Qualla: Pine Gap https://qualla.com/pine-gap en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/z/0/pine-gap-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Pine Gap https://qualla.com/pine-gap Pine Gap: Introduction https://qualla.com/pine-gap/ Photo credit TimMilesWright, CC0. Drive southwest from Alice Springs for about 18 kilometres and you will hit a fence. Behind it, 38 white radomes rise from the red desert like oversized golf balls, sheltering satellite dishes that listen to a third of the planet. This is Pine Gap -- officially the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap -- and it is the only place in Australia where the airspace above is permanently prohibited. Operated jointly by the Australian Defence Force, the CIA, the NSA, and the National Reconnaissance Office, the facility has been collecting signals intelligence since 1970, when 400 American families moved to Central Australia and the cover story was "space research."

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Image: TimMilesWright | CC0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/z/0/pine-gap-wp/qgz0-pine-gap-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Pine Gap: Eyes Over One-Third of the Globe https://qualla.com/pine-gap/ Photo credit Benotzer:Alexandra, CC BY-SA 3.0. Pine Gap's location is not accidental. Situated deep in the Australian interior, it is shielded from electronic interference by thousands of kilometres of empty desert. Its satellites cover a swath of the Earth stretching from China and North Korea through the Asian portions of R...

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Image: Benotzer:Alexandra | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/z/0/pine-gap-wp/qgz0-pine-gap-eyes-over-one-third-of-the-globe.mp3 0:06 2 full Pine Gap: The Base That May Have Toppled a Government https://qualla.com/pine-gap/ Photo credit Sam Wilson (taken with Canon IXY 310 and scanned), CC BY-SA 4.0. In the early 1970s, Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam began asking uncomfortable questions about Pine Gap and considered closing the facility. Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer who had helped establish the base, later said this "caused apoplexy in the White House" and ...

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Image: Sam Wilson (taken with Canon IXY 310 and scanned) | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/z/0/pine-gap-wp/qgz0-pine-gap-the-base-that-may-have-toppled-a-government.mp3 0:06 3 full Pine Gap: Protest in the Red Desert https://qualla.com/pine-gap/ Photo credit Mark Marathon, CC BY-SA 3.0. Pine Gap has drawn protesters since the Cold War's height. On 11 November 1983, Aboriginal women led 700 women to the facility's gates, where they fell silent for 11 minutes to mark Remembrance Day and echo the Greenham Common peace camp in Britain. The two-week women-only encamp...

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Image: Mark Marathon | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/z/0/pine-gap-wp/qgz0-pine-gap-protest-in-the-red-desert.mp3 0:06 4 full Pine Gap: An Open Secret in the Outback https://qualla.com/pine-gap/ Photo credit Nigel Malone, CC BY-SA 1.0. The treaty establishing Pine Gap was signed on 9 December 1966 and stated that after an initial nine years, either nation could cancel the agreement with one year's notice. Neither has. The base was placed on nuclear alert during the 1973 Yom Kippur War when Henry Kissinger issue...

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Image: Nigel Malone | CC BY-SA 1.0

]]> Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/g/z/0/pine-gap-wp/qgz0-pine-gap-an-open-secret-in-the-outback.mp3 0:06 5 full