If you spend much time on the backroads of the Great Plains, you probably have come across these unusual facilities scattered around. I suppose many folks that go by them don’t even give them a second thought but if they did, it might make them pause as the reality of them sets in.

These are Minuteman III missile silos in Logan County, Colorado, some of 450 scattered across the central United States. Each missile carries a warhead capable of creating up to a 350 kiloton blast. For comparison, the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima had a 15 kiloton yield and the one on Nagasaki a 20 kiloton yield.

As a someone that grew up at the height of the Cold War when the fear of their use was at its greatest (other than during the Cuban Missile Crisis), I well remember reading about and preparing for the potential aftermath if man should unleash them.

The threat may have diminished since then but they are still there, sleeping, but ready. Always ready. A sobering thought. I don’t share these images because they are particularly photographic – I just find what they show fascinating and perhaps a bit scary in a way.