{"id":64,"slug":"amchitka-island-alaska","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Amchitka is the island where the bombs went off — the Aleutian outpost the Unangax̂ used for four thousand years, the WWII base that launched the Kiska assault with sixteen thousand troops, and then the Cold War's most remote test site: Long Shot in 1965, Milrow in 1969, and Cannikin in 1971, the five-point-one-megaton underground blast that was the largest in American history.","Greenpeace was born trying to stop it — the protest boat that sailed for Amchitka in 1971 didn't get there before the shot, but the environmental movement that formed against the tests changed what the country would accept. The island is a wildlife refuge now, the craters and the monitoring wells under DOE watch, the Unangax̂ homeland that carried the Cold War's biggest underground fireball returned to the foxes and the birds.","The file keeps Amchitka: the Unangax̂ homeland, the WWII airbase, the three shots, and the refuge it became.","Amchitka is the archive's nuclear file — the island that took the biggest underground blast and started Greenpeace."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Amchitka is the archive's nuclear file — the test site and the refuge it became.","An island that took the biggest bomb keeps its craters — the file's suggestion being that Amchitka's hold is the transformation: the Unangax̂ homeland, the war base, the nuclear site, and the refuge where the environmental movement found its first fight."]}],"name":"Amchitka Island","aliases":[],"type":"ISLAND","type_label":"Island","cats":["NUCLEAR_HISTORY","ABANDONED_MILITARY_SITE"],"groups":["maritime"],"desc":"Aleutian island bearing military and underground nuclear-test remains.","full_desc":"Amchitka Island is an island in Alaska. Aleutian island bearing military and underground nuclear-test remains. It sits in the archive under nuclear history and abandoned military sites. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. Access details are unverified — research before visiting.","address":null,"city":null,"county":null,"state":"Alaska","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":51.54222222,"lon":178.98333333,"coord_kind":"WIKI","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":"Present access has not been verified. NPS documents hazardous military and contamination legacies; no entry guidance provided.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Modern radar structures nicknamed Mayan Ruins are not ancient archaeology. Island-wide footprint; do not assign a city-center coordinate.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":49.3,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"Long Shot, Milrow, and Cannikin underground nuclear tests and later radar installations left Cold War infrastructure on Amchitka. The site's documented natural and human history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The detail is preserved in 'Cold War in the Aleutians'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Cold War in the Aleutians","url":"https://www.nps.gov/articles/aps-v13-i1-c11.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Cold War in the Aleutians","url":"https://www.nps.gov/articles/aps-v13-i1-c11.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Amchitka Island","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amchitka_Island","desc":"Island in Alaska, United States","extract":"Amchitka Island is a volcanic, tectonically unstable and uninhabited \nisland in the Rat Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in southwest Alaska. It is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The island, with a land area of roughly 116 square miles (300 km2), is about 42 miles (68 km) long and 1 to 4 miles wide. The area has a maritime climate, with many storms, and mostly overcast skies.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Aleuten-Amchitka.jpg/330px-Aleuten-Amchitka.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":51.54222222,"lon":178.98333333},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}