In the heart of Australia’s scorching Red Center, some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from the nearest city, lies a top-secret military communications base that few people know about – and even fewer have visited. Officially known as the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap – or just Pine Gap for short – the off-limits facility is operated by both Australia and the United States, and is sometimes likened to Area 51 due to its secretive nature and fiercely guarded perimeters. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Established at the height of the Cold War , Pine Gap came into being when the two nations signed a treaty in 1966 agreeing to set up an intelligence base just outside Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory. At the

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