Certain events were not suppose [sic] to take place, it sent Q Anon followers into overdrive with theories and clues. The U.S. Navy employed the use of the deep-diving research submarine DSVAlvin to aid in the recovery efforts. There is dispute over exactly where the incident took placethe U.S. Defense Department originally stated it took place 500 miles (800km) off the coast of Japan, but Navy documents later show it happened about 80 miles (130km) from the Ryukyu Islands and 200 miles (320km) from Okinawa. He also writes about politics, history, and breaking news. The U.S. nuclear target map is an interesting and unique program unlike other nuclear target maps because it lets you pick the target and what size nuclear device that the area you chose is hit with and then shows the likely effects and range of damage and death that would be caused by that nuclear device if it hit and detonated on your chosen The Electronic Attack Weapons School (EAWS) provides comprehensive, formal training to EA-18G Growler aircrew and extensive weapons . This largely depends on who you ask. The plane landed at Paya Lebar Airbase in Singapore at 8:20pm local time on the 10th, which was 8:20am in Seattlefour hours after the missile launch.. The weapon's high explosives detonated upon impact with a bright flash visible. Several anti-aircraft missiles have been tested in submarines, and none have entered wide use. [70], During the final testing of a new saltless uranium processing method, there was a small explosion followed by a fire. The fireball would shoot miles into the atmosphere - pulling dirt and debris with it. But for French Polynesia and many of its people, the fallout from decades of nuclear weapons testing is still being dealt with 50 years after the first test. Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, home of Air Force Global Strike Command which is essentially the command and control of air and land leg of our nuclear forces. BWXT Y-12 (now B&W Y-12), a partnership of Babcock & Wilcox and Bechtel, was fined $82,500 for the accident.[77]. And where? The biggest targets by far are Malmstrom, Minot, and Warren Air Force Bases which are home to our land-based nuclear deterrant - the Minuteman ICBM's. This incident was kept under wraps by the government for a long time since it showed that the U.S. had nuclear weapons in Vietnam and also that they had defied a treaty with Japan to not bring such weapons into Japanese territory. Criterion (vi): The ideas and beliefs . The reactor that burned was one of two air-cooled, graphite-moderated natural uranium reactors at the site used for production of plutonium. About 150 burning fuel cells could not be removed from the core, but operators succeeded in creating a firebreak by removing nearby fuel cells. . These details are important because they help establish what the image actually is. Slotin died on May 30 from massive radiation poisoning, with an estimated dose of 1,000 rads (rad), or 10 grays (Gy). "Thank you for the outstanding technical assistance,. It is also one of the four naval installations forming the Navy Region Northwest. Atoms are tiny units that make up all matter in the universe, and energy is what holds the nucleus together. And there are no reports of any missile or missile debris coming down anywhere in the Puget Sound area. On September 21, 1942, Captain Cyril Thomas Simard stood on the steps of the brand-new Building 12 and read orders officially commissioning Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and, in Navy parlance, 'the watch was set'. A 3-square-mile (7.8km2) area near Wassaw Sound was searched for nine weeks before the search was called off. On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Fallout and Nuclear Bomb Shelters Near Me (Locations and Options) Author: Diane Vukovi Last Updated: October 13, 2022 If a nuclear bomb were to hit, the blast would create a massive fireball which would vaporize everything nearby. Even amid all of this confusion and mayhem, one might be inclined to think that there would be no possibility that someone could just lose a nuke, or that one could simply go missing, but they would be wrong. A B-47 Stratojet bomber piloted by Howard Richardson, Bob Lagerstrom and Leland Woolard, had been engaged in a night training flight over Sylvania, Georgia at an altitude of 36,000 feet when it accidentally collided with an F-86 Saberjet fighter, destroying the fighter and badly damaging one of the bombers wings. The two nuclear weapons were released during the breakup from an altitude of 2,000-10,000 feet. However, excavation was abandoned due to uncontrollable ground water flooding. The memo states: The search for this weapon was discontinued on 4-16-58 and the weapon is considered irretrievably lost. Listed below are the primary nuclear targets for every state, these are places you want to avoid living or working in or near. Perhaps the most notorious and indeed scariest incident on U.S. soil happened on Feb. 5, 1958, when a powerful, 7,000 pound Mark 15 hydrogen bomb, with over 100 times the destructive force of the Hiroshima bomb, disappeared over Wassaw Sound only 12 miles from Savannah, Ga., a city with a population of over 100,000 people. It is as if the bomber just flew off the face of the earth. I'm not talking about car keys here, but of the rather unsettling habit that human beings have developed of losing track of things that we really should make sure we never lose. seattletimes.com Whidbey naval station lockdown lifted after unconfirmed active shooter threat The large. I doubt either of them will retaliate against the US if the US bombs DPRK. A valve was mistakenly opened aboard the submarine, While on duty in the Barents Sea, there was a release of liquid metal coolant from the reactor of the Soviet Project 705, About 35 miles (56km) from Vladivostok in Chazhma Bay, the, The U.S. government declassified 19,000 pages of documents indicating that between 1946 and 1986, the Hanford Site near. The reactor had released radioactive gases into the surrounding countryside, primarily in the form of iodine-131 (131I). [23], Technicians mistakenly overheated Windscale Pile No. Conspiracy theories like the Whidbey Island Missile work because the human brain is extremely susceptible to both confirmation bias and pareidolia, the phenomenon where we see patterns and shapes where none exist. October 15, 1959 Hardinsburg, Kentucky, US The United States blockades Cuba for 13 days. Additionally, uranium, tritium and plutonium were scattered over a 2,000-foot radius in the vicinity, leading to serious health problems in those who engaged in recovery efforts. When Government Agencies Secretly Work in the Field of the Supernatural and the Occult, About That Time Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Supposedly Saw Aliens on the Moon. Then, in 1962, the UK cooperated with the US on . The windstorm hit Whidbey late Friday and into Saturday morning. During the ensuing cleanup, 1,500 tonnes (1,700 short tons) of radioactive soil and tomato plants were shipped to a nuclear dump in Aiken, South Carolina. The nuclear weapon was completely destroyed in the detonation which occurred approximately 4.5 miles south of the Kirtland control tower and 0.3 miles west of the Sandia Base reservation, creating a blast crater approximately 25 feet in diameter and 12 feet deep. And submarines dont actually. An exothermic reaction in the vessel generated enough steam to burst the container. Bear in mind that there are 7 of these things missing somewhere on U.S. soil. Brent Swancer is an author and crypto expert living in Japan. The effects of corrosion on such lost nukes could mean that such dangerous materials could be released slowly into the environment over decades. Sleep tight. However, the second warheads parachute malfunctioned and the weapon plowed into some swampy farmland, smashing it to pieces and sending debris flying over a wide area. No. The bomb contains many dangerous elements, including the highly unstable lithium deuteride, as well as the over 400 pounds of TNT designed to act as a catalyst for the plutonium trigger to implode and thus create a nuclear explosion, and these have been slowly degenerating from being submerged for so many years. After three unsuccessful attempts to land with their payload aboard, the pilots were then instructed to jettison their nuclear weapon before trying to attempt another emergency landing, so pilot Maj. Howard Richardson dropped the bomb over the Wassaw Sound off of Tybee Island in a location near the mouth of the Savannah River before finally managing to land safely at nearby Hunter Army Airfield. At about 6:30p.m., an airman conducting maintenance on a USAF Titan-II missile at Little Rock Air Force Base's Launch Complex 374-7 in Southside (Van Buren County), just north of Damascus, Arkansas, dropped a nine-pound (4kg) socket from a socket wrench, which fell about 80 feet (24m) before hitting and piercing the skin on the rocket's first-stage fuel tank, causing it to leak. A simulated nuclear bomb containing TNT and uranium, but without the plutonium needed to create a nuclear explosion, was proactively dumped in the Pacific Ocean after a Convair B-36 bomber's engines caught fire during a test of its ability to carry nuclear payloads. Do your own research!! The fire raged inside the building for 13 hours over the night of the 11th & 12th before firefighters could finally extinguish it. For Savannah Morning News. The U.S. Navy conducted a three-month search involving 12,000 men and successfully recovered the fourth bomb. A USAF B-47 bomber jettisoned a Mark 15 Mod 0 nuclear bomb over the Atlantic Ocean after a midair collision with a USAF F-86 Sabre during a simulated combat mission from Homestead Air Force Base, Florida. In some cases, the planes with their nuclear cargo never even made it into the air. The problem is only exacerbated by the Pentagons determination on putting a lid on the extent of the problem and its insistence on secrecy. Nuclear materials were processed in reactors located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Hanford, Washington. The plane would go on to sink five kilometers (16,400 feet) into the ocean depths and would resist all efforts to locate it. The Department of Defense has been requested to monitor all dredging and construction activities. More Controversy on the Roswell Affair: An Alien Accident? The Navy also reaffirmed plans to complete the retirement of its first four littoral combat ships, which began last year. It is estimated to lie around 55 feet (17m) below ground. The U.S. was at first convinced that the Russians were involved in its disappearance, but the wreckage of the sub was later found strewn about the bottom at a depth of 3,300 meters (10,800 feet) by the research ship Mizar. Howard, who stated that the Tybee Island bomb was a complete weapon, a bomb with a nuclear capsule, and that it had represented one of only two weapons lost up to that time that was complete with a plutonium trigger. Gusts of 68 mph were reported on the Smith Island weather station just off Whidbey Island. All personnel residing in government quarters are required to register weapons with NAS Whidbey Island. The lighthouse itself is lovingly restored and quite interesting. "Two-Sixty Press. 47.97611 -122.35611. Map of Whidbey Island. ICBM's are for indiscriminate damage, that's why you launch a lot of them. The W76, the mainstay of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, has a yield, or explosive force, of about 100 kilotons. -ARS - Alaska Radar System **MAJOR TARGET** (all radar sites below shaded in red), -Lawrence/Livermore National Lab **MAJOR TARGET**, -Peterson AFB/NORAD/Cheyenne Mountain Complex **MAJOR TARGET**, -New london Naval Submarine base **MAJOR TARGET**, -Kings Bay - SLBM base - **MAJOR TARGET**, -Laulaulei Naval Weapons magazine/radio station, -U.S. A momentary slip of a screwdriver caused a prompt critical reaction. Their hypothesis: not only was this a missile, but it was fired by anti-Trump forces in an effort to shoot down Air Force One, then on its way to Singapore for the summit with Kim Jong Un. But virtually nothing is known about whether such bombs can explode spontaneously. It was thought at the time that the recovery of the nuclear weapon would be swift, as it had been ditched in an area of shallow water which wasn't particularly secluded, yet this would not prove to be the case. Unloaded weapons must be brought to the gate with a valid driver's license and military identification card. Major Nuclear War Targets in America - Do You Live Near One. The plane later landed safely at a U.S. Air Force base in Maine. U.S. Mike Rothschild is a writer who specializes in researching and debunking conspiracy theories and fringe beliefs. Poorly placed temperature sensors indicated the reactor was cooling rather than heating. View of the radioactive plume from the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, as seen from 9.6 . All of the sixteen crew members and one passenger were able to parachute from the plane and twelve were subsequently rescued from Princess Royal Island. The second bomb plunged into a muddy field at around 700mph (300m/s) and disintegrated. This astounding thermonuclear bomb was created by the USSR with the goal of creating the largest nuclear weapon in the world, and it still holds the record for the most powerful explosive ever detonated. Greenbank had gusts of 65 mph, Polnell Point had winds reaching 47 mph, while Whidbey Island Naval Air Station reported gusts up to 53 mph. The motion picture Men of Honor (2000), starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., as USN Diver, Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Brashear, and Robert De Niro as USN Diver, Chief Petty Officer Billy Sunday, contained an account of the fourth bomb's recovery.[52]. For the missile to get anywhere near the plane would mean it would have to fly thousands of miles west, through the airspace of multiple countriesand hit an airplane flying west to east. At its peak, the Manhattan Project employed 130,000 Americans at thirty-seven facilities across the country. The AsapSCIENCE video considers a 1 megaton bomb, which is 80 times larger than the bomb detonated over Hiroshima, but much smaller than many modern nuclear weapons. On January 24, 1961, a nuclear catastrophe nearly occurred when a B-52 bomber carrying two fully operational nuclear warheads and flying on alert over Goldsboro, North Carolina, experienced a defective fuel line and sudden structural failure in one of its wings. There could be a major inferno if the high explosives went off and the lithium deuteride reacted as expected. There have been extensive efforts by several salvage companies to try and locate the missing bomb since its existence became public, but there are also those who think that it should be left alone. The Navy also wants to retire four Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships early, as the Navy has also struggled to get these vessels through a modernization program and keep them seaworthy.. The Navy and the Whidbey Island base bothconfirmed to local news that there were no submarines or Navy planes in the area, and that the base has no ability to fire a large missile. USAF B-52 bomber departed Mather Air Force Base, California and experienced a decompression event that required it to fly below 10,000 feet. Its a technique. [9], Returning one of several U.S. Mark 4 nuclear bombs secretly deployed in Canada, a USAF B-50 had engine trouble and jettisoned the weapon at 10,500 feet (3,200m). Old Grain Wharf, in the harbour of Coupeville, in the Central Whidbey Island Historic District, part of the Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve. If you do happen to live near one of these places or downwind of them you need to take appropriate measures to protect your family. Other major targets are Whiteman AFB in Missouri, home of the B-2 Stealth Bombers which are the air-based nuclear detterant. The area was evacuated. The Pentagon has notoriously been secretive about the whole affair and has seemingly failed to engage in any in-depth analysis of the situation. Or there could just be an explosion that scattered uranium and plutonium all over hell. A year later, on 25 Sep 1943, the land plane field was named Ault Field, in memory of CDR William B. Ault, missing in action in the Battle of the Coral Sea. As its existence has become known to the general populace, there has been a great deal of outrage directed towards the military for losing the bomb in the first place, as well as its sudden decision to call off its search for it despite the potentially devastating consequences it could pose to the populace. Fearing that severe weather and icing would jeopardize a safe emergency landing, the weapon was jettisoned over the Pacific Ocean from a height of 8,000ft (2,400m). The Castle Bravo test conducted there on March 1, 1954 was the largest nuclear bomb the US ever set off. The virtue of a picture snapped at 4:00am is that theres not much in the air at the time. Emergency parachutes had been installed in the warheads, and for one of the nukes the parachute deployed as planned and the weapon would later be safely recovered. Nov 2013 - Apr 20162 years 6 months. Then, other people see the same image and confirm that they think it looks like what we think it looks like. Understandably, local residents want an investigation relaunched, and want the bomb found and removed. 1 during an annealing process to release Wigner energy from graphite portions of the reactor. The first refueling went off without a hitch, yet the plane failed to show for its second refueling over the Mediterranean Sea. The B-47 pilot successfully landed in one attempt only after he first jettisoned the bomb. "Estimated Exposures and Thyroid Doses Received by the American People from Iodine-131 in Fallout Following Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Tests: History of the Nevada Test Site and Nuclear Testing Background". An A-4E Skyhawk carrying an extremely powerful B-43 hydrogen bomb was carried up one of the carriers huge aircraft elevators to be loaded onto the deck and prepared for takeoff. The warhead contained conventional explosives and natural uranium but lacked the plutonium core of an actual weapon. To qualify as "accident", the damage should not be intentional, unlike in. Join MU Plus+ and get exclusive shows and extensions & much more! Considering the enormous distance involved, two in-flight refuelings were scheduled. To make matters scarier, experts at the time were concerned that the extreme depths involved might actually set off the bomb. Base security has responded to the location situated north of Oak Harbor, and all base personnel have been instructed to enter lock down status. Naval Radio Station Cutler **MAJOR TARGET**, -Los Alamos National Lab **MAJOR TARGET**, -Brookhaven National Lab **MAJOR TARGET**, -Piketon Uranium Enrichment Facility or Portsmouth Facility, -Over the horizon radar, Christmas valley, -Raven Rock Mountain Complex and Fort Ritchie **MAJOR TARGETS**, -No significant targets though Massachusets and nearby New London,CT have targets, -No major targets, though nearby New Hampshire has one, -Bangor Submarine Base and Brementon Naval Base **MAJOR TARGET**, -Jim creek Naval Station **MAJOR TARGET**. Although many of the bombs components were eventually recovered, the highly enriched uranium core was never found even after thorough desperate searches of the area by the military. Riiiiiight. A major fire and two explosions contaminated the plant and grounds of a plutonium fabrication facility resulting in a permanent shutdown. Knowledge of the extent of the damage and contamination was kept from the public for years. The incident caused outrage and protests in Denmark, as Greenland is a Danish possession, and Denmark forbade nuclear weapons on its territory. The fire quickly spread to the plutonium as various safety features failed. In April of 1989, the Russian submarine Komsomolez experienced a catastrophic fire on board during a mission off the coast of Greenland. It was later melted down and combined with existing weapons-grade material. The flight crew could not keep the aircraft on a level flight and so this necessitated the jettisoning of its two nuclear weapons off the East coast of the United States, which promptly sank into the ocean to never be seen again. Or was our submarine hacked, used to launch a missile?Note:"Launch" from Whidbey Island was Sunday 6/10 3:56am#Qanon pic.twitter.com/W80fz4HztP. The recovery and decontamination effort was complicated by Greenland's harsh weather. This page was last edited on 1 February 2023, at 00:28. Its conceivable that the object could be a plane taking off from Whidbey Island and immediately firing its afterburners, but such a maneuver would be extremely loud, and again, nobody reported hearing any kind of disturbing noise at the time. The NAS Whidbey Island consists of a Seaplane Base and Ault Field. Don Moniak, a nuclear weapons expert with the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League in Aiken, South Carolina said: There could be a fission or criticality event if the plutonium was somehow put in an incorrect configuration. Cloudstone Sculpture Park and Gallery will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 27 and 28. Lithium, beryllium and enriched uranium are all building blocks of nuclear weapons that can cause a whole laundry list of health problems in humans and wildlife, as well as irreversible environmental damage. And Qs post included the grammatically incorrect use of the word suppose, missing the letter d. Sure enough, Qs very next post drew attention to the missing d, inferring that the d stood for Donald., So was Air Force One near Whidbey Island at the time? It is assumed that the plane went down somewhere over the Mediterranean, possibly due to running out of fuel, but no one has any idea where, and the planes disappearance, as well as the location of the missing nuclear cores, remain a complete mystery to this day. Some researchers claim the object in sky is the cone of a missile, next to AF1?Attempted assassination? Saturday, December 10, 2022. My good night cam picked up what appears to be a large missile launch on Whidbey Island Sunday AM. The plutonium core was not in the bomb at the time. The plane, pilot and weapon were never recovered. September 25, 1959, Off Whidbey Island, Washington. The explosion occurred in an unvented vessel containing unreacted calcium, water and depleted uranium. The bottom line seems to be, we dont know. Certain events were not suppose [sic] to take place, it sent Q Anon followers into overdrive with theories and clues. If the missile went up, it must have come down, or at least parts of it must have come down. Most of the thermonuclear stage, containing uranium, was left on site. The lighthouse itself is lovingly restored and quite interesting. [33]:136137[35] A nuclear detonation was not possible because, while on board, the weapon's core was not in the weapon for safety reasons. Because of the incredible depths involved, the nuclear warheads were never recovered and remain lying upon the bottom of the sea. It is nice to be able to say that these two senior climbed the spiral staircase to the top and were rewarded with . 16 talking about this. While demonstrating his technique to visiting scientists at Los Alamos, Canadian physicist Louis Slotin manually assembled a critical mass of plutonium. #Qanon pic.twitter.com/6BY35qYutz. Considering the vast distances involved and the lack of fuel capacity to allow planes to cross oceans on one tank of fuel, these missions required midair refueling, a dangerous and hairy operation which, along with the threat of other possible midair problems and perils, such as storms, enemy fire, or simply running out of gas, lie at the heart of some of the most spectacular cases of mysteriously disappearing nukes. For a bomb that size, people up to 21 km (13 miles) away would experience flash blindness on a clear day, and people up to 85 km (52.8 miles) away would be temporarily blinded on a . [24][25][26] A 2007 study concluded that because the actual amount of radiation released in the fire could be double the previous estimates, and that the radioactive plume actually travelled further east, there were 100 to 240 cancer fatalities in the long term as a result of the fire.[27][28][29]. The Air Force has countered various accusations by stating repeatedly that the bomb poses no threat and even trying to downplay the threat by claiming the bomb was not fully functional. The high-explosive detonator went off after it hit the ground 6.5 miles east of Florence, South Carolina, in Mars Bluff, creating a 70 feet (21m) wide crater, 30 feet (9m) deep. The plane, about halfway into the 50-minute flight, went down in Mutiny Bay off Whidbey Island, about 30 miles northwest of downtown Seattle and about. The burning bomber and its fuel load melted through the ice, dropping wreckage to the seafloor underneath. Nilsen, Thomas, Igor Kudrik and Alexandr Nikitin. Three employees were contaminated. The big clue came from Trump himself, who followed his usual pattern of tweeting misspelled words as a code to announce in regards to North Korea that all missle launches have stoped, misspelling missile and stopped.. If the nuke was detonated in the air, 103,846 people would be killed, with another 328,597 injured. . So was Air Force One near Whidbey Island at the time? So sensitive was this incident that the military covered it up for decades. And how do they know this? Its a techniqueTrump supposedly uses often to convey information to Q Anon believers. 67 nuclear tests were conducted by the US in the Marshall Islands over a dozen years in the 1940s and 50s. A U.S. Navy A-4E Skyhawk aircraft with one B43 nuclear bomb on board fell off the aircraft carrier USSTiconderoga into 16,200 feet (4,900m) of water while the ship was underway from Vietnam to Yokosuka, Japan. They've got the training, the equipment, and the guts to do it all, a fact Explosive Ordnance Disposal Detachment Northwest personnel prove again and again. The flight navigator/bombardier was checking the locking harness on the massive (7,600 pounds (3,447kg)) Mark 6 nuclear bomb when he accidentally pushed the emergency release lever. The W53 warhead landed about 100 feet (30m) from the launch complex's entry gate; its safety features operated correctly and prevented any explosion, chemical or nuclear. that there were no submarines or Navy planes in the area, and that the base has no ability to fire a large missile. This article lists notable military accidents involving nuclear material. It wasnt even close. The explosion shook area residents and scattered nearly 100 pounds (45kg) of uranium (U-238) used in the weapon's tamper. While the extent of the damage will vary, the steps to protect yourself from . Its not a sexy or dramatic explanation, but its the one that squares the best with the available facts, and discards. I sat on it for a while. Although the C-124 landed safely near Atlantic City, New Jersey, neither the warheads nor their debris were never located. During the height of the Cold War it is estimated that 365 days a year there were airborne nuclear weapons aboard US bombers, typically following four main routes that passed over Greenland, the Mediterranean, Japan and Alaska. What must be one of the most ridiculous cases of a vanishing nuke happened on 10 Dec. 1965 on board the USS Ticonderoga, an aircraft carrier that was on its way to Yokosuka, Japan from Vietnam. It would be somewhat comforting for Americans to think that these are incidents which have only occurred in the middle of the ocean or in faraway lands, but the alarming fact is this is not the case, with 7 of the 11 missing nukes disappearing on U.S. soil. Slotin worked with the same bomb core as Daghlian which became known as the "demon core." The crash was reported at 3:11 p.m. A writer with thetech website The War Zone reached out to the webcams owner, who confirmed that its his, that the picture is real, and that the camera captures images every 40-45 seconds, with a 20 second exposure. The damage to Staten Island would be catastrophic. The biggest targets by far are Malmstrom, Minot, and Warren Air Force Bases which are home to our land-based nuclear deterrant - the Minuteman ICBM's. These three bases and the surrounding missile fields which are spread out up to 30 miles from the bases will sustain hundreds of ground burst nuclear blasts. How was it taken? Again, its possible, but the Navy doesnt test missiles in Puget Sound for a good reason, its a heavily populated area, and what goes up must come down. Where to even begin? It is requested that one [phrase redacted] weapon be made available for release to the DOD (Department of Defense) as a replacement. He's written articles for MU and Daily Grail and has been a guest on Coast to Coast AM and Binnal of America. Did You Know? The Atomic Energy Commission then conducted its own off-site study, and that study confirmed plutonium contamination as far as 30 miles (48km) from the plant. It was a pleasant hour or so stop along the way. After the fire, plutonium was detected near a school 12 miles (19km) away and around Denver 17 miles (27km) away.