Nothing to see here Humans. Believe what your leaders tell you and move along.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted on 02/25/2002 2:13:44 PM PST by aomagrat
MYRTLE BEACH S.C.(AP) — The mystery of the concrete chambers found beneath the old Myrtle Beach Air Force Base has been solved.
When the first enclosure was found by crews last fall, there was speculation it was used as a fallout shelter, a secret code chamber or, perhaps, even a place to stash unidentified flying objects.
In recent weeks, more chambers were found — and the real use was found to be more mundane: septic tanks.
"Sorry to disappoint, but that's the answer," said Buddy Styers, executive director of the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base Redevelopment Authority.
The first chamber found last October was almost empty when construction crews opened it. The 8-by-10-foot concrete chamber was buried under 4 feet of soil and only a ladder was found inside.
It didn't appear on the blue prints left behind when the Air Force closed the base nine years ago.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which built the base, didn't know what the chamber's purpose was. Air Force Force historians and engineers had no answer either.
Then, earlier this month, three more chambers were discovered.
Styers, Air Force officials and those who had once been stationed at the base poured over old blue prints again. They finally located an "old, old, very old" map of the base that showed the chambers and labeled them as septic tanks.
"There was still some water inside one of them," Styers said.
The Army Air Corps established the base at Myrtle Beach back in 1941.
Norm Barikmo, who was stationed at the base in the 1980s, had followed the story of the chambers in the media. He was hoping for a more intriguing explanation than septic tanks.
"That's not that exciting," he said.
Then about 2 years ago the depression started getting deeper. I assumed I had a broken sewer pipe and that it was leaching soil every time the water ran. When the depression had reach about 6 or so inches deep I poked at it with a shovel. The whole shovel head went through the lawn! After widening, I had a hole about 4 feet square and too deep to reach with the shovel handle. I couldn't believe I was standing on that with just the lawn supporting my weight.
Of course it turned out to be an old abandoned septic system. When the sewer system was installed on my street they just covered the septic tank with redwood boards (about 3 inches thick) and ran the pipe around the tank and out to the street. After 50 years or so the boards all rotted away.
The neighbors stopped by over the following week as I filled the hole with gravel. All of them noted that they too had curious depressions in their front yards.
It's so apropos for Jerry-boy.
randystone
This story doesn't pass the smell test.
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