Qualla: Nekoma, North Dakota https://qualla.com/nekoma-north-dakota en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:04 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/d/h/nekoma-north-dakota-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Nekoma, North Dakota https://qualla.com/nekoma-north-dakota Nekoma, North Dakota: Introduction https://qualla.com/nekoma-north-dakota/ Photo credit Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis), CC BY-SA 2.0. From the air, the pyramid appears impossible. A truncated concrete structure several stories tall rises from the dead-flat farmland of Cavalier County, North Dakota, flanked by skeletal radar towers, surrounded by nothing but wheat fields and sky. This is not ancient Egypt. This is Nekoma, population 31, a tiny city on the northern Great Plains that found itself at the center of Cold War nuclear strategy when the United States Army built the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex here in the early 1970s. The pyramid -- with walls three feet thick -- once housed the radar systems and data processing equipment designed to track and intercept Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles. It was America's first operational anti-ballistic missile defense system. It operated for eight months.

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Image: Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis) | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/d/h/nekoma-north-dakota-wp/cbdh-nekoma-north-dakota-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Nekoma, North Dakota: A Billion-Dollar Shield for Doomsday https://qualla.com/nekoma-north-dakota/ Photo credit Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis), CC BY-SA 2.0. Construction began in April 1970, and more than 1,000 workers descended on Nekoma -- a number that dwarfed the town's own population many times over. The Safeguard Complex was designed to protect the Grand Forks Air Force Base missile field from Soviet nuclear attack. Buried in t...

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Image: Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis) | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/d/h/nekoma-north-dakota-wp/cbdh-nekoma-north-dakota-a-billion-dollar-shield-for-doomsday.mp3 0:06 2 full Nekoma, North Dakota: Eight Months and Out https://qualla.com/nekoma-north-dakota/ Photo credit Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis), CC BY-SA 2.0. The mathematics of nuclear deterrence undid the project almost as soon as it began. Critics argued that the system could be overwhelmed by simply adding more warheads -- cheaper for the Soviets than building additional Safeguard sites was for the Americans. The Anti-Ballistic Mis...

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Image: Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis) | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/d/h/nekoma-north-dakota-wp/cbdh-nekoma-north-dakota-eight-months-and-out.mp3 0:06 3 full Nekoma, North Dakota: A Monument No One Planned https://qualla.com/nekoma-north-dakota/ Photo credit Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis), CC BY-SA 2.0. The pyramid endures. Too massive and too solid to tear down economically, it sits on the prairie like a relic from some other civilization -- which, in a sense, it is. The Cold War logic that produced it belongs to a different era, one in which two superpowers prepared for annihi...

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Image: Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis) | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/d/h/nekoma-north-dakota-wp/cbdh-nekoma-north-dakota-a-monument-no-one-planned.mp3 0:06 4 full Nekoma, North Dakota: Thirty-One People and a Pyramid https://qualla.com/nekoma-north-dakota/ Photo credit Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis), CC BY-SA 2.0. Nekoma itself is a city in the most technical sense. The 2020 census counted 31 residents. In 2010, there were 50. The town was established in 1905, long before anyone imagined building a missile defense system on the prairie. Its existence is typical of hundreds of tiny Great Pl...

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Image: Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis) | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/d/h/nekoma-north-dakota-wp/cbdh-nekoma-north-dakota-thirty-one-people-and-a-pyramid.mp3 0:06 5 full