A huge concrete ring on a remote stretch of the Suffolk coast has puzzled experts for decades. Now a team of volunteer researchers has worked out what it was for: it was part of a secret American radar system built to watch for missile launches and nuclear explosions thousands of miles away.
The ring is about 50 metres across. It sits at Orford Ness National Nature Reserve, a former top-secret military testing ground that nature has since reclaimed. Visitors and staff have wondered about it ever since the National Trust took over the 2,000-acre site in 1993.
A puzzle for volunteers
Two friends, Steve Clifton and Olaf Kirchner, first visited Orford Ness on a guided tour in 2018. Soon afterwards they joined the International Research Group Orford Ness, a volunteer team studying the experiments carried out there between 1915 and 1972.
In 2020, fellow volunteer David Warren came up with a working theory, pieced together from technical blueprints, aerial photographs and declassified documents. The ring, he suggested, belonged to an over-the-horizon radar known as the R-System.
Across the Atlantic
Last October, Steve and Olaf travelled to Muirkirk in Maryland, where a similar concrete ring still stands. They met 94-year-old Edwin Lyon, the chief designer of the R-System. He confirmed that it existed and shared photographs and video around 60 years old.
The visit held a surprise. Olaf said Mr Lyon "had no idea that this radar system had been set up in England". "We listened in awe for over two hours," Olaf said.
The pair then flew on to Roswell, New Mexico, where they found a second ring. Its layout matched what was left at Orford Ness.
What the ring once did
The US Air Force designed and built the R-System in the 1960s to track ballistic missile launches and nuclear detonations during the Cold War. The surviving ring once held up a steerable helical transmitter.
The technology did not last long. By the end of the 1960s, satellites had replaced it. Only eight structures of this design are believed to have been built worldwide.
Keeping the stories alive
Olaf explained why such mysteries last. People who worked at Orford Ness never spoke about their projects, and many took the details to their graves. The group is working with the National Trust to tell the stories of the place and its people so that their achievements are not forgotten.
Angus Wainwright, the National Trust’s Regional Archaeologist for the East of England, called the structure one of Orford Ness’s many mysteries. "It’s only through the tenacity of these researchers that its secret function has now been revealed," he said.
How things stand now
The ring’s purpose is now known, but the researchers say plenty of other puzzles remain on the shingle. Orford Ness welcomes visitors on Thursdays and Saturdays until the end of September. The only way to reach it is the National Trust ferry, Octavia.
Image credit: National Trust
Source: Daily Express US
Leave a Reply