Duga-1 Radar Station

Duga was an over-the-horizon radar system, created by the Soviets to act as an early warning system during the cold war. Only two sites were created for Duga: Duga-1, located in Chernobyl, and Duga-2, located in Eastern Siberia. The third site was never built. Duga-1 operated from July 1976 until December 1986, as the radiation given off by the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant made it too dangerous to stay on site, thus forcing the abandonment of the station. During it's time in service, many conspiracy theories arose around the distinctive 10HZ tapping noise the antennas gave off, with the noise being later nicknamed the "Russian Woodpecker."

When construction began on the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1972, little did construction workers know that a top secret construction project was happening 12 kilometers away from their location. The project, once completed, was called "Duga." Duga was to consist of three over over-the-horizon radio antenna that could theoretically detect nuclear missiles before they could actually reach the Soviet Union, giving the government enough time to decide if they needed to retaliate with their own missiles (Fedykovych, 2019).

At the time of the Chernobyl Disaster, only two Duga stations had been built: Duga-1 in Chernobyl and Duga-2 in Eastern Siberia. The Chernobyl site consisted of a transmitter and a receiver. In the years since the project was shut down, Duga-2 has been taken down, with Duga-1 being protected by the fact that it is within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The antenna, pictured in this entry, stands 492 feet (150 meters) tall and some 2296 feet (700 meters) long. The signal the antenna gave off - 10MW - was later nicknamed "The Russian Woodpecker," because the noise sounded like a woodpecker pecking on wood.

According to Dr. Fedir Dubrovka, the idea behind Duga was radio signals can only be pointed in a single direction. However, the Earth is round, and as such, a missile coming from America would not be detected, as it was coming over the curve of the Earth. Duga was supposed to send off a radio signal that could bounce off the ionosphere, down to Earth, back up into the ionosphere, etc, taking the signal around the curve of the Earth, and as such, allowing the missile to be seen (Youtube Movies, 2020).

With this plan in mind, Duga-1 went live in July of 1976. Within months, the signal began to cause concern within the communication world, with the Federal Communication Commission writing numerous letters in complaint of the sound (Washington Star, 1976). When the USSR refused to answer questions about the signal, conspiracy theories began to spread. One such idea, floated in 1981 by NBC news station, was that supposedly the sound was to try and change human behavior by turning people into zombies (Youtube Movies, 2020).

For all the concern Duga caused, the project had been doomed from the start. The scientists did not understand the ionosphere. The signal could not penetrate the Aurora Borealis, meaning it would be useless in detecting missiles from the US. Everyone working on Duga were aware of this and it was going to become apparent during an inspection set to run in September of 1986. However, before this could officially come out, the Chernobyl Disaster occurred, rendering the site uninhabitable. It became a convenient excuse to scrap the idea and do away with the project (Youtube Movies, 2020).

At least, that is the official record. Even to this day, records and documents on the Duga Radar Stations were either destroyed or locked away. There are still many questions about Duga and until those records are released, we may never know the full story.

Fedykovych, P. (2019).Duga radar: Enormous abandoned antenna hidden in forests near Chernobyl. CNN Travel. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/duga-radar-chernobyl-ukraine/index.html

Forgotten Chernobyl. (n.d.) Duga the "Russian Woodpecker" Radar and Control Rooms. https://www.forgottenchernobyl.net/duga-the-russian-woodpecker-radar-and-control-rooms

Washington Star. (1976). Mysterious Signal Upsets Air Waves. New York Times, 28. https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/30/archives/mysterious-signal-upsets-air-waves-a-powerful-radio-beam-believed.html

Youtube Movies. (2020, Sept 11). The Russian Woodpecker [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B556UXqyPcI