The Pacific Ocean, the largest ocean in the world, lies between the two continents. Still, the country, situated thousands of kilometres away, is the best friend of the US. The US has always maintained cordial ties with Australia. Hence, the US has built one of the world’s most secure intelligence bases in Australia. This base has been active since the 1970s. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is constantly monitoring every corner of the world from this base!

This intelligence base, called Pine Gap, is situated in Alice Springs, a remote town in Australia’s Northern Territory, halfway between Darwin and Adelaide (both 1,500km away). Pine Gap rises like an island in the middle of the desert. As the US set up the base 900km above the sea level, it is not possible for foreign spy ships, sailing through nearby sea, to trace this base.

A number of antennae have been installed in Pine Gap, and those are pointing towards some artificial satellites. CIA officials receive the satellite signals through those antennae. In this way, information about what is happening across the globe goes to the CIA Headquarters in Virginia. Interestingly, no one can receive signals sent by the artificial satellites from the sea. Its friendly ties with Australia prompted the US to set up the intelligence base in Oceania. There is no risk of betrayal. In fact, the US intelligence agency is getting full cooperation from the Government of Australia.

Pine Gap’s latitude of 23.80 degrees South and longitude of 133.74 degrees East connect the base with satellites (for both command and control and for data reception) stationed as far west as 60 degrees East (or as far east as 153 degrees West if ever required). At any given time since 1973, one of the satellites controlled from Pine Gap has invariably been stationed at around 65-70 degrees East longitude. Entire China, North Korea, the Indian Subcontinent and large parts of Russia fall under this longitude. Pine Gap is, therefore, suitable for surveillance in those countries.

The activity of this US intelligence base started in 1970 based on an agreement with Australia. Many American families immigrated to Australia at that time. Since then, they have been living there. Various US intelligence agencies currently control nine geosynchronous satellites from Pine Gap. There are 40 different antennae to catch the signals sent by those satellites. As these satellites are orbiting in almost the same direction as the Earth, the signals coming from them are considered to be almost cent percent accurate! A large part of the world can be monitored from a particular place through these satellites at the same time. Operated from Pine Gap, satellite Orion-5 monitors over the western Indian Ocean, while Orion-7 monitors over the western part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra and Orion-3 scans the western side of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Each satellite is placed 46,000km above the Earth’s surface. From there, their surveillance range covers a large part of the Earth. The three artificial satellites cover a wide area, from West Africa to Ukraine, West Asia to Afghanistan, Russia, China and North Korea. Intelligence agencies of Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, too, receive information from these satellites on the basis of their agreements with the US. Together, these five countries are called the Five Eyes.

No one, other than the concerned authorities of Pine Gap, knows what these satellites monitor. The CIA officials do not let anyone know anything about the signals. They maintain utmost privacy. The CIA conducts 90% of its surveillance around the world from the desert in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of kilometres away. Experts consider the Pine Gap as the main engine of the CIA’s activities.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das