9 Things Female NORAD Crews Do to Survive in a Mountain Built for Nuclear War

It's a little after 2 a.m. on a Tuesday in September. An Air Force captain is being sent home to sleep after a night of training inside a Colorado mountain. Above her: about 2,000 feet (610 m) of granite. Around her: 15 steel buildings on more than 1,300 springs. No windows. No sun. There is, however, a Subway. The easy picture is crews sealed inside for weeks, living on rations and waiting for the end of the world. That isn't what happened. Most days, the crews drove home to sleep. The rations and cots sat in storage for the one day the 25-ton blast doors would stay shut. And the mountain built for a Soviet missile strike was fooled twice by its own screens: once by a training tape, once by a computer chip worth 46 cents. In this video: what the crews actually ate behind doors built for nuclear war; where they slept, and why most nights it wasn't inside; how 130 people lived sealed off through the spring of 2020; what the night shift really looked like, UFO calls included; the two false alarms that nearly launched a response; the morning the doors closed for a real attack; and the women who went from the operations floor to command of the entire mountain. The doors stay open today. They can still seal the mountain in 40 seconds. This is how the crews inside it lived. 🔔 New videos every week. Subscribe for the untold stories of how soldiers actually lived through history's hardest missions. Independent & educational history. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any government or armed force. Some footage and imagery may be illustrative or AI-assisted and is used to represent events described in the narration. 📚 HISTORICAL SOURCES (referenced in this video) NORAD and U.S. Northern Command: public history and operations records U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force: accounts of Cheyenne Mountain operations, incl. the 2020 sealed-crew period U.S. government records on the NORAD false alerts of November 9, 1979 and June 3, 1980 Firsthand accounts: Capt. Tanya Hurwitz, Steven Armstrong (chief of plans, Sept. 11, 2001), Adelynne Cotton Records on NORAD leadership: Brig. Gen. Rosanne Bailey, Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, Gen. Lori Robinson All footage, images and recordings belong to their respective owners and are used under their stated licenses or as fair-use commentary/education. Contact us for credit updates or removal.