What’s new, friends?
Today, I’ll walk you through a decommissioned Cold War missile silo with some not-so-great bones☠️. And after that, I’ve got some 📼Eighties Escapes, some 🏰Crumbling Castles, a few 🌴Petite Private Islands for sale, and finally, in keeping with today’s theme, several ☢️Survival Silos.
Imagine this…the year is 1962. The United States is deeply embroiled in the Cold War with the USSR. Spies lurk. The Space Race is on. And the threat of missile strikes is a very (terrifyingly) real thing. The Department of Defense builds underground silos across the Great Plains and Eastern Rockies to house America’s Atlas ICBMs in case we need to escalate the Cold War into a heated exchange.
And now, you can own one of those silos for the low, low price of $750,000. (That is, if you can get past the mortgage and insurance hurdles and are not detered the past deaths on the property… 😱more on that later.)
That’s right. You can now fulfill all your military-industrial complex dreams in a decommissioned underground control bunker and missile silo tucked away in the farm fields outside bustling York, Nebraska! According to my research, York is checks notes* several (hundred) miles east of somewhere and west of nowhere. Sounds delightful.
Here’s your aerial view:
Let’s go inside, shall we? Just through this welcoming front door,
And down these not-at-all-sketchy stairs…
….is the round concrete room of your prepper dreams!
Yes, that’s a wall of firearms next to the kitchen, in case you’re riding out the zombie apocalypse down here. It has a bathroom, too, because an outhouse would defeat the purpose, right?
Aaaaannnnd, that’s it!
Oh, wait, there’s more?
Going down…
And you get to refurbish Level 2 any way you want!
By now, I’m sure you’re wondering where the actual silo is. You’ll have to walk through a tunnel (which doesn’t have any murder vibes) to get there.
May I present to you (*drum roll please*) The Abyss!
Yes, it’s filled with water. Yes, the silo is over 170 feet deep in total, as deep as a 17-story building is tall 😱. Yes, that’s an inflatable raft. There’s a story behind that, actually. The property is currently owned by outdoor living influencer Andrew Flair. He tossed the raft in there to go magnet fishing. Some people even use these old silos to teach scuba diving. Thanks, but no thanks.
I don’t know what part of this I like the least; could be living miles from civilization, could be claustrophobia, could be the “I’m going to die” feelings I get just looking at these photos…
And it turns out, those fears are totally warranted. Flair has claimed that “there was a murder narcotics case where supposedly they put the body inside of the silo…they dove down looking for the body, and they couldn't get down there because of the debris. I talked to the law enforcement officers, and they’re positive it’s in there, they just can’t get down into it.” Yikes, talk about haunted!
But sadly, that’s not the only death on the property, either. Since drafting this newsletter, there has been news of a death on the property. Flair is actually being sued by the family of a contractor who died while working on the property.
The lawsuit claims that in order to even access the property, you have to figure out how to operate an "unnecessary and unreasonable combination of metal rods, jumper cables, a car battery, a super winch 2500, a pulley system, various hooks, and a rusted stairway railing." Sadly, the man was crushed to death by the door, which can exert over 2,000 pounds of force.
I’m guessing at this point you’re saying to yourselves, “Why would anyone ever buy this property?” Well, I’m guessing that would depend on whether you’re more afraid of what’s inside or what’s outside. What do you think, would you live here?
Til next time!
Jess @Zillowtastrophes
More Hidden Gems & Outright Disasters
📼Eighties Escapes
☢️Survival Silos
