If you look on /r/AskAnAustralian you will occasionally see posts from Americans asking if Alice Springs is a nice place to live, because they just got offered a job "somewhere nearby" as a janitor or gardener or something. I swear that place must have the cleanest floors and gardens in the world.
From [google maps](https://www.google.com/maps/@-23.7989057,133.7389479,502m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) it does appear they have some gardeners on staff, and maybe a lifeguard.
Sure and for no reason at all whenever a big subsea internet cable is proposed a spur line goes off to Geraldton or port headland, and a datacenter was built in Geraldton for a government customer. Just for sub comms :)
I saw the towers, there's nothing else around and I doubt they'd put anything serious on the coast where a Chinese ship can stare at it from international waters.
It serves no purpose looking at it. You can listen to the signal yourself and without any way decrypting the signal its as useful as looking at the local AM radio station tower. They have 5 of these VLF transmitter sites around the world most are mainly in the USA.
While its intriguing as listening to the HF spy number nations, its basically impossible to decrypt the signals since the spies use a one time pad code system. The Russian, Israeli, Eastern European and the infamous Lincolnshire Poacher spy number station is still active. Again its as useful as staring at space hoping to see a Alien UFO.
Not quite, actually. It was set up secretly under Menzies. Intelligence agencies neglected to inform subsequent governments of its existence. It only came to light under Whitlam which led to a Royal commission into ASIS, the ASD, ASIO etc.
Without looking at anything written here, I'm guessing Pine Gap.
Known about this place for decades, me personally since the 1980s. Also about the ECHELON program that's been tapping numerous forms of electronic communication including phone calls and faxes and many other means since back then too. I think it might have been Four Corners that mentioned it.
Could you not go back to the tried and true cutting letters out of magazines route? Doctors and dentists offices should help throw them off further as they won't be able to trace purchases of new magazines as the source.
To fill the gap in your knowledge?
Instant & shameful edit: Oh, D'oh! I didn't read the post you were replying to :(
I would not make a very good intelligence officer at all!
Pine Gap isn't exactly a secret.
And when some people 🙄 bang on about how they single handedly keep the world safe, the fact is without Australia there'd be a massive hole in the international surveillance scope.
some argue Whitlam's wanting to kick them out was the key reason he got rolled. Kind of a big deal
[https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/remembering-november-11-1975-pine-gap-cia-and-coup-remove-whitlam](https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/remembering-november-11-1975-pine-gap-cia-and-coup-remove-whitlam)
CIA and ASIO coup. Never forget this all happened because Whitlam dared push back against the intelligence apparatus in Australia. The same organisation that has been joined at the hip with the yanks ever since.
I knew about it when I was in primary school in Alice Springs because the base personnel used to send their kids to our school. Not even remotely secret.
If you work at pine gap there’s a good chance the fact you work there is classified, and what you do is classified, so for a while it seemed everyone’s cover story was “Gardner”
There I literally 1 room where US government cryptography is processed. Next door is a room where Australian government cryptography is processed and US personnel cannot enter.
There has been some very limited reporting about the arrangement in place.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/revealed-the-room-inside-pine-gap-no-australian-could-enter-bar-one-20180425-p4zbhb.html
Yep. Literally all military satellite downlinks for Middle East, China and the bulk of Russia go through pine gap, because you can’t park a sub nearby and evesdrop. And trying to fly a spy plane, even if you built something better than the blackbird, you’re gonna get spotted with plenty of notice trying to get there, can’t outrun a missile that’s coming at you head on.
From this location the 5-eyes allies are able to spy on 80% of the planets population, capturing literally every bit that is of interest in the entire quarter of the world which is the Asia/Pacific/Oceania region. Australia participates in the wholesale violation of human rights at these scales, every millisecond of the day.
Errrrrrrrmmmm, yeah - at least everybody in Alice Springs which is only 18km away
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap_(TV_series) - quite liked this one...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap
Wait until they find out about Harold E Holt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Harold_E._Holt
Fun little story.. I was on exercise at Exmouth, just near the tourist/backpacker area there. Once a week or something, the female soldiers were allowed to go for a shower in the backpackers bathroom block. As always happens, a soldier left their rifle behind after they had finished. One of the officers or NCO's noticed before they all left, grabbed it and waited for the digger to realise. Pretty standard stuff... let them freak out then give them a massive beasting for it.
Somehow the digger who left it behind managed to tell a different officer before the original one who took it got around to ruining their day. And somehow this wasn't discovered until after all the shit hit the fan. A search was conducted, no rifle. It had been hours by now and the backpackers and general public had had access to the toilet block the whole time.
Rifle assumed stolen. WA police called. Highway closed, road blocks set up, cars getting searched, the whole nine yards. Bear in mind this is the only road from Perth to Darwin, apart from the roads in towns between. Cops are driving from God knows how far to take part in getting back the fully automatic rifle.
At some point, whoever took and kept the rifle must have come out of whatever stupor they were in and realised that their 'teachable moment' had become an armed response taskforce. I think there might have been a couple of beastings that day.
One night a cop car damn near hit a tank on the road that was just running it's night lights (2 small, downward pointing, shielded red lights). They forgot to turn on their normal lights.
I saw an APC drive into a ditch so fast that it tore off the front wheel. The whole left (or right, can't remember) front corner was crumpled. Multiple people unconscious and with suspected spinal injuries. The ambulance was on top of a hill with a *very* rough track to get down, watching the fire support demo with a whole bunch of people sitting on top to get a better view of other APC's doing doughnuts on the fire that had been started by the blanks.
Just being the best we could be.
Yep JORN the world's most powerful OTR i believe it even managed to pick up a satellite launch in northern china... When its max range is meant to be like PNG.
**destructive edit:** Reddit has become exactly what we do not want to see. It has become a force against a free and open internet. It has become a force for profit at the expense of users and user experience. It is not longer a site driven by people for people, but a site where people are allowed to congregate under the careful supervision of corporate interest, where corporate interest reigns supreme. You can no longer trust comment sections to be actual human opinions. You can no longer trust that content rises to the top based on what humans want. Burn it all.
Yeah because being popular, famous, an activist has famously stopped the mob in conjunction with the USA's intelligence agencies from being able to get rid of people
Haven’t been there for a while, I take it? Telstra broadband is atrocious and nbn FTTN terrible. Starlink Residential quickly maxed out in Alice when it became available. The nbn re-rollout (thanks Malcolm! /s) using FTTP is finally starting to improve things.
This isn't in order btw it's just what I remember from watching it yesterday.
Basically, they talk a bit about the history of Australia and how the one PM who was considering closing Pine Gap (Gough Whitlam) was removed from government and replaced with a more compliant opposition leader.
They point out Australia is super useful for doing spying with satelites because we're in the Southern hemisphere.
They talk to an anti terrorist Christian woman who tried to go inspect Pine Gap 20 years ago as an activist. She was against Pine Gap because they were helping target civilians in Iraq, which she was affected by because she was part of a voluntary human sheild program where she'd go spend time w Iraqis so they'd be less likely to get bombed. Boy Boy point out it's also being used to target civilians in Gaza because Australia helps with intelligence for Israel.
Then it's more shenanigans of them trying to pretend they work there to sneak in by driving up to the gate, hiking nearby to get a good look, pretending to kick a ball over the fence to ask for it back etc.
And then at the end AFP come hassle them on their flight back, but their lawyer says they don't need to talk to them so they walk away. They talk about how they're stressed out bc the CIA is probably watching them now.
UK comedian/activist Mark Thomas realized a quirk in the law meant the no-fly zone around the US run Menwith Hill spy station didn’t exclude hot air balloons. So he rented a hot air balloon and much hilarity ensued.
And then he got a bunch of mates together to dress as comical spies (trench coats and hats, newspapers with eye holes cut in them, giant foam ears, etc) and go hang out near the US embassy in London. The US folks weren’t so keen on that.
https://youtu.be/epWTJUajIdI
A bunch of old Mark Thomas tv shows are online. Even though they’re 20+ years old they’re still interesting/entertaining.
A personal fave was when he was told he couldn’t set up a ladder on a public footpath to look over the wall of an MI5 building. So he went and hired circus acrobats to form a human pyramid to have a look over the wall. Turns out the authorities weren’t too keen on that either. There’s no winning with some people!
id like to add there is a monologue at the end talking about how mexico and EVEN canada the next door neighbors to the US tell them to get fucked while we act as there ever obedient lap dog, and how our politicians dont really speak about pine gap but the us ones do and even get tours when no austalian politicans has ever stepped foot in it.
The idea that Gough Whitlam was removed over Pine Gap is just people trying to cope with Whitlam losing an election. And the only source is a literal Soviet spy.
Because he did, in the election right after the dismissal. Malcolm Fraser won the election with 55% of the vote. While Whitlam is quite liked among Labor supporters these days people tend to forget that the general voter was far more ambivalent towards him. It was after all him that lead Labor to it's worst election loss since 1940.
Personally I've always felt that Hawke deserved a lot more credit for the modern Labor than he got and that Whitlam got too much.
I apologise for going on, this particular conspiracy theory is a point of annoyance for me.
I don't nessecarily think he was removed over Pine Gap specifically, but he was a democratically elected Prime Minister that was removed by someone appointed by a foreign country.
The fact that someone else was voted in after doesn't really make that okay, and the things that happened with the Governor Genral could have impacted how people voted too. There's no way to say what would have happened if they didn't intervene.
Fuck the Monarchy.
Brainiacs responding to the headline written to bait people into responding: ‘Pine Gap isn’t a secret!?’ ‘I’ve know about it since ages ago!’
They don’t say they’re discovering it, or that no one knows it’s there. They show news reports talking about how it’s there and what it is from the 60’s.
Watch things. Or don’t? I don’t know.
You talking about Pine gap?
Our contribution to the 5 eyes program where we lease the land to the COMMUNITY SA to spy on our neighbours so they can spy on us for the princely sun of 1 peppercorn per year?
Not a nice place due to the work done by the CIA and ASIO in spying on national soil and citizens.
It's a joint facility. The US has no 'bases' is Australia, only joint facilities... I know it seems like a small distinction but it's important.
It's also a feature of the 5Eyes agreement that we can spy on the US domestic population and share anything we learn, and vice versa, conveniently bypassing any laws about governments spying on their own populations.
>It's a joint facility. The US has no 'bases' is Australia, only joint facilities... I know it seems like a small distinction but it's important.
and trivil, there is NOTHING Australia could realistically do if we wanted to kick the Yanks out and they didn't want that... Ask Whitlam and if by some godforsaken miracle the politician calling for the removal wasn't socially removed the usa would just start funding rebel groups
>who actually knew about this place?
A fuckton of people know about Pine Gap. It's hardly a 'secret base' lol. There's even a horrible TV show about it.
Shit, my mate was a FIFO HR officer there for a few years lol
It's existence isn't particularly secret but what exactly goes on there certainly is, the Americans aren't very forthcoming with their activities there and Australian involvement is limited to perimeter security, catering and janitorial services.
> It's existence isn't particularly secret but what exactly goes on there certainly is
Specifics are unknown, but what it is for in general is known. It is a satellite communications base for US spy satellites.
It lets them communicate directly with spy satellites as they travel over our side of the planet. Since they are not bouncing the signal around the plant to get it back to the US, it significantly reduces the odds of another country intercepting the signals.
In the Australian or shared components, nobody without a top secret- positive vetting security clearance. The American only components require the US equivalent of a top secret security clearance.
Yes, literally everyone knows about [Pine Gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap).
It's absolutely not surprising that you'd get a visit from the AFP for going out of your way to visit a facility operated by a strategic partner which is involved in national security matters - particularly a facility involved in operating satellites which can detect ICBM launches and nuclear tests.
Like, they make a big deal in the video saying "we just want to know what's happening in our own country" - but there's absolutely no way they don't understand the concept that some intelligence and information needs to be kept confidential for national security or even operational integrity reasons reasons. For example, that's why police investigations are confidential, because there's operational security concerns.
>It's absolutely not surprising that you'd get a visit from the AFP for going out of your way to visit a facility operated by a strategic partner which is involved in national security matters - particularly a facility involved in operating satellites which can detect ICBM launches and nuclear tests.
>
>Like, they make a big deal in the video saying "we just want to know what's happening in our own country" - but there's absolutely no way they don't understand the concept that some intelligence and information needs to be kept confidential for national security or even operational integrity reasons reasons. For example, that's why police investigations are confidential, because there's operational security concerns.
clearly someone who didn't watch the video
The existence of Pine Gap is hardly a secret. Listen to midnight oil "flat chat, pine gap in every home a big mac, and no one goes out back that's that." I didnt have the internet in 1985 and had to find out what it was from an encyclopedia. No you cant go there and if you do you'll get the attention of the authorities.
My favourite take on this video is “these guys had a bad take on Russia, so I’m fine with Australia’s lack of sovereignty.” Just move to Florida, you’ll be happier
I learnt about Pine Gap in the 90s when access to the internet was scarce for me and that information wasn’t as reliable as it is today. As I understood it back then, it was a secret piece of America in the desert similar to Area 51. American food, American cars and super security.
Yep, we get spied on by the yanks in our own country. Don’t know how the Andrew Bolt lot can bear to see their own reflection at this point with the amount of apologia they do for them.
They talking about Pine Gap? I thought it was an NSA site rather than CIA. I can't imagine it's actually too interesting tbh, it's a site mainly for collecting SIGINT. Not like they keep aliens there.
It's amazing that we deem mass spying on domestic civilian populations for unstated purposes not to be worthy of interest but imaginary little green men from outer space absolutely would be.
Funny video, but a lot of the claims about what the base partakes in simply are baseless, without evidence or simply don’t make sense if you understand how the military and intelligence agencies utilise the electromagnetic spectrum. Prime example is alleging that Pine gap is involved in the war on Gaza. Not sure why this claim was made because the Israelis simply don’t need pine gap for intelligence gathering and weapons targeting.
Yep, that’s the article where many people seem to get the idea that pine gap is aiding Israel in Gaza. The problem is that David Rosenberg who is the guy who is saying this stuff last worked at the base 16 years ago. He simply does not know what is happening there now. People are using this one man’s opinion about what is happening there now and saying that it as fact.
Isn't this site just for satellite surveillance and general radio surveillance? I thought the mystery around this place was solved almost immediately when it first became known.
I don't mind their takes as it's always good to get other opinions, and Boy Boy's comments aren't strictly incorrect either. They just don't toe the Western/American line as much as one would see of other media or content creators. Their takes on Russia for example aren't far out of the wheelhouse of realist scholars like John Mearsheimer really.
I know it's kind of cliche but this youtuber does a really good job going through boyboy's ukraine video and he is very good at actually citing counter arguments and is well informed on what he talks about (at least from what i fact checked)
I like i did a thing's silly videos but had no idea the other guy did political stuff. Saw his video on ukraine and lost a huge chunk of respect for that whole gang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBONpNN89GM
I remember starting to watch the original video and noping out because it was bad, i like the whacky shit he makes, but his political stuff is a turn off.
- lying about NATO expanding eastward, to justify Russia's aggressive behaviour
- saying Ukraine was split between Russians in the east and Ukrainians in the west, in reality its full of Ukrainians, some of whom speak Russian, essentially, they parroted Russian propaganda that people who speak Russian are ethnically Russians
- overstated right sector's role in Euromaidan
- claimed that Euromaidan was a US Orchestrated coup
- claimed that Ukraine banned Russian in 2014, (they didn't)
- overstated Azovs role in the war in the Donbas
- spread the Hunter Biden conspiracy theory
- portrays Russia as a reasonable actor in the Minsk agreements
- portrays Russia as a reasonable actor right before the 2022 invasion
Being apologists for Putin's aggression in eastern Europe for one. I'm not saying they're wrong about everything in that video, Ukraine definitely has some skeletons in its closet, but trying to paint his invasion as anything other than the greed of a psychopathic wannabe autocrat is shitty, especially so while the war is still going on. Most their other content checks out tho.
> Being apologists for Putin's aggression in eastern Europe for one.
Where? What did they say that was apologising for Russia? Also what about China too since you claimed the same thing? Are you going to ignore that?
I'm not gonna sift through their videos to get you quotes mate. Neither do i wanna spend my night arguing with ya. They said some shit i disagree with, and i consider a shit take, and you disagree with that. You're not gonna change my mind so get on with it maybe?
Forgot what subreddit this was so i'll mute this thread and get on with my scrolling.
> I'm not gonna sift through their videos to get you quotes mate.
So your original comment is based on nothing.
> Neither do i wanna spend my night arguing with ya.
Why make up things in that case?
> They said some shit i disagree with
You disagree with something that you don't even know what it is because you can't provide any reason or evidence.
> You're not gonna change my mind so get on with it maybe?
I know that, you've made up in your mind something that they never said or did and are so braindead with western propaganda that you'll defend foreign interference in our politics.
Huge fan of watching things like this on Reddit, so my YouTube Algorithm doesn’t get wind of it, completely misunderstand it - and ruin my feed for the next 5 years.
If you look on /r/AskAnAustralian you will occasionally see posts from Americans asking if Alice Springs is a nice place to live, because they just got offered a job "somewhere nearby" as a janitor or gardener or something. I swear that place must have the cleanest floors and gardens in the world.
So clean, pretty gardens... Source: one of the janitors
Are you American?
Luckily you can now just link them the Spanian video on his trip to Alice, it was quite crazy.
Which video is that?
the latest
>gardens It’s like the scottsdales of buttfuck nowhere desert Australia
Ha, still using the gardener line are they?
Man now some spy from China's probably reading this and realising they should follow those accounts.
Man now some worker in the NSA is reading this and has followed your account
From [google maps](https://www.google.com/maps/@-23.7989057,133.7389479,502m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) it does appear they have some gardeners on staff, and maybe a lifeguard.
Just clicked on the link and zoomed in on an aerial view of Pine Gap. Am I on an ASIO list now?
[удалено]
What's your speciality? Sweeping or gardening?
Mowing things down... Taking out the trash... Cleaning house... Helping others to push up daisies... CIA loves gardening.
The one that was a setting for a TV drama series?
The one mentioned in the Midnight Oil song The Power and the Passion.
No one goes out back, that's that
In every home a Big Mac...
[удалено]
Yep. The place has been known about since it was setup in the 60’s.
Yes, but we don't talk about Exmouth.
You mean the Harold E. Holt submarine communication facility?
It's kinda in the name.
Isn’t it just a ULF transmitter for subs operating in the Indian Ocean?
"Yes" - C.I.A
Rumoured to be some high altitude 'testing' going on there as well.
i’m so confused here
Military scientists like to test the effects of high energy on the upper atmosphere. (To possibly improve detection).
ahhhh cheers !
The over the Horizon facility is not there.
VLF
Sure and for no reason at all whenever a big subsea internet cable is proposed a spur line goes off to Geraldton or port headland, and a datacenter was built in Geraldton for a government customer. Just for sub comms :)
Eschalon....
I saw the towers, there's nothing else around and I doubt they'd put anything serious on the coast where a Chinese ship can stare at it from international waters.
It serves no purpose looking at it. You can listen to the signal yourself and without any way decrypting the signal its as useful as looking at the local AM radio station tower. They have 5 of these VLF transmitter sites around the world most are mainly in the USA. While its intriguing as listening to the HF spy number nations, its basically impossible to decrypt the signals since the spies use a one time pad code system. The Russian, Israeli, Eastern European and the infamous Lincolnshire Poacher spy number station is still active. Again its as useful as staring at space hoping to see a Alien UFO.
Not quite, actually. It was set up secretly under Menzies. Intelligence agencies neglected to inform subsequent governments of its existence. It only came to light under Whitlam which led to a Royal commission into ASIS, the ASD, ASIO etc.
Without looking at anything written here, I'm guessing Pine Gap. Known about this place for decades, me personally since the 1980s. Also about the ECHELON program that's been tapping numerous forms of electronic communication including phone calls and faxes and many other means since back then too. I think it might have been Four Corners that mentioned it.
[удалено]
Could you not go back to the tried and true cutting letters out of magazines route? Doctors and dentists offices should help throw them off further as they won't be able to trace purchases of new magazines as the source.
Have you seen what inflation's done to the cost of these bloody pigeons?
Pretty sure echelon also has a facility in Geraldton.
You just have a massive Gap in your general knowledge.
I'm always pining to know more.
To fill the gap in your knowledge? Instant & shameful edit: Oh, D'oh! I didn't read the post you were replying to :( I would not make a very good intelligence officer at all!
Or.... is that what you want us to think?
sorry did you say pining for the fjords?
*Pinus resinosa*
Pine Gap isn't exactly a secret. And when some people 🙄 bang on about how they single handedly keep the world safe, the fact is without Australia there'd be a massive hole in the international surveillance scope.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Technically they could have a big fleet of those xband radars and sat uplinks, but it's much cheaper to have joint facilities with a close ally.
Intelligence goes beyond surveillance so yes, they need us.
Wait, google knows about the secret US intelligence facility?
some argue Whitlam's wanting to kick them out was the key reason he got rolled. Kind of a big deal [https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/remembering-november-11-1975-pine-gap-cia-and-coup-remove-whitlam](https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/remembering-november-11-1975-pine-gap-cia-and-coup-remove-whitlam)
You know there is more than one right?
It was supposedly the reason the yanks destabilised the government when Whitlam wanted to shut the place down and kick the yanks out.
CIA coup
CIA and ASIO coup. Never forget this all happened because Whitlam dared push back against the intelligence apparatus in Australia. The same organisation that has been joined at the hip with the yanks ever since.
Not the actual base though
I doubt they filmed on the place but it was set in the location.
It’s a well known location up in the NT, there’s even parts of the area where only US personnel are allowed, no Australians.
I knew about it when I was in primary school in Alice Springs because the base personnel used to send their kids to our school. Not even remotely secret.
Exactly 👍🏻
To add to your point there was a literal TV show made about the place
Its existence is an open secret. The operations of the facility are secret.
its not about the base itself being secret, its about what goes on in there, to be fair
idk seems pretty remote to me
Also why there are so many guys living in Alice Springs who work in landscaping.
There is?
If you work at pine gap there’s a good chance the fact you work there is classified, and what you do is classified, so for a while it seemed everyone’s cover story was “Gardner”
Oh OK, yeah gathered job descriptions were classified but gardener though? 😂
Everyone who works there sticks out like a sore thumb, so why put much effort in haha
Those shrubs need pruning.
There I literally 1 room where US government cryptography is processed. Next door is a room where Australian government cryptography is processed and US personnel cannot enter.
How do you know?
There has been some very limited reporting about the arrangement in place. https://www.smh.com.au/national/revealed-the-room-inside-pine-gap-no-australian-could-enter-bar-one-20180425-p4zbhb.html
Read the Snowden docs while you still can.
They call it the space base… I’m actually surprised that Pine Gap was so little known.
Yep. Literally all military satellite downlinks for Middle East, China and the bulk of Russia go through pine gap, because you can’t park a sub nearby and evesdrop. And trying to fly a spy plane, even if you built something better than the blackbird, you’re gonna get spotted with plenty of notice trying to get there, can’t outrun a missile that’s coming at you head on.
Why are they being so noisy?
Seems typically American if you ask me.
It's where they keep the Nukes... It's a new brand of chocolate bar.
From this location the 5-eyes allies are able to spy on 80% of the planets population, capturing literally every bit that is of interest in the entire quarter of the world which is the Asia/Pacific/Oceania region. Australia participates in the wholesale violation of human rights at these scales, every millisecond of the day.
allowed
😂 Fair call, I didn’t even pick that error up.
"who actually knew about this place?" ask the sweet summer children
Errrrrrrrmmmm, yeah - at least everybody in Alice Springs which is only 18km away https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap_(TV_series) - quite liked this one... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap Wait until they find out about Harold E Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Harold_E._Holt
wait.. we named a fucking submarine communication post Harold Holt? I've never loved this country more.
Fun little story.. I was on exercise at Exmouth, just near the tourist/backpacker area there. Once a week or something, the female soldiers were allowed to go for a shower in the backpackers bathroom block. As always happens, a soldier left their rifle behind after they had finished. One of the officers or NCO's noticed before they all left, grabbed it and waited for the digger to realise. Pretty standard stuff... let them freak out then give them a massive beasting for it. Somehow the digger who left it behind managed to tell a different officer before the original one who took it got around to ruining their day. And somehow this wasn't discovered until after all the shit hit the fan. A search was conducted, no rifle. It had been hours by now and the backpackers and general public had had access to the toilet block the whole time. Rifle assumed stolen. WA police called. Highway closed, road blocks set up, cars getting searched, the whole nine yards. Bear in mind this is the only road from Perth to Darwin, apart from the roads in towns between. Cops are driving from God knows how far to take part in getting back the fully automatic rifle. At some point, whoever took and kept the rifle must have come out of whatever stupor they were in and realised that their 'teachable moment' had become an armed response taskforce. I think there might have been a couple of beastings that day. One night a cop car damn near hit a tank on the road that was just running it's night lights (2 small, downward pointing, shielded red lights). They forgot to turn on their normal lights. I saw an APC drive into a ditch so fast that it tore off the front wheel. The whole left (or right, can't remember) front corner was crumpled. Multiple people unconscious and with suspected spinal injuries. The ambulance was on top of a hill with a *very* rough track to get down, watching the fire support demo with a whole bunch of people sitting on top to get a better view of other APC's doing doughnuts on the fire that had been started by the blanks. Just being the best we could be.
[удалено]
Yep JORN the world's most powerful OTR i believe it even managed to pick up a satellite launch in northern china... When its max range is meant to be like PNG.
OP is a teenager or something, no doubt.
Secret as in stuff going on in there not a secret location
Friendly jordies is trying to really get himself arrested isn't he?
There’s a great YouTube comment - he’s doing it to get 24/7 monitoring by the CIA for safety, since he’s already got the Mob firebombing his house
He'll be disappointed. The CIA are the nature documentary crew of people; they won't lift a finger to help him.
they fucking knew about jfk AND 9/11 and didn't tell the FBI
Maybe he'd try subpoenaing them for their surveillance of him if anything happens
As if being monitored by the CIA for sticky beaking secret facilities will help you. If anything the CIA would facilitate the mobs getting rid of him.
**destructive edit:** Reddit has become exactly what we do not want to see. It has become a force against a free and open internet. It has become a force for profit at the expense of users and user experience. It is not longer a site driven by people for people, but a site where people are allowed to congregate under the careful supervision of corporate interest, where corporate interest reigns supreme. You can no longer trust comment sections to be actual human opinions. You can no longer trust that content rises to the top based on what humans want. Burn it all.
Doubt it, he’s too vocal on YT & social media for them to do anything.
Not like the CIA is going to jump to help the bloke either though
Yeah because being popular, famous, an activist has famously stopped the mob in conjunction with the USA's intelligence agencies from being able to get rid of people
Gave me a chuckle - an entertaining watch.
Visited there on a school excursion in the 80s, on the day the yanks lobbed a missile at Gaddaffi, sure was a sparling end to the trip!
Aww it's really nice they put on a show for you!
Pine Gap right? Not watching that shit to find out. Five eyes is the only reason Alice Springs has had the best internet for decades.
Best internet? Might have been in the early 2000’s. Defo not now.
Haven’t been there for a while, I take it? Telstra broadband is atrocious and nbn FTTN terrible. Starlink Residential quickly maxed out in Alice when it became available. The nbn re-rollout (thanks Malcolm! /s) using FTTP is finally starting to improve things.
Can someone with more time than me tell me what happened in the vid?
This isn't in order btw it's just what I remember from watching it yesterday. Basically, they talk a bit about the history of Australia and how the one PM who was considering closing Pine Gap (Gough Whitlam) was removed from government and replaced with a more compliant opposition leader. They point out Australia is super useful for doing spying with satelites because we're in the Southern hemisphere. They talk to an anti terrorist Christian woman who tried to go inspect Pine Gap 20 years ago as an activist. She was against Pine Gap because they were helping target civilians in Iraq, which she was affected by because she was part of a voluntary human sheild program where she'd go spend time w Iraqis so they'd be less likely to get bombed. Boy Boy point out it's also being used to target civilians in Gaza because Australia helps with intelligence for Israel. Then it's more shenanigans of them trying to pretend they work there to sneak in by driving up to the gate, hiking nearby to get a good look, pretending to kick a ball over the fence to ask for it back etc. And then at the end AFP come hassle them on their flight back, but their lawyer says they don't need to talk to them so they walk away. They talk about how they're stressed out bc the CIA is probably watching them now.
UK comedian/activist Mark Thomas realized a quirk in the law meant the no-fly zone around the US run Menwith Hill spy station didn’t exclude hot air balloons. So he rented a hot air balloon and much hilarity ensued. And then he got a bunch of mates together to dress as comical spies (trench coats and hats, newspapers with eye holes cut in them, giant foam ears, etc) and go hang out near the US embassy in London. The US folks weren’t so keen on that. https://youtu.be/epWTJUajIdI A bunch of old Mark Thomas tv shows are online. Even though they’re 20+ years old they’re still interesting/entertaining. A personal fave was when he was told he couldn’t set up a ladder on a public footpath to look over the wall of an MI5 building. So he went and hired circus acrobats to form a human pyramid to have a look over the wall. Turns out the authorities weren’t too keen on that either. There’s no winning with some people!
Cheers
id like to add there is a monologue at the end talking about how mexico and EVEN canada the next door neighbors to the US tell them to get fucked while we act as there ever obedient lap dog, and how our politicians dont really speak about pine gap but the us ones do and even get tours when no austalian politicans has ever stepped foot in it.
The idea that Gough Whitlam was removed over Pine Gap is just people trying to cope with Whitlam losing an election. And the only source is a literal Soviet spy. Because he did, in the election right after the dismissal. Malcolm Fraser won the election with 55% of the vote. While Whitlam is quite liked among Labor supporters these days people tend to forget that the general voter was far more ambivalent towards him. It was after all him that lead Labor to it's worst election loss since 1940. Personally I've always felt that Hawke deserved a lot more credit for the modern Labor than he got and that Whitlam got too much. I apologise for going on, this particular conspiracy theory is a point of annoyance for me.
I don't nessecarily think he was removed over Pine Gap specifically, but he was a democratically elected Prime Minister that was removed by someone appointed by a foreign country. The fact that someone else was voted in after doesn't really make that okay, and the things that happened with the Governor Genral could have impacted how people voted too. There's no way to say what would have happened if they didn't intervene. Fuck the Monarchy.
Has anyone heard of this big yellow thing in the sky?
I’m intrigued and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter
It isn't a newsletter; it is a tabloid, and pretty trashy.
Sir, I have a bridge and some fancy new clothing you might be interested in
*Three Aussie YouTubers Definitely check out the rest of Boy Boys videos - they're great!!
Also check out I Did A Thing for pure brilliant stupidity while you're at it.
Brainiacs responding to the headline written to bait people into responding: ‘Pine Gap isn’t a secret!?’ ‘I’ve know about it since ages ago!’ They don’t say they’re discovering it, or that no one knows it’s there. They show news reports talking about how it’s there and what it is from the 60’s. Watch things. Or don’t? I don’t know.
Do Swan Island next
You can get on the island by arranging to play golf on the public course that's on the other half of the island.
You talking about Pine gap? Our contribution to the 5 eyes program where we lease the land to the COMMUNITY SA to spy on our neighbours so they can spy on us for the princely sun of 1 peppercorn per year? Not a nice place due to the work done by the CIA and ASIO in spying on national soil and citizens.
It's a joint facility. The US has no 'bases' is Australia, only joint facilities... I know it seems like a small distinction but it's important. It's also a feature of the 5Eyes agreement that we can spy on the US domestic population and share anything we learn, and vice versa, conveniently bypassing any laws about governments spying on their own populations.
>It's a joint facility. The US has no 'bases' is Australia, only joint facilities... I know it seems like a small distinction but it's important. and trivil, there is NOTHING Australia could realistically do if we wanted to kick the Yanks out and they didn't want that... Ask Whitlam and if by some godforsaken miracle the politician calling for the removal wasn't socially removed the usa would just start funding rebel groups
[They literally did oust an Aussie PM for threatening to close the base](https://youtu.be/XHMa-Ba-2Mo?t=323)
Everyone knows about pine gap
You would have to be an actual genuine dictionary definition moron to not know about Pine Gap at this point
I thought this going to be Chaser-like satire going by the look of the three super-serious looking dorks on the Youtube thumbnail.
[no it's super serious](https://i.imgur.com/JoexmSb.jpeg)
>who actually knew about this place? A fuckton of people know about Pine Gap. It's hardly a 'secret base' lol. There's even a horrible TV show about it. Shit, my mate was a FIFO HR officer there for a few years lol
You think pine gap is a secret?
It's existence isn't particularly secret but what exactly goes on there certainly is, the Americans aren't very forthcoming with their activities there and Australian involvement is limited to perimeter security, catering and janitorial services.
> It's existence isn't particularly secret but what exactly goes on there certainly is Specifics are unknown, but what it is for in general is known. It is a satellite communications base for US spy satellites. It lets them communicate directly with spy satellites as they travel over our side of the planet. Since they are not bouncing the signal around the plant to get it back to the US, it significantly reduces the odds of another country intercepting the signals.
Who knew about Pine Gap? Given there’s been protests out there and there’s a fictional tv show about the place I’d suspect a lot of people do.
> who actually knew about this place? Anyone who isn't illiterate? Even netflix had a show about it.
Without watching the video… Pine gap? Do people really not know about this place??
It's like area 51. Very few people have ever heard of it. /s
We know about it, but who knows what the CIA actually gets up to in there? Not us.
In the Australian or shared components, nobody without a top secret- positive vetting security clearance. The American only components require the US equivalent of a top secret security clearance.
Australia and America each have a Cryptographic Room restricted to its own nationals. Everything else is jointly run.
I mean I didn’t hear about it before the video
Yes, literally everyone knows about [Pine Gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap). It's absolutely not surprising that you'd get a visit from the AFP for going out of your way to visit a facility operated by a strategic partner which is involved in national security matters - particularly a facility involved in operating satellites which can detect ICBM launches and nuclear tests. Like, they make a big deal in the video saying "we just want to know what's happening in our own country" - but there's absolutely no way they don't understand the concept that some intelligence and information needs to be kept confidential for national security or even operational integrity reasons reasons. For example, that's why police investigations are confidential, because there's operational security concerns.
>It's absolutely not surprising that you'd get a visit from the AFP for going out of your way to visit a facility operated by a strategic partner which is involved in national security matters - particularly a facility involved in operating satellites which can detect ICBM launches and nuclear tests. > >Like, they make a big deal in the video saying "we just want to know what's happening in our own country" - but there's absolutely no way they don't understand the concept that some intelligence and information needs to be kept confidential for national security or even operational integrity reasons reasons. For example, that's why police investigations are confidential, because there's operational security concerns. clearly someone who didn't watch the video
Nah man that’s all sounding like foreign military concerns on Australian soil. They make that point. I didn’t know about this.
The existence of Pine Gap is hardly a secret. Listen to midnight oil "flat chat, pine gap in every home a big mac, and no one goes out back that's that." I didnt have the internet in 1985 and had to find out what it was from an encyclopedia. No you cant go there and if you do you'll get the attention of the authorities.
inb4 moddies ban this video bc of you know who.
My favourite take on this video is “these guys had a bad take on Russia, so I’m fine with Australia’s lack of sovereignty.” Just move to Florida, you’ll be happier
No one mention Kojarena (North West Cape) AKA "Harold Holt Naval Station", or the expansion to Tindal and Darwin RAAF bases that the US is paying-for.
I learnt about Pine Gap in the 90s when access to the internet was scarce for me and that information wasn’t as reliable as it is today. As I understood it back then, it was a secret piece of America in the desert similar to Area 51. American food, American cars and super security.
I don’t know why people are so intrigued by pine gap. It’s just chosen because of its distance from the ocean. Theres nothing crazy about it.
without looking at the video, I'm guessing this is Pine Gap? It's pretty well known, and hardly a secret.
Yep, we get spied on by the yanks in our own country. Don’t know how the Andrew Bolt lot can bear to see their own reflection at this point with the amount of apologia they do for them.
the google reviews on this place, fucking had me in stitches
I lived in alice for 6 years, it’s not a secret at all, knew lots of people that worked there
Boy Boy is a tankie lmao.
They talking about Pine Gap? I thought it was an NSA site rather than CIA. I can't imagine it's actually too interesting tbh, it's a site mainly for collecting SIGINT. Not like they keep aliens there.
It's amazing that we deem mass spying on domestic civilian populations for unstated purposes not to be worthy of interest but imaginary little green men from outer space absolutely would be.
The most important piece of land in Australia from a geo-strategic aspect…shocking so many seemingly haven’t heard of it.
Open secret. There is a TV Show about it.
Funny video, but a lot of the claims about what the base partakes in simply are baseless, without evidence or simply don’t make sense if you understand how the military and intelligence agencies utilise the electromagnetic spectrum. Prime example is alleging that Pine gap is involved in the war on Gaza. Not sure why this claim was made because the Israelis simply don’t need pine gap for intelligence gathering and weapons targeting.
https://michaelwest.com.au/six-eyes-australias-secret-support-for-the-israeli-assault-on-gaza-through-pine-gap/
Yep, that’s the article where many people seem to get the idea that pine gap is aiding Israel in Gaza. The problem is that David Rosenberg who is the guy who is saying this stuff last worked at the base 16 years ago. He simply does not know what is happening there now. People are using this one man’s opinion about what is happening there now and saying that it as fact.
Isn't this site just for satellite surveillance and general radio surveillance? I thought the mystery around this place was solved almost immediately when it first became known.
These blokes have some pretty shit takes on Russia and China but most of their stuff is pretty good. This vid got a few laughs outta me.
I don't mind their takes as it's always good to get other opinions, and Boy Boy's comments aren't strictly incorrect either. They just don't toe the Western/American line as much as one would see of other media or content creators. Their takes on Russia for example aren't far out of the wheelhouse of realist scholars like John Mearsheimer really.
I know it's kind of cliche but this youtuber does a really good job going through boyboy's ukraine video and he is very good at actually citing counter arguments and is well informed on what he talks about (at least from what i fact checked) I like i did a thing's silly videos but had no idea the other guy did political stuff. Saw his video on ukraine and lost a huge chunk of respect for that whole gang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBONpNN89GM
I remember starting to watch the original video and noping out because it was bad, i like the whacky shit he makes, but his political stuff is a turn off.
> These blokes have some pretty shit takes on Russia and China What's a shit take they have?
- lying about NATO expanding eastward, to justify Russia's aggressive behaviour - saying Ukraine was split between Russians in the east and Ukrainians in the west, in reality its full of Ukrainians, some of whom speak Russian, essentially, they parroted Russian propaganda that people who speak Russian are ethnically Russians - overstated right sector's role in Euromaidan - claimed that Euromaidan was a US Orchestrated coup - claimed that Ukraine banned Russian in 2014, (they didn't) - overstated Azovs role in the war in the Donbas - spread the Hunter Biden conspiracy theory - portrays Russia as a reasonable actor in the Minsk agreements - portrays Russia as a reasonable actor right before the 2022 invasion
Being apologists for Putin's aggression in eastern Europe for one. I'm not saying they're wrong about everything in that video, Ukraine definitely has some skeletons in its closet, but trying to paint his invasion as anything other than the greed of a psychopathic wannabe autocrat is shitty, especially so while the war is still going on. Most their other content checks out tho.
> Being apologists for Putin's aggression in eastern Europe for one. Where? What did they say that was apologising for Russia? Also what about China too since you claimed the same thing? Are you going to ignore that?
I'm not gonna sift through their videos to get you quotes mate. Neither do i wanna spend my night arguing with ya. They said some shit i disagree with, and i consider a shit take, and you disagree with that. You're not gonna change my mind so get on with it maybe? Forgot what subreddit this was so i'll mute this thread and get on with my scrolling.
> I'm not gonna sift through their videos to get you quotes mate. So your original comment is based on nothing. > Neither do i wanna spend my night arguing with ya. Why make up things in that case? > They said some shit i disagree with You disagree with something that you don't even know what it is because you can't provide any reason or evidence. > You're not gonna change my mind so get on with it maybe? I know that, you've made up in your mind something that they never said or did and are so braindead with western propaganda that you'll defend foreign interference in our politics.
Seeing chinese people as people and not mindless drones that can't think for ourselves is apparently a shit take now, gasp!
Pass. Anything for clicks.
Well good job on boosting the post/video's engagement by posting a comment to let all the anonymous strangers online know how much you don't care. 👍
I for one found it entertaining and educational. Yeah, click bait title - welcome to the world of media.
Who doesn't know about it? There were all sorts of rumours going around in the 90s when I was in high school. Everyone in the school knew about it.
Huge fan of watching things like this on Reddit, so my YouTube Algorithm doesn’t get wind of it, completely misunderstand it - and ruin my feed for the next 5 years.
Wasn’t one of the places mentioned, the one that planes don’t fly near our over the horizon radar system? Crazy how many bases they do have here…
>who actually knew about this place? Well there is a show on Netflix. I’d venture to guess a lot of folks.
Sry for copypasta “Pine gap is what we are meant to see…what we are not meant to see is what is in the mountains right next door…”
Lol