically has no residents and nothing beyond the ABL, a property dating back to World War II that today is split between the Navy and a private contractor named Alliant Technology systems (ATK for short). From State Route 956, which bisects the complex, it looks like just about any other fenced-ff anonymous office part, except a closer examination of the surrounding woods will uncover air shafts rising from underground bunkers and a lot more security cameras and patrols that seemingly necessary for such an isolated complex.” P. 406
I live near the Rocket Center complex. Try to research it. Try to find it. Try to go to it. It exists in the shadows. American civil defense, as before, is the fed employees protecting themselves, as here.
You and your your family are on your own. (Go to tacda.org to help prepare.)
There is so much in this book to inform you about the secret plans for the feds to survive and how they use trillions of your tax dollars to make sure they do. The uber powerful in Washington, D.C. are not made of the morals of George Washington. They spend your hard earned dollars to ensure they, and their ilk, survive, be it biological weapons they invent and control or weapons systems they throw around the world without thought to impact of consequence.
You, too, need to prepare yourself and your family for the full threat matrix. Civil defense is for everyone, not just the elite.
Where Top Feds Relocate During an Attack on Washington, DC
Graff spells out clearly where the top feds are relocated if a major attack to Washington, DC makes it unusable for them.
“During an emergency that rendered downtown Washington unusable be these (and other) critical functions would end up on this West Virginia mountaintop, moving into anonymous Building 494 of the Robert C. Byrd Hilltop Office Complex. Wherever the president ended up - perhaps hidden inside Mount Weather or Raven Rock or soaring high above the country in an NEACP plan - and whoever the president ended up being, whether it was the chief executive duly selected by the electoral college or a successor in the National Command Authorities like the Senate president pro tem or the secretary of agriculture, the Emergency Federal Register would be a vital link in governing the nation, just like the presidential nuclear Football. It’s from this hilltop that the string of executive orders, emergency rules, and the implementation of NSPD 51 would unfold, one EFR entry at a time.” Pgs. 408-409.
He also lays out the GSA Form SF 336 that enables continuity communications capabilities.
“Much of COG is now a routine part of government life. For instance, there’s GSA Form SF 336, the four-page “Alternate facility Reporting Form.” which asks agencies to attest that their facilities have a proper documentation and legal agreements in place to occupy the relocation sites, as well as that the facilities are “NCSD 3-10 compliant,” a lengthy and detailed document that lays out the “Minimum Requirements for Continuity Communications Capabilities.” The directive requires secure called and satellite phone capabilities for the senior leadership of all Category I, II, and III organizations and more robust classified systems for the most critical agencies. It also requires agencies to have communication capabilities for leadership in transit to the alternate location - an attempt to limit the problems of 9/11 and to encourage senior leaders to actually travel to the relocation sites if they can.” p. 388
NOTE: When I inspected State (Texas, South Dakota, Utah, California, etc.) Emergency Operations Center’s Emergency Operations Plans in the mid-1980’s, most of them had 20-years worth of dust on them. Just because it is in the plan does not mean anyone knows it or, more importantly, exercises the plan to find its strengths and weaknesses and then conducts lessons learned and continuous process improvement. That is why the contribution of the private sector is so critical. The feds know this and it is why they hand out so many contracts to contractors to get the job done.
Ensuring the Continuity of the Federal Register
Consider this passage from Raven Rock that explains how critical the Federal Register is to the continuity of government. They take it seriously. So should you.
“ABL now stands as the primary COOP facility for a group of important agencies, including national security components of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Archives. While the National Archives sounds like it’d be an unnecessary appendage during the an emergency, it actually runs one of the most vital legal functions of the U. S. Government: The Federal Register stands as the daily rundown of all the new laws, rules, regulations, and standards that the government announces. To oversimplify the federal paper trail just a bit, nothing is officially enacted or implemented by the government until it appears in the printed Federal Register-making it one of the least understood and least known but most critical functions to preserve on a day-to-day basis.” P. 407
Raven Rock Facility
Raven Rock is located in Adams County, Pennsylvania, the same county that endured the slaughter of men at nearby Gettysburg 165 years ago due to the War Between the States or U.S. Civil War or the War of Northern Aggression…depending on your take.
“Locals called the mysterious project on the Beard Lot a number of names: the Little Pentagon, the Alternate Pentagon, [whereas] the Army provided an official label-naming the mountain after a rock pillar nearby: Raven Rock. Most government officials, though, knew it by its code name: SITE R. It became operational on June 30, 1953, five months after Eisenhower became president, with just over 100,000 square feet of office space, not counting the corridors, bathrooms, dining facility, infirmary, or the communications and utilities areas, and could hold about 1,400 personnel comfortably.” Pgs. 51-52.
“In 2010, the Pentagon spent $8.4 million upgrading Raven Rock’s secondary power to a more powerful generator. In 2014, it upgraded Raven Rock’s administrative facility for $32 million and built a new exterior cooling tower for another $4.1 million. None of that work, though, counts the tens of millions of dollars the Pentagon’s Washington headquarters Service pays to support Raven Rock, nor the personnel costs associated with manning the watch center and battle staff.” p. 404
“Raven Rock has grown dramatically since 9/11. Inn 2001, the Defense Department listed the site as consisting of fifty-nine buildings with 450,000 square feet…and by 2012, the facility was composed of sixty-six buildings and 615,000 square feet of space. Just a year later, in 2013, it had grown to sixty-nine buildings and 639,000 square feet.” P. 396
The base proceeds with all the various projects necessary to support a huge, expensive infrastructure, all watched over by the Pentagon Force Protection Agency and the 572nd Military Policy Company, knows as the ‘Keepers of the Rock.’” P. 396
This is a massive military base designed to be the Pentagon if the Pentagon was no longer available. It is a free-standing city. It is fully staffed. It will survive as will those located inside of it. The feds plan to survive. You should, too.
Mount Weather Facility
Mount Weather, near Upperville, Virginia, was the civilian fed employee bunker like the military employee Raven Rock bunker. “In 1954, down in Virginia, the government began…building a bunker that would house the civilian arm of the government…known…as a weather forecasting facility: Mount Vernon. Raven Rock and Mount Weather would serve as the core of the governments Doomsday planning for the next seven decades.” p. 52
Mount Weather itself has no airplane runways, just a long grass strip and concrete helipads, but a few miles away, down at the base of the mountain in Upperville, Virginia, the sprawling palatial 2,000-acre estate known as Oak Spring Farms has an odd feature: a paved private airstrip…The estate’s private airstrip…can into existence in the 1950’s, just as government miners began to excavate the bunker at Mount Weather.”
This is a massive fed civilian base designed to be the fed civilian equivalent of Raven Rock. It is also a free-standing city. It is also fully staffed. It will survive as will those located inside of it. The feds plan to survive. You should, too.
Again, the feds have spent billions to make sure they survive. You can afford a couple hundred to make sure your family has a year’s supply of food, water, and medicine.
What have the American People Gotten for the Billions Spent on Raven Rock and Mount Weather
I’ll let Graff say it. “In many ways, after many decades, many billions of dollars, and countless advances in technology, the federal government’s basic pan to escape a catastrophe in Washington remains the same today as it was during that first Operation ALERT, during the Eisenhower administration: Run away and hide in the Appalachian Mountains across Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia.” P. 406
Are you surprised?
Let’s take it down to a simple example. A predator kicks down your door intent on assaulting you and your family. Yes, you call the government 911 number, but you do not depend on them to protect your family from harm. You are responsible for the safety of your family and that is a grave duty.
As well, your own and your families protection if a catastrophic manmade or natural disaster strikes dictates that you need to take the steps necessary to provide for your families continuity. As has been true from the beginning of time, families are the bedrock of a successful nation. Nations are built on families, not the other way around.
How to Know Things are Going to get Spicy
I am old enough to have lived through many predictions the world is about to end and here are the signs of the Doomsday. Yet, Christ was clear. In Mark 13:32, he states: “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
However, there are clear indications when a crisis, of which there will be thousands of minor ones and dozens of major ones in your lifetime (a manmade disaster is another name for it) will happen. For example, after 9/11, the following uptick in activity around Raven Rock and Mount Weather occurred. So, it’s pretty easy to know thing are going to get spicy, for the same activity described below will occur in the next major crisis, so you can prepare accordingly.
“As [9/11] fall arrived in the Appalachian Mountains around Washington, residents of the small communities around Raven Rock and Mount Weather had become used to clattering helicopters arriving and departing - as well as the other disturbances that came with living near the nation’s Doomsday headquarters. ‘Day and night, you hear the airplanes,’ said Bonnie Wolfe, who owned the hobby shop in nearby Blude Ridge, Pennsylvania. At Mount Weather, black netting went up alongside the perimeter fences bordering the facility to obscure the work and personnel from passersby, and new surface-to-air defenses were loaded into the site. The lumbering buses, trucks, fighters, and helicopters announced America’s new, permanent “shadow government,” a group of 75 to 150 civilian officials spread between Raven Rock and Mount Weather who would support the “presidential successor.” The haphazard evacuation on 9/11 had settled in the following weeks into ninety-day rotations of teams working inside the mountains. Most of those pulling “bunker duty” were top civilian managers from the GS-14 and GS-15 ranks of the government workforce, as well as from the Senior Executive Service.” Pgs. 366-67
Additional Resources
Garrett M. Graff, author of Raven Rock, Talk about the Book at the Ford Presidential Library
Garrett M. Graff Talk Before the National Archives about Raven Rock
Digital National Security Archive at the University of Washington
Federation of Atomic Scientists
NOTE: As my wife makes another healthy, nutritious, tasty meal downstairs as I write this, I must thank her for the time I get to write these civil defense Substacks. Without her loving me, and making me pay attention to my beautiful grandchildren and the dog, and talking common sense in a world gone mad, I would never have the family, poetry, civil defense career, and vigorous intellectually challenging life I have enjoyed. God is good. All the time. And he gave me a Bible for instruction and a phenomenal wife for the truthful insights that are the practical side of the often hard to understand Biblical truths. God made me, Jesus saved me, and the Holy Spirit continues to inspire me. My wife Robin is their gift to me that never fails. For that fact, I am eternally grateful.
Absolutely fascinating - thank you for sharing this!