Discover

(Redirected from Menwith Hill)


'RAF Menwith Hill' is a military base in the United Kingdom. Located approximately eight miles west of the Yorkshire town of Harrogate, it is understood to be an intelligence-gathering base.

Contents

History

Base location

Missile base

See also

References

History

Menwith Hill Station was opened by U.S. Army in 1960 on 545 acres of land acquired by the British War Office in 1954 and leased to the United States. Under the U.S. Army, the station monitored High Frequency radio communications.
It is now operated by the United States Air Force and has grown to become the world's largest intelligence-gathering ground station outside the US. Nominally a British Royal Air Force facility, only physical security and UK liaison functions are carried out by MoD personnel. The vast majority of staff are British GCHQ personnel, American civil service employees, government contractors, as well as U.S. military personnel. The base was also known as ''Field station F83''.
Similar facilities appear to exist at Pine Gap, Australia, Misawa Air Base, Japan, and Buckley Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado.

Base location

Up until 2003 the base had a Royal Navy equivalent nearby, HMS Forest Moor. No longer a Naval base, this is now run by civilian contractors with MoD assistance.

Menwith Hill is highly recognisable by its several dozen radomes ('golf balls'), each containing a satellite dish. Many of these are used for signals interception from communications satellites: they are commonly thought to be part of the ECHELON system. Other parts of the site are thought to be used by the Space Based Infrared System employed by the US National Missile Defence program. The latter use of the base, alongside the joint US/UK radar station at RAF Fylingdales is particularly controversial.
The base has attracted significant levels of protest from anti-nuclear and pacifist groups.[1] Some groups, in an effort to disrupt and focus attention on the activities of the base, have staged frequent infiltrations and have damaged various radomes.
According to the Global Network Against Weapons and Power in Space, Menwith Hill is "crucial for the US Administration's plans for 'Full Spectrum Dominance'". Full Spectrum Dominance refers to the US's stated intention to dominate space, denying the use of space (including orbital, air, surface and sub-surface space) to other nations or their forces as well as maintaining the ability to monitor and/or disrupt communications worldwide throughout the electromagnetic spectrum and information space, for strategic or tactical purposes.

Missile base

In 2007 Defence Secretary Des Browne announced that the base would be used to house a US missile system to defence against "rogue states".[2] This was put through parliament in a written statement, thus not allowing for debate, and generating some controversy[3].

See also

★ List of RAF stations

★ United States Air Forces in Europe

★ United States Air Force in the United Kingdom

References

★ http://www.spaceweek.org/GN_SIA_report_2006.doc .doc format report from 2006

★ Yorkshire CND's Menwith Hill Site

★ The Battle of Menwith Hill (Signals Intelligence and the 9/11 Attacks)

★ UK Secret Bases

★ International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation article: 'The High Ground in Space'

★ RAF Menwith Hill on Google Maps

★ RAF Menwith Hill on local.live.com (better resolution than Google Maps)

★ http://www.commondreams.org/news2001/0202-02.htm February 2, 2001 press release