The Secret City Beneath Greenland’s Ice And Its Cold War Legacy

A Young Doctor’s Cold War Assignment

It’s 1962. Cold War tensions are at an all-time high between Washington and Moscow. Dr. Robert Weiss, a young physician in his medical residency at New York’s Bellevue Hospital, is abruptly drafted by the U.S. military. His orders? To serve as a camp doctor at a remote Arctic outpost buried 26 feet (8 meters) beneath Greenland's ice sheet.

“I was sent to sit under the ice cap 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) from the North Pole,” recalls Weiss, who was just 26 at the time. Today, he’s the Donald Guthrie Professor of Urology at Yale University.

But Camp Century, as the base was called, wasn’t just a research station — it was part of a top-secret U.S. military operation to hide missile launch sites under the Arctic ice, a strategic location closer to Russia. Weiss, like most of the crew, had no idea about this clandestine mission until the details were declassified in the 1990s.

Life in a Nuclear-Powered City Beneath the Ice

Weiss spent nearly a year at Camp Century across two tours in 1962 and 1963, living in a city literally carved into the ice. Unlike modern polar research stations built on the surface, Camp Century was an underground maze of over two dozen tunnels. Prefabricated buildings served as living quarters, laboratories, and even recreation spaces — all powered by a nuclear reactor transported across 138 miles (222 kilometers) of ice.

Despite his initial reservations, Weiss found life at Camp Century surprisingly comfortable. “Inside the huts, it was warm and dry,” he said. The food was “outstanding,” martinis were 10 cents, and there were nightly movie screenings — which Weiss vetted as the camp’s designated film censor.

Medical emergencies were rare among the 200 men stationed there, most aged 20 to 45. Weiss spent his downtime studying medical texts, playing chess, and occasionally venturing to the surface with his camera. “I could stay underground for weeks without coming out,” he recalled.

Water was sourced from wells drilled into the ice using hot steam, while sewage was pumped back down into the ice sheet. After initial issues with radiation, lead was brought in to shield the reactor. Weiss wasn’t concerned. “We thought it was safe, and no one told us otherwise,” he said.

Project Iceworm: The Hidden Agenda

Camp Century wasn’t just a research station — it was a testing ground for Project Iceworm, a secret Pentagon plan to build a network of missile launch sites under the Arctic ice. The goal? To deploy 600 missiles capable of striking Russia with precision.

Weiss witnessed early — and ultimately failed — attempts to construct a subsurface railroad to transport the missiles beneath the ice. But the ambitious plan was abandoned when engineers realized the shifting ice sheet would crush the tunnels over time. Project Iceworm remained classified until 1997 when Danish researchers uncovered declassified U.S. documents.

No missiles were ever installed at Camp Century, though nuclear weapons were secretly stored at Thule Air Base (now Pituffik Space Base) — sparking outrage in Greenland and Denmark when the truth emerged.

A Scientific Legacy That Still Resonates

Though Camp Century’s military ambitions were short-lived (it was abandoned in 1967), its scientific contributions were groundbreaking. In 1966, scientists drilled the first complete ice core from the Greenland ice sheet — 4,560 feet (1,390 meters) deep — capturing over 100,000 years of climate history.

“We didn’t know much about past climate,” said William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. “That ice core started us on the path to understanding Earth’s paleoclimate.”

In 2017, remnants of the original ice core — including sediment from the base of the ice sheet — were rediscovered in a Copenhagen freezer. Paul Bierman, a geomorphologist at the University of Vermont, analyzed the sample and discovered fossilized plant remains — the first direct evidence that Greenland was ice-free around 400,000 years ago. This revelation has raised alarming questions about future sea level rise as global temperatures climb.

The Hidden Danger Beneath the Ice

Camp Century may be long buried under the ice, but it’s not forgotten — and it may yet pose an environmental threat. The nuclear reactor was removed, but radioactive wastewater, sewage, and other debris remain entombed in the ice.

A 2016 study suggested that as Arctic warming accelerates, melting ice could expose these hazardous remnants, creating an environmental crisis. Projections indicate Camp Century will remain frozen until at least 2100 — but beyond that, the fate of the site remains uncertain.

The Forgotten City That Changed the World

For Weiss, Camp Century was a pivotal chapter. The time he spent studying under the ice laid the foundation for his successful career in urology. But the legacy of Camp Century extends far beyond his personal story.

“What we learned from that ice core — and what we continue to learn — could reshape our understanding of Earth’s climate future,” Bierman said. “Camp Century lives on, not in the ice, but in the science it left behind.”