Abandoned nuclear weather station, Ubaylah - George Steinmetz - Empty Quarter (sitios de interés)

Abandoned nuclear weather station, Ubaylah

Abandoned nuclear weather station at Ubaylah. It was set up in the 1970’s and then abandoned without being decommissioned. Its existence is politically sensitive, but largely forgotten. The spray-painted signs on the outside say "entry forbidden because of radiation," "staying here puts you in danger," "don't go in for your own safety." The building once had a locked steel door, which the Bedouin apparently took off its hinges and carted away for their own use. The desert way is to claim anything that appears to be abandoned in the desert as yours. The reactor is supposedly a Cobalt-60 source for powering the weather instruments, which of course are long since carted away by the Bedouin. The information I have on this is all hear-say ... but an employee of the US Geological Survey who visited the site noted his geiger counter went off the scale as he approached the building and said: "All I am certain of is that the black object there is radioactive as all hell," but had no idea what these abandoned instruments might be. I spent about twenty minutes inside taking photos and still have all my hair.