As a NASA science flight was flying over the Greenland ice sheet this spring, a surprise popped up on a specialty radar: a hidden Cold War city more than 100 feet beneath the ice.

As it turns out, this abandoned "secret city" was the site of a secret Cold War project known as Project Iceworm which called for the construction of 2,500 miles (4,023 km) of tunnels that could be used to nuclear intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) at the Soviet Union.

NASA scientists have located Camp Century, a U.S. military base from the Cold War era, buried deep beneath Greenland’s ice sheet. Built in the 1950s and abandoned in 1967, the base remained hidden under layers of ice for decades.

Camp Century, a subterranean military base in Greenland, was spotted under the icy expanse during a flight earlier this year.

NASA scientists accidentally uncovered Camp Century, a hidden Cold War base under Greenland's ice, using advanced radar technology in April 2024. This discovery not only brings historical artifacts to light but also assists in ice sheet studies critical for understanding future sea level changes.

While flying roughly 150 miles east of northern Greenland’s Pituffik Space Base, the NASA researchers also snapped photos of the polar landscape from the plane’s windows showing a barren, icy expanse. It wasn’t until analyzing the radar images, however, that the team realized what they had flown over without even realizing it.

A team of NASA engineers aboard the Gulfstream III detected something buried under the ice sheet in Northwestern Greenland. NASA scientists didn't know what it was at first, until discovering it was Camp Century,