Stapleton International Airport | Articles | Colorado Encyclopedia Stapleton International Airport Airport Administration building, 1935 Share to A view of the industrial style, three-story brick administration building at the Denver Municipal Airport in 1935. The Denver Municipal Airport opened in 1929, and the name was changed to Stapleton International Airport in 1964. Airport Administration building, 1935 Stapleton Airport Share to United Airlines passenger jet "Mainliner 300 NC37508" sits on the tarmac at Stapleton Airport in 1941. The terminal and control tower are in the background. Antennae and wind instruments top the roof. Stapleton Airport Body Full Article Stapleton International Airport opened as a small municipal airport in 1929–30 and went on to become Denver’s primary airport for sixty-five years, until it was replaced by Denver International Airport in 1995. The airport played a major role in Denver ’s development as a national transportation and shipping hub. Today, Stapleton’s airport buildings lie vacant, as the land has since been subdivided and zoned for multiple other uses.

Beginnings With the exception of the 1931–35 term, Benjamin Stapleton was mayor of Denver from 1923 to 1947. He was one of the few people in the city who foresaw the tremendous potential of the airplane in the 1920s, and he wanted to consolidate Denver’s local, growing aviation industry around a single airport. Enlisting the aid of his Improvements and Parks Department manager, Charles Vail, Stapleton’s administration began laying the necessary groundwork. From the beginning, the airport project was placed under the jurisdiction of Improvements and Parks. The airport encountered opposition from the start, as some argued that Denver had no right to build a facility that would be a commercial venture for the city. The site that Stapleton and Vail selected was called the Sand Creek site, or Rattlesnake Hollow, seven miles from downtown Denver. The new airport, named Denver Municipal Airport (DMA), celebrated its opening with a four-day program of events, from October 17 to October 20, 1929.

Only three airlines had offices in the two-story administration building: Mid-Continent Express, which had just begun passenger service between Denver and El Paso; Western Air Express; and US Airways. Since there were so few passenger flights in 1929, the new facility functioned more like a glorified post office—the primary purpose of all three companies was flying the mail. Yet by the end of 1930, its first full year of service, DMA was already turning a profit, with thirty takeoffs and landings registered every day and three new companies signing on to provide service: Carlos Reavis Service, Eddie Brooks Service, and Western Flying Service. In January 1931 city and airport officials constructed a new hangar, initiating a fifty-year run of continuous growth. In 1937 both United and Continental Airlines began offering service to and from DMA. By the end of the 1930s Denver Municipal was the city’s premier airport, although the area also hosted a number of privately owned airfields. Yet passenger traffic still languished. Though local businesses were convinced of the facility’s importance, the average Denverite was still not using the airport or planes on a regular basis.

This would change with the onset of World War II. After World War II World War II was the catalyst for giant leaps in aviation technology; after the war, the average American was introduced to flying in numbers never seen before. The war cultivated a mass appreciation for the airplane and helped it capture much of the passenger market that trains had held for generations. Moreover, many people around the nation and the world came to view Denver as an important air hub due to its central location between the country’s international borders and its proximity to military bases, and federal authorities seriously considered proposed commercial routes that would tie Denver to other important cities such as Chicago and Washington, DC. DMA was renamed Stapleton Airfield, in honor of the mayor, on August 25, 1944. When the war was over, Denver saw the airport as a key to the city’s future. The facility had kept up with all of the technological advances in aviation and was prepared for the future. Among these advances was a new control tower, added in 1941.

The octagonal, six-story tower still stood atop the old administration building, but that same year, all of the runways were equipped with modern lighting; also, the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) announced it would be expanding its offices at the airport by installing a new teletype communication system. By 1945 the airport had experienced phenomenal growth. Its original 640 acres had grown to 1,435, and there were forty to fifty commercial flights a day, up from eight per day in 1929. Stapleton employed 1,200 people, up from forty at the start, and boasted four runways, two flying schools, and four major airlines. Along with the three-story administration building, Stapleton now had six hangars, a post office, fire station, control tower, USO lounge, and a café. The airport also housed the CAA’s five-state air traffic control, staffed by thirty-five CAA personnel and ten army flight controllers who coordinated all commercial, private, and military flights. To ensure the airport’s future, Stapleton and new improvements and parks manager George Cranmer unveiled an ambitious expansion plan in 1946.

The $1 million proposal called for the extension of the east-west runway and the construction of a horseshoe-shaped terminal that would be built in units to allow for future expansion. However, when Stapleton left office, new mayor James Newton (1947–55) abandoned the expensive plan because the city had yet to experience the forecasted postwar aviation boom. With Denver’s newspapers, local politicians, and airport officials calling for more improvements, in September 1947 Newton decided to appoint a committee to study the airport. In a short time, Stapleton was growing once again. By the 1950s the airplane had become an established means of transportation. Stapleton was being pushed to its capacity with tremendous increases in passenger travel; the forecasted aviation boom had simply taken a few more years than expected. In 1950 nearly 2,000 people passed through the airport each day, and by 1955 the annual figure had reached 1 million passengers. The increased traffic required extensive growth, and the airport was under construction throughout the 1950s. First a south wing was added to the administration building, then a north wing.

In 1954 the original terminal was replaced. To handle the corresponding increase in airplane activity, a new, six-story control tower was completed in June 1953, replacing the iconic octagonal tower. Jet Flight The first jet flight out of Denver took off from Stapleton on May 6, 1959—a Continental Boeing 707. The jet was intentionally underloaded with just ninety-three passengers, because Stapleton’s runways could not support jet-engine aircraft. Intending to construct jet-capable runways, the city of Denver originally placed an order for 252 acres of land on the nearby Rocky Mountain Arsenal in 1954, but by 1957 many airport experts felt that the jet age required more than just extending the east-west runway—it required a jet-age master plan that would accommodate airport growth several decades into the future. In 1958 Denver newspapers quoted Mayor William Nicholson (1955–59) saying that Stapleton would ultimately require not only all of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal land but also all of Buckley Field.

The newly formed Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) denied all of the city’s requests for new land, citing an overabundance of active development proposals dating to the Stapleton era. Eventually, Denver received the original 2,520-acre request on April 7, 1959, and by the end of 1962 Stapleton completed construction of a new jet-engine runway. In 1960 Stapleton ranked fifth in total aircraft operations and served more than 1.5 million passengers annually. Only one year later, Stapleton jumped to third place and counted more than 2 million people through its gates. Consequently, the decade saw more expansion, including a new fourteen-story control tower, two new concourses, and new sections for the terminal that doubled its size and gave it the distinctive horseshoe shape. A twenty-bed fire station was added after the first major jet crash at Stapleton, which claimed seventeen lives on July 11, 1961. In 1964 the airport was renamed Stapleton International, reflecting its steady growth.

Decline On April 30, 1967, thousands of Denverites came out to view the finished product of the 1950s master plan. With the newly expanded terminal, seven hangars, a new control tower, a fire station, a two-story parking lot, and the jet runway—all of which cost some $56 million—Stapleton International Airport represented a significant investment to the city. But Stapleton’s increasing popularity and rapid growth turned out to be its undoing. Unable to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for international air traffic, the size of jet aircraft, or the land necessary to support continuous expansion, Stapleton International Airport halted flight service on February 28, 1995, and ceded all commercial airliner traffic to the newly constructed Denver International Airport. Adapted from Jeff Miller, “An Airport in Place: Stapleton International Airport’s First Fifty-Five Years of Growth,” Colorado Heritage Magazine 4, no. 3 (1984). Additional Information: Janet R.

Daly Bednarek, America’s Airports: Airfield Development, 1918–1947 (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2001). Jeff Miller, Stapleton International Airport: The First Fifty Years (Boulder, CO: Pruett, 1983). Theme: Stapleton History | Stapleton Community Info | Stapleton Denver Colorado From the Stapleton Master Community Association: The Stapleton MCA has partnered with Colorado Water Polo to offer a FREE youth water polo clinic in Stapleton!The clinic will be ... Read More Stapleton History In 1995, Denver International Airport opened and the City and County of Denver found itself facing an incredible opportunity. Stapleton International Airport had served the region for 66 years, but now it was closing, providing 4,700 acres of land ripe for development. The process of deciding what to do with the Stapleton site had begun years earlier.

"The Stapleton site will be a network of urban villages, employment centers and significant open spaces, all linked by a commitment to the protection of natural resources and the development of human resources." - 1995 Stapleton Development Plan In 1990, a group of civic and business leaders created the Stapleton Development Foundation. Financed by private philanthropy, this nonprofit group was formed as a civic vehicle to work in partnership with the City administration. In 1993, the City of Denver entered into a partnership agreement with the Foundation, and in 1995, after an extensive community outreach effort, the Foundation produced the Stapleton Development Plan, known as the "Green Book." This document established the framework for redeveloping Stapleton. In the spring of 2001 Forest City, the Stapleton Master Developer, purchased the first Stapleton land from the City of Denver and began construction of streets and utilities. By fall, construction began on the Visitor and Homefinding Center, model homes and the Quebec Square Regional Retail Center. 2002 saw the opening of the Stapleton Visitor and Homefinding Center. By spring, Stapleton's first model homes opened.

Summertime found the Quebec Square Regional Retail Center opening, and construction began on the East 29th Avenue Town Center and Botanica on the Green Apartments. The summer also found the first residents calling Stapleton home. Building on the tradition of Denver’s great neighborhoods, Stapleton marks a new direction in the evolution of the American Dream. It is a community based on balance: home life and workplace, marketplace and green space, private life and public involvement. Conceived from the start as a sustainable community, Stapleton embraces the ideal of city life: an urban tapestry of diverse and distinctive homes, walkable, tree-lined streets, neighborhood stores, nearby offices, schools and parks everywhere. Technology and public transit connecting residents and workers alike to the world beyond – just 10 minutes from Downtown Denver and 20 minutes from Denver International Airport. Today, Stapleton is a thriving community with thousands of residents, acres of open space, new schools and shopping. We've come a long way, but it's just the beginning. Over the next several years Stapleton will continue to grow.

When complete, Stapleton’s 4,700 acres will set a new standard for the rebirth of urban America: a new generation of neighborhoods where 30,000 residents and 35,000 workers can call home. 303-670-6367 Home - Stapleton Denver home Affordable Housing Meet Our Residents The Stapleton community is among Denver’s most dynamic and vibrant — filled with passionate people who believe in strong community involvement and improving the world around them. The Denver neighborhoods in Stapleton are home to an eclectic mix of growing families, young professionals, empty nesters and numerous stand-out community leaders who are making positive change throughout Denver, the region and the world. Explore neighborhoods and meet your next neighbor here. Discover Stapleton Welcome to a national model for urban development that takes the best parts of Denver’s classic neighborhoods, applies new ideas about sustainability and bring their neighborhoods to life. With a wide variety of home collections , flexible commercial property and major retail destinations , Stapleton is a place for kindred spirits.

10 Abandoned International Airports of the World - Urban Ghosts 10 Abandoned International Airports of the World 11 September 2014 (Image: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images; abandoned international airports) The world is full of disused and derelict airfields, from isolated airstrips to modern military bases. But abandoned international airports are less common. The enormous costs involved in sourcing suitable locations and replacing their vast infrastructures from the ground up can make such projects prohibitive in many cities and countries. But nevertheless they do exist, having fallen into disuse for a variety of reasons. This article explore some of the world’s most impressive and bizarre international airports which are no longer operational, from vast abandoned hubs unable to cope with the demands of modern aviation to embarrassing failures and airports detroyed by conflict. Abandoned Yasser Arafat International Airport, Gaza (Images: NASA ; Edward ( middle , bottom ); abandoned Gaza International Airport) Built for a total cost of $86 million to serve the Gaza Strip in the Palestinian territories, Gaza International Airport opened in 1998 but remained operational for just three years.

In 2001, the control tower and radar station were bombed by the Israel Defense Force during the al-Aqsa Intifada. Airport staff continued to man the ticket counters and baggage areas until 2006, despite the fact that Israeli forces had bulldozed the runway in 2002, rendering it unusable. Despite strong condemnation from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and calls for the airport to be restored, the facility, which had been renamed Yasser Arafat International Airport, remained in ruins. Shattered tarmac has since been reused in other local construction projects, and in 2010 more than 7,000 Gazan children aged six to 15 set a Guinness World Record by simultaneously dribbling basketballs on an undamaged section of ramp. The destruction of the abandoned international airport rendered the tiny Gaza Airstrip the only serviceable runway in the region.

Abandoned Ellinikon International Airport, Athens, Greece (Images: deconcrete.org; abandoned Ellinikon International Airport) Ellinikon in Athens, Greece, is arguably one of the most impressive abandoned international airports around, if for no other reason than the hulking carcasses of decommissioned airliners still parked on its decaying ramp. Located just four miles south of Athens, Ellinikon International Airport opened in 1938 and was soon occupied by Nazi forces who used it as a Luftwaffe base during World War Two. It remained in military hands after the war, this time America ones, who used Ellinikon for operations in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East until 1991. Finally back in civilian hands, Ellinikon International Airport became the home of Greek flag flyer Olympic Airlines (several of its abandoned aircraft, including a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, remain there today). But when Athens’ new airport was built as part of the Summer Olympics package, Ellinikon ceased operating in 2001.

The defunct airport’s facilities were used during the games and today Google Earth reveals an odd mix of decommissioned infrastructure and disused runways interrupted by modern sports facilities, football stadiums, AstroTurf pitches and faded Olympic Rings, much of it in less than great condition. Whatever the future is for Ellinikon, like many other abandoned international airports, its aviation days are behind it. ( Take a look inside the Boeing 747 here .) Abandoned Sheffield City Airport, UK (Images: Jonathan Clitheroe ; Google Earth; Sevennay ; Sheffield’s airport failure) Until 1997, Sheffield was the only major UK city without an airport. In 2008, it returned to that status. During those 11 interim years, Sheffield City Airport offered a superb location closer to a city centre than any of its regional rivals. But the project was poorly conceived and the airport built with a runway that was too short, ruling out anything bigger than turbo-props serving a handful of destinations. Having failed to attract more profitable services, the last scheduled flight left Sheffield in 2002, just five years after the airport had opened.

Since then the terminal building has been converted into office space and the runway is set to be turned into a business park. A campaign was underway spearheaded by the South Yorkshire Federation of Small Businesses to restore passenger services at Sheffield City Airport. Extending the runway by 1,000 feet would have brought it into line with the popular London City Airport. But without the support of the council, the airport was always in danger of going the same way as other controversial Sheffield failures such as Don Valley Stadium and Sheffield Ski Village. At the time of writing, the Sheffield Telegraph reported that diggers have moved in and the airport’s runway will soon be redeveloped. Abandoned Nicosia International Airport, Cyprus (Images: Ilya Varlamov ; abandoned Nicosia International Airport, derelict for decades) Unlike many abandoned international airports that have been demolished or repurposed, Nicosia International Airport stands eerily frozen in time . The abandoned terminal building retains rows of utilitarian seats covered in a blanket of dust, while the former check-in counters create a distinctly ’70s feel in the silent departures hall.

The airport has remained derelict since the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and is now under the control of the United Nations and a contingent of UN peacekeepers. As such, it is off-limits to the general public and unlikely to be returned to commercial services any time soon. Two abandoned aircraft, relics of its commercial aviation days, cling to life on the field. An Avro Shackleton lies on its belly on the far west side of the main runway, a torn United Nations flag draped over its starboard wing. Meanwhile, the gutted shell of a former Cyprus Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident still stands on the ramp north of the terminal, its airframe damaged beyond repair during the Turkish Invasion 40 years ago and subsequently looted. Despite the dereliction, the airport’s runways, ramps and other infrastructure appear reasonably intact. ( More photos here .) Abandoned Stapleton International Airport, Denver, USA (Images: Robert J.

Boser ; Bradley Gordon ; Doc Searls ; Google ; abandoned Stapleton Airport) Stapleton International Airport served Denver, Colorado for more than 60 years until the city’s new hub – the largest in the United States by surface area with the longest public use runway – opened in 1995. After the last flight left Stapleton on February 25 that year (Continental Flight 34 bound for London Gatwick), the airport’s six massive runways fell dormant and redevelopment of the site began in earnest. Stapleton International Airport opened in 1929 as Denver Municipal Airport and was renamed in 1944 in honour of Benjamin F. Stapleton, who served as mayor of Denver from 1923 to 1947. When the airport closed in 1995, the original Concourse A, built in 1929, was still in use. At its peak, Stapleton International Airport served as a hub for Frontier, Continental, United Airlines and TWA before the latter was acquired by American Airlines.

But Denver’s unpredictable weather and wind patterns combined with insufficient runway separation and lack of room for expansion all added to congestion at the airport and necessitated the construction of a new international hub. Prior to closing, scenes from Die Hard II were filmed at Stapleton. Once vast abandoned international airports are wiped off the landscape, their remains often endure for years. So it is with Stapleton: the original 12-storey control tower has been preserved, and Google Earth reveals white lines still painted down the centre of an abandoned runway. Ghost Hub: Ciudad Real Central Airport, Spain (Images: jmiguel rodriguez; a silent ghost airport south of Toledo) Located 87 miles south of Toledo, Ciudad Real Central Airport opened in 2009 but closed just three years later. Formerly known as Don Quijote and South Madrid Airport, the abandoned facility was designed to serve 10 million passengers each year. It was also set to be connected to the Madrid–Seville high-speed rail line, meaning that passengers could be in downtown Madrid within just 50 minutes. But in 2012 its management company went into receivership and the 1.1 billion euro airport project collapsed.

The last scheduled flight took off from the 13,123 ft runway in December 2011, leaving its modern passenger terminal eerily quiet. Meanwhile, large yellow crosses daubed across the 60 metre wide landing strip denote that the runway is now disused, its instrument approaches removed from official aviation documents (not that it stopped the Top Gear presenters rallying their cars on it). Since it closed, authorities have had trouble finding a buyer and on July 27, 2014 Ciudad Real Central Airport’s sale deadline was extended for a seventh time and the asking price reduced to 80 million euros. A sorry reflection of Spain’s struggling economy, this abandoned international airport is but one among many new developments to barely if ever seen use, left as ghost towns and ruined monuments to the Spanish property bubble. Silent Castellón–Costa Azahar Airport, Spain (Image: Sanbec ; another abandoned international airport in Spain) Spain has several abandoned international airports, this one an even bigger white elephant than Ciudad Real Central.

Located in the municipality of Vilanova d’Alcolea near Valencia, it’s something of a stretch to describe Castellón–Costa Azahar Airport as “international” due to its lack of regional action, let alone further afield. Despite the fact that the 150 million euro airport was declared “open” in March 2011, it received no government approval to operate and no airlines are registered to land there. Commercial flights were due to begin, perhaps appropriately, on April Fool’s Day 2012, but as of January 2014 Castellón–Costa Azahar Airport has yet to host one. Considered symbolic of a culture of wasteful spending that further crippled Spain’s economy when the recession hit, Castellón–Costa Azahar Airport, with its single 8,858 ft runway, has even sponsored several local sports teams to the tune of 26 million euros, despite never operating a commercial service. Some reports suggest that the runway needs modification before it can be used, while others claim it could be bulldozed.

Ironically, an art installation at the airport entrance stands in honour of local politician Carlos Fabra, the driving force behind the project who has since been investigated for corruption. Montreal-Mirabel International Airport, Canada (Image: Russell Sutherland , Google Earth; Quebec’s abandoned international airport) The ambitious Montreal-Mirabel International Airport in Quebec, Canada, opened to much fanfare in 1975. The scope was epic : the airport would serve 50 million passengers each year and become the biggest in the world when completed. With 397 square kilometers of surface area and its own dedicated subway system, Montreal-Mirabel was larger than the city of Montreal which it served. The airport opened with no expense spared in time for the Montreal Summer Olympics but its distance from the downtown (34 miles) and sluggish passenger numbers due to economic competition from Toronto soon made it superfluous. In a failed effort to save Montreal-Mirabel Airport, Canada insisted that all international flights to the city land there rather than the more centrally located Dorval (now Trudeau). But thanks to that disastrous piece of decision making, airlines decided to skip Montreal entirely, heading instead for the competition in Ontario and hammering the last nail into the Montreal airport’s coffin.

Well, almost. Montreal-Mirabel has been relegated to what must arguably be one of the world’s most impressive cargo facilities. The area around the passenger terminal has become a race track, though the building itself did play a role vaguely akin to that for which it was intended. When the last passenger flight departed in 2004, Hollywood moved in to film the aptly named Tom Hanks movie, Terminal. Repurposed: Tempelhof Airport, Berlin, Germany (Image: Bjoern Schwarz ; makeokis ; GothPhil ; abandoned Templehof Airport is now a park) Now for a more unusual example of a previously abandoned international airport: Tempelhof in Berlin is in the midst of transformation into a public park and community centre, retaining much of the original infrastructure including its two runways. During its dark wartime history, Tempelhof Airport served as the only official SS concentration camp in Berlin before playing a role in the Berlin Airlift of 1948/49. Built on land once occupied by the Knights Templar, Tempelhof Airport was intended by the Nazis to be the world’s largest terminal until it was looted by the Soviets and occupied by allied forces during World War Two.

Old radiators from the airport have since been found in Moscow. Despite its tumultuous past, Tempelhof is a peaceful place today, and after a century of aviation use, the former international airport closed to air traffic in 2008. Now Berlin’s biggest park, a limited budget overs the upkeep of the airport’s landscape and buildings, earning it the nickname ‘Tempelhof Wasteland’ among some locals. Plans for a library and horticulture centre are set to be unveiled at the International Garden Show in 2017. In the meantime, locals and tourists alike can walk the length of the disused runways, wander the landscape and visit an abandoned Nord 262 aircraft resting in the middle of the field, a rusting relic of Tempelhof’s past.

Abandoned Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong (Images: Noooob ; Ywchow ( left , right ); WiNG ; aviation legend: abandoned Kai Tak Airport) No list of abandoned international airports (or non-abandoned ones, for that matter) would be complete without Hong Kong’s notorious Kai Tak , which from 1925 until 1998 scared the living daylights out of nervous flyers as their planes descended through the island’s mountains and skyscrapers. Ranked as the sixth most dangerous airport in the world by the History Channel, landing on the famous Runway 13 involved passing over the densely populated area of Western Kowloon then a sharp, 47 degree turn at a checkerboard marker on in the hills above the airport. If all went according to plan, airliners would level out at just 140 feet before touching down, in a manoeuver known to pilots as the “Hong Kong Turn” and to passengers as the “Kai Tak Heart Attack”. Fortunately, Kai Tak was replaced in 1998 by the new Hong Kong International Airport, 19 miles to the west and far less technically demanding for pilots.

Over the years the airport infrastructure, including runway and taxiways, has been steadily dismantled. The site, which for years had been the home of Cathay Pacific, was still effectively derelict as of 2011. But by summer 2013 the new Kai Tak Cruise Terminal had opened on the tip of the abandoned runway and two public housing estates had sprung up to the northeast. As of August 2014, the neglected hilltop checkerboard survives, half hidden by natural foliage. Kai Tak Airport may be no more, but those who landed on Runway 13 over the years will not forget the experience in a hurry. Airport Codes: A history and explanation of airport ABCs Airport ABCs: An Explanation of Airport Identifier Codes This article was published in the journal of the Air Line Pilots Association, Air Line Pilot, in December of 1994. I wrote it, but ALPA holds the copyright and reserves all rights other then you reading it directly on this Internet page. However please feel free to share this page with friends using Facebook or whatever. I do keep this online version updated.

And if you use some of it in your writing, a little link or mention is nice, like ABC News did in their 2010 story . From ABC (Albacete, Spain) to ZRH (Zurich, Switzerland), airports around the world are universally known by a unique three-letter code: the "International Air Transport Association (IATA) Location Identifier" in aviation-speak. It's obviously much easier for pilots, controllers, flight attendants, travel agents, frequent flyers, computers and baggage handlers to say and write ORD than the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois — but how did this practice start, and why are some airport codes easy to understand (ABE and ZRH) while others seem to make absolutely no sense (ORD)? When the Wright brothers first took to the air in 1903, there was no need for coding airports since an airport was literally any convenient field with a strong wind. However, the National Weather Service did tabulate data from cities around the country using a two-letter identification system. Early airlines simply copied this system, but as airline service exploded in the 1930's, towns without weather station codes needed identification.

Some bureaucrat had a brainstorm and the three-letter system was born, giving a seemingly endless 17,576 different combinations. To ease the transition, many existing airports placed an X after the weather station code. The Los Angeles tag became LAX in 1947, Portland became PDX, Phoenix became PHX and so on. Incidentally at the historic sand dune in Kitty Hawk where the first flight occurred the U.S. National Parks Service maintains a tiny airstrip called FFA — First Flight Airport. Many station codes are simply the first three letters of the city name: ATL is Atlanta, BOS is Boston, MIA is Miami, SIN is Singapore, MAD is Madrid, and SYD is Sydney, Australia. The first letter(s) of multiple cities served forms other codes: DFW for Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, MSP for Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, and GSP for Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina. Sometimes the city name lends itself to one letter for each word, such as Salt Lake City (SLC), Port of Spain in Trinidad & Tobago (POS), or Port au Prince, Haiti (PAP). For others, knowing the city had a former name cracks the code.

So we have LED in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), SGN in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), PEK in Bejing (Peking) and BOM in Mumbai (Bombay). Most of the "hard to decipher" identifiers become obvious if one knows the name of the airport rather than the city served. A Louisiana example is ESF, for Esler Field in Alexandra. Orly airport (ORY) and Charles De Gaulle airport (CDG) serve Paris, France, while Tokyo, Japan has the Narita airport (NRT). When you know what the code represents, some curious acronyms become obvious: MSY is the former Moisant Stock Yards in New Orleans, Named for the land where early aviator John Moisant suffered a fatal crash, stock yards that became the Louis Armstrong New Orleans Airport. CMH is Columbus Municipal Hangar, BWI is Baltimore Washington International, LGW is London Gatwick, and LHR is London Heathrow! This system of identifying airports caught on quickly and soon expanded to include all radio navigation aids used by pilots. The VOR on the field at ORD sends out the Morse code for ORD.

Recently some VORs not located at the airport of the same name changed identifiers to prevent possible confusion. The clearance "cross 10 miles south of Chattanooga" was confusing when the airport and VOR were five miles apart. FAA surprisingly didn't try to change the name of the city but changed the VOR, resulting in the Chattanooga Airport (CHA) and the Choo Choo VOR (GCO)! All localizer identifiers are prefaced with an "I." Compass locators are assigned a two-letter identifier, normally using the localizer as a base. For example, at ABC the localizer might be IABC, the locator outer marker, AB, and the locator inner marker, BC. (Note, outside the US radio navigation aid naming may be much less formal.) Some special interest groups successfully lobbied the government to obtain their own special letters. The Navy saved all the new 'N' codes. Naval aviators learn to fly at NPA in Pensacola, Florida and then dream of going to "Top Gun" in Miramar, California (NKX). The Federal Communications Committee set aside the 'W' and 'K' codes for radio stations east and west of the Mississippi respectively.

'Q' was designated for international telecommunications. 'Z' was reserved for special uses. The Canadians made off with all the remaining 'Y codes which helps explain YUL for Montreal, YYC for Calgary, etc. (The start of the song YYZ by the band Rush is the Morse code for the letters Y Y Z. Rush is from Toronto.) One of the special uses for 'Z' is identifying locations in cyberspace. What am I talking about? Well, an example is ZCX the computer address of the FAA's air traffic control headquarters central flow control facility. ZCX is not an airport but a command center just outside Washington D.C. that controls the airline traffic into major terminals. The lack of these letters puts a crimp in the logic of some codes: if the city starts with a 'N,' 'W,' or 'K,' it's time to get creative. Norfolk, Virginia, ignored the 'N' to get ORF; Newark, New Jersey, is EWR, Newport News, Virginia, chose to use the name of the airport to get PHF -Patrick Henry Field. Both Wilmington, North Carolina and Key West, Florida followed Norfolk's lead to obtain ILM and EYW.

West Palm Beach in Florida did some rearranging to get PBI -Palm Beach International; Kansas City, Missouri became MKC and more recently the 'new' Kansas City airport chose MCI. (The code for Kansas City International Airport, MCI, was assigned during the early design phase of the airport when the name was going to be Mid-Continent International. Shortly before it opened, Kansas City officials decided to change the name so people would know what city it was in. It was too late to change the code.) The continued growth of aviation world-wide meant that three letter combinations were insufficient to identify every airport. Eventually the system expanded, allowing numbers and four digit combinations; however, an airport served by scheduled route air-carrier or military airlift aircraft always has a code comprising of only three letters. Raleigh, North Carolina, not only has RDU (Raleigh/Durham International), but also the much smaller 5W5 (South Raleigh Airport), W17 (Raleigh East Airport), 2NC3 (Sky-5 helipad), and ONC4 (Wake Medical Center Heliport).

The two-letter, two-number identifiers use the two-letter Post Office or supplemental abbreviation of the State for the two letters: 2ND9 is in North Dakota, 85FL is in Florida, etc. Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, known as 49J when it was a general aviation airport, now has airline service and therefore a new airport identifier — HHH. Lacking both 'W' and 'N' Washington National has a code of DCA for District of Columbia Airport. The newer Dulles airport just outside D.C. was DIA (from Dulles International Airport); however, the DIA and DCA were easy to confuse, especially when hastily written in chalk on a baggage cart, scribbled on a tag or a handwritten air traffic control strip, so we are stuck with the backwards IAD. Now one of the rules of the game is "the first and second letters or second and third letters of an identifier may not be duplicated with less than 200 nautical miles separation." Houston has HOU for the William P. Hobby airport. The 200 mile rule lead to the airport label of IAH, for the new Intercontinental Airport Houston.

Louisville, Kentucky, already had an airport with the logical code of LOU; therefore, the letters for the new airport had to be something radically different: SDF stands for Standiford Field. The airport ciphers sometimes don't originate with the city or airfield name but with the county in which it resides. Longview/Kilgore in Texas is GGG, from Gregg county airport. The 'W' in Detroit's DTW comes from Wayne county; the 'P' in Greenville's PGV comes from its location in Pitt County, North Carolina. However the John Wayne Airport serving Orange County takes its call letters from the less recognized Santa Ana (SNA). A little more geography cracks the code for CVG, MDT, ABE and GTR. Cincinnati, Ohio, has its airport located in northern Kentucky (look at a map if you don't believe me!); therefore, Cincinnati's ID actually comes from the town of Covington - CVG. Harrisburg International is physically located in Middletown, Pennsylvania (MDT). In Pennsylvania the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem & Easton are served by the ABE airport.

Any Mississippi State Bulldogs' fan can tell you that Columbus, Starkville, and West Point form the Golden Triangle of Mississippi, with airline service at the Golden Triangle Regional Airport (GTR). History, rather than geography, solves the puzzle of BNA, TYS, GEG, OGG and MCO. The main airport in Nashville, Tennessee, was named in honor of Col. Harry Berry who helped build it: BNA. Knoxville, also in Tennessee, doesn't have a single letter in common with its tag of TYS; however, a historian would know that the Tyson family donated the land in honor of their son killed in World War I. The current Orlando International Airport stands on the land that used to be McCoy Air Force Base (MCO). Spokane International Airport is coded as GEG in honor of Major Harold C. Geiger, a pioneer in Army aviation and ballooning. Geiger field was renamed in 1960 but the code was not changed. Kahului Airport, Maui, was designated as OGG in honor of aviation legend, and Lihue native, Hawaiian Airlines Capt. Bertram James 'Jimmy' Hogg ( and subject of a nice Air Line Pilot magazine story ).

One of the world's largest airports, JFK, is also one of the very few that changed call letters. A change is rare because an identifier becomes so well known to airline staff that changes are not normally permitted. Interestingly the John F. Kennedy airport's former code also came from the name of the field — IDL for Idlewild airport (itself named for the Idlewild golf course whose land became JFK). If you knew that Fort Myers used to be called SouthWest Florida Regional, the RSW moniker starts to make sense. A code used by American Airlines but never seen by the traveling public is GSW. Pilots spend months at GSW, but no planes land or take-off there. The mystery is solved when you discover that Americans' Flight Academy, with its many simulators and classrooms, is in Ft. Worth on the former site of the Greater SouthWest Airport. A airport that has worked hard to change its given code is Sioux City's Sioux Gateway Airport — SUX. Mayor Craig Berenstein described the SUX code as an "embarrassment". City leaders petitioned the FAA to change the code in 1998 and again in 2002.

At one point the FAA offered the city five alternatives — GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV and GAY — but airport trustees didn't like any of them enough to change. In 2007 the airport made the best of their sucky cipher and started promoting the airport with the slogan "FLY SUX." There are other fun ones. FAT is Fresno, California. DUM is in Dumai, Indonesia, whie Norway's Bodo Airport is BOO. Harbour, Eolie Island, in Italy is ZIP. Headingly, Australia, is HIP. Hot Springs, Arkansas, is HOT. And Willow, Alaska, is WOW. Years ago, entire metropolitan areas were given a code to include many airports; NYC covered New York City and LON signified London. Unfortunately there are no new metropolitan area codes due to the scarcity of letters. These codes provide the ability to quickly look up in a computerized reservation system all the flights to a certain city without using separate codes for each airport. Entering WAS as a designation will give me the next few flights to BWI, IAD and DCA — the Washington, D.C. area.

In fact, three letter codes are so scarce that after a year they can be recycled: when Idlewild Airport became JFK, the old IDL tag was retired then reused for Indianola, Mississippi. Airlines use the three-letter codes internationally in their own network, Sita, for messages such as passenger loads and departure times. World ATC and weather agencies use a separate teleprinter network, the Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunications Network (AFTN), which uses a four-letter "location indicator." Going from large area to actual airport, the first letter relates to the part of the world and the second letter the country. The third letter is a group of airports within that country. Most countries who use this particular convention use a letter to denote the FIR in which the airport is located. So F is Frankfurt FIR in Germany, M is Munich; P is Paris FIR, M is Marseilles. Other ways to use the third letter include identifying a group of airports with a common factor. For example, A was used in Germany for all Canadian and American air force bases. The last letter positively identifies a specific airport.

Thus Aberdeen, Scotland, has the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) location indicator of EGPD — E for Northern Europe, G for United Kingdom, P for Scottish region, and D for Dyce field. Want to figure out LFPG? It's L for southern Europe, F for France, P for Paris FIR, and G for Charles de Gaulle airport. Easy! Some are more easy to remember. The Dominican Republic codes all start with M (Central America) and D (Dominican) and then, well, see if you spot the code for international airports in Santo Domingo (MDSD), La Romana (MDLR), Puerto Plata (MDPP), Punta Cana (MDPC) and Santiago (MDST). So if London Heathrow has two codes — and it does, LHR and EGLL — how come I've heard Chicago O'Hare only called ORD? The answer is unique to the United States and Canada. In the 48 contiguous States the ICAO code is formed simply by adding a "K" to the three letter code (or by adding a "C" in Canada). This explains why international flight plans refer to KORD, KMIA, KJFK, etc.

A meeting of two rules is Key West, the FAA code is EYW (lose the 'K') and the IATA code is KEYW (add a 'K') which works great for KEY West. Other airports within FAA jurisdiction have ICAO codes usually formed by taking two letters from the FAA name and prefixing them with PA for Alaska, PH for Hawaii, or PG for Guam. PT appears to be Pacific Trust Territories (Pohnpei, Yap, Chuuk, etc.), and there are various random other P codes like PWAK for Wake Island. While most U.S. airports have the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, note I didn't say all do. Scenic Sedona Airport in Arizona is assigned SEZ by the FAA and SDX by the IATA. Because for international airlines SEZ is Seychelles International Airport in Mahï¿½, Seychelles. Another is the Hilton Head airport in South Carolina mentioned earlier. It's IATA code is HHH, but it's FAA three letter code is HXD. Instrument pilots are familiar with another type of identifier, not for an airport or navigation aid but simply for a point in space.

Every airway intersection is a five letter, supposedly pronounceable, combination, from AADCO to ZZARP. Just like airports, some fixes are named after towns: close to Raleigh, N.C., are DUHAM (over Durham) and CHAPL (over Chapel Hill) intersections. Some are named after people or events, and others are named just for fun: BORED, BUILT, BUTCH. The excellent book Chasing The Glory, by Michael Parfit, introduces us to the woman who names intersections, Macho Irene. She dreams of some pompous B-747 captain saying, "Roger, will report MUMMI." From LA to DUHAM, identifiers have grown in complexity and are now used as computer codes in vast reservations systems and flight management computers. The latest trend in bag-tagging technology is laser printed bar codes for automated luggage systems. Will # ## # ## ever completely replace DFW? The answer may be found at DIA, the new Denver International Airport which used identifier DVX when the runways opened for testing, but inherited the familiar DEN code when Denver's Stapleton airport closed down. Oh, still wondering about the world's busiest airport, O'Hare International, and its ORD code?

Well once upon a time, before the editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Colonel Robert McCormick suggested a name change as tribute to pilot Lt. Cmdr. Edward "Butch" O'Hare, United States Navy, there was an airstrip well to the northwest of Chicago with a quaint, peaceful name — Orchard Field. Denver International Airport turns 20 | 9news.com Denver International Airport turns 20 Blair Shiff and Denver Business Journal , KUSA 7:53 PM. MST February 28, 2015 The iconic tent roof at DIA (Photo: DBJ) CONNECT TWEET LINKEDIN GOOGLE+ PINTEREST DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL - Denver International Airport celebrates the 20th anniversary of its opening on Saturday, Feb. 28. After 20 years of operation, DIA remains the nation's largest and newest commercial airport, with current and future projects that are positioning the airport for another 20 years of success in the competitive global aviation market. Why was DIA built? "Stapleton was at maximum capacity, and there was a concern with noise and safety," DIA CEO Kim Day said.

"The visionaries could have put a Band-Aid on Stapleton for five years, but they made a decision to build a completely new airport. We have 53 square miles of space. We could fit Atlanta, Chicago O'Hare, LAX and Dallas-Fort Worth onto our land and still have room for a golf course." "We have six runways, and can expand to seven," Day said. "We can grow to 100 million passengers a year — double our current numbers. And because of our space, we have the ability to do that faster and cheaper than our competitors. We think we can build a seventh runway at DIA for about $350 million and it would take three years. It's an incredible asset for this region." DIA20: Key moments in Denver airport history (Slideshow) - Denver Business Journal "The people who led the effort to build this airport — Steve Cramer from Adams County, Gov.

[Roy] Romer, Mayor [Wellington] Webb, [former city planning and development official] Tom Gougeon, [former city attorney] Steve Kaplan, [Webb chief of staff] Stephanie Foote, and all the others — they had the vision to do it and they implemented it," Day said. "We are the beneficiaries of those who are tenacious and just kept going." To mark the milestone, the Denver Business Journal is looking at DIA, its history, what it means to Colorado's economy and what's ahead. Find out how to access the feature story here: (© 2015 American City Business Journals. All rights reserved.) Denver Airport Underground base and weird murals Volume 9: Modeling and Simulation 3 Potential Failures and Disasters for DOD's M&S Broad Observations: Intellectual and Technological Infrastructure Complex Systems and the Need for Humility" (Hey, I like reading this stuff..don't make faces. DOD stands for Department of Defense, of course.

And what do I see but:) ..."The study's terms of reference (Appendix A) asked for an identification of "present and emerging technologies that relate to the full breadth of Navy and Marine Corps mission capabilities," with specific attention to "(1) information warfare, electronic warfare, and the use of surveillance assets;.........The study should review the overall architecture of models and simulation in the DoD (DoN, JCS, and OSD), the ability of the models to represent real world situations, and their merits as tools upon which to make technical and force composition decisions....This increased complexity means that it will be harder to design systems and to predict their behavior. Some might argue that in the engineering domain, modern design tools should overcome these difficulties. While there certainly have been impressive advances (e.g., in computer-aided design), there is a feeling with at least some members of the engineering community interviewed in the course of the study that they have nearly reached the limits of complexity that can be addressed with current tools and methods. Challenging examples that could lie beyond current approaches include future generation networks and very large scale integrated circuits.

Indications of the difficulty of building complex engineering systems are given by some of the well-known "disasters"-explosion of the Ariane missile, inability to build a next-generation air-traffic control system, outages in telephone and power systems, and even the problems with the baggage handling system at the Denver airport." Perhaps the DIA does push the "limit of complexity" but that's only because the politicians and government designed it to be such a complex monster. It's not as if some engineering problem was posed and met like the Chunnel, the Petrova Towers in Malaysia, the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai or a hydroelectric dam. Why would the military give a hoot about the baggage problems the airport had? If you believe what you are told in the papers, most of the problem was because the people who built the system weren't the ones that were awarded the contract to run the thing. Hardly any "engineering" snafu. Or did their billion dollar underground base not work out as good as they had hoped?

This interview below is kind of old; it's with a man named Alex Christopher (AC) and was done by Leading Edge International Research Journal #92, 4/26/96 - I edited it a bit for Blithering and chopped it up for better flow with the pages. It's got interesting information. This interview can be found in it's entirety is all over the web. I am going to jump around a lot here, taking parts of this interview and interjecting my stuff, but I know you can keep up. Here, have some coffee (_)3. My comments are in maroon DA: Do you know of John Coleman? AC: The Committee of 300 ? DA: Yes. What's your take on that? AC: I think his information is fantastic. If he had had the information that I put in Pandora's Box when I put that together, it would have have blown his mind. But, as far as I know from my standpoint, both sets of material go hand in hand, right down the line. AC: You bet.

All of them are doing the bidding, and it goes back to their secret societies and the establishment of the New World Order, which all leads back to the house of Windsor. There has been in this country for a long time a grooming process whereby people carry on the bidding of the Crown of England*. That is one of the things the system involving the Rhodes Scholars was set up to achieve. Cecil Rhodes set it up to groom people for this task, to carry the United States into the New World Order. It appears, from what I have been able to find out, that the Crown of England has had this very skillfully planned for hundreds of years, and it could be possible that they have been privy to information that not many of us have been for a long long time about the chaos involving Earth changes that is coming. It is my understanding that England is not going to make it through the changes, so they set up a whole new Empire over here. That goes back to some of the things we discussed before, about lands being bought up in Colorado. (In fact it's said the Queen is buying up an incredible amount of land here, and America has been bankrupted in a plot ( this article is endless, if you want to read it .

You probably don't) by the British Crown. Which is why in the last few years, rich, influential American citizens have been Knighted; Ex-President George Bush, General Colin Powell, General Norman Schwarzkopf, ex-President Ronald Reagan, James Wolfensohn (President of the World Bank) and Alan Greenspan in September, 2002 (Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board). Some think they were knighted for being good little soldiers with their services to the British Crown and the agendas for a One World Government by the elite. But I digress...) DA: We talked about the Denver airport last night and what is really going on down there. The area is of a pretty high altitude, where it will be safe. (Denver is known as the Mile High City and is strategically protected by the Rocky Mountains/Continental Divide. The view there is breathtaking.) AC: Yes. Plus, all the symbolism that is apparent in the layout of the new Denver airport says that it is a control center for world control. There is a lot of "secret society" symbology at the airport. We started researching all of this to find out what it all means. It's all very scary.

A gentleman by the name of Al Bielek, who has been involved in some very unusual government projects in the past, told me that the Denver area is where the establishment of the Western sector of the New World Order will be in the United States. Little bits and pieces keep coming to me, confirming things I have not had confirmed before. DA: About some of these things on the airport in Denver. Would you mind discussing some of those things again? AC: Well, the first thing that got my attention at the airport was the capstone that I saw in a photograph, that had a Masonic symbol on it. DA: The capstone? AC: The capstone, or the dedication stone for the Denver airport has a Masonic symbol on it. A whole group of us went out to the airport to see some friends off and see this capstone which also has a time capsule imbedded inside it. It sits at the south eastern side of the terminal which, by the way, is called The Great Hall, which is what Masons refer to as their meeting hall. And on this thing it mentions the New World Airport Commission. I have never heard of that, have you? DA: Never.

AC: It has a Masonic symbol on it, and it also has very unusual geometric designs. An arm rises up out of it that curves at a 45 degree angle. It also has a thing that looks like a keypad on it. This capstone structure is made of carved granite and stainless steel, and it is very fancy.This little keypad area at the end of the arm has an out-of-place unfinished wooden block sitting on it. The gentleman that was with me on the first trip out to the airport has since died. They say he committed suicide, but everything else tells me that this is not possible. No one can double-tie a catheter behind his own neck and strangle himself. His name was Phil Schneider, and he started blowing the whistle on all this stuff going on in the underground bases that he had helped build for years and years. He worked on the underground bases at Area 51 and Dulce, New Mexico, as well as several other places.

Schneider told me that this keypad-looking area looked like a form of techno-geometry that is alien-oriented, and that it had something to do with a "directional system", whatever that meant, that functioned as a homing beacon to bring ships right into the Great Hall. In the same general area on this capstone, there are some most unusual designs on the floor that are all Masonic in nature, which lead right back to the Black Sun " *. (I wrote to the DIA people and asked what was in the time capsule. They replied, "The time capsule contains, among other things: Photos of Coors Field and an autographed opening-day game ball Indian prayer baskets representing Native American culture and indigenous peoples Black Hawk casino tokens A piece of the DIA roof A Stapleton International Airport history book Newspaper articles about DIA's opening day Coins from the Denver Mint Jeppesen flight charts Keypad that does who knows what Wilhelm Landig was an Austrian SS veteran and postwar Nazi activist who coined the idea of the Black Sun, a mystical energy source that would be capable of regenerating the Aryan race. Supposedly, in 1945 some Nazi pilots painted the black sun symbol on their aircraft.

It is now a symbol of a belief in Nazi Polar UFO bases, secret organized world Aryan cults and Nazis who have been living and organizing all these decades and who will spring ready to take the world back from the existing inferior Judeo-Christian masters and ...you get the idea. There's a book on it listed at the bottom of this page; the topic bores me to death so I didn't go into it here. Interestingly, the runways of Denver International are laid out in the shape of a Swastika. Most aeronautical documents I was able to read said that parallel runways are the most efficient and busy airports like Hartsfield and O'Hare use this design). runways "DA: Now, you mentioned that underneath this airport it goes down many levels. Does the fact that all these underground levels are there have something to do with why it took so long for this airport to open? AC: Well, the gentleman that I was dealing with, Phil Schneider, said that during the last year of construction they were connecting the underground airport system to the deep underground base.

He told me that there was at least an eight- level deep underground base there, and that there was a 4.5 square mile underground city and an 88.5 square-mile base underneath the airport. It is very unusual that they would allot a 50 square-mile area on the surface at which to locate an airport in the middle of nowhere unless they really planned to use it for something very unusual later. There is a 10-mile, 4-line highway out to this airport, and there is nothing out there in between the airport and Denver. Not even a service station, at least in September 1995. The people in Denver are really upset with the fact that this airport went in the way it did. There was this fellow who wrote a book in which he made the statement that they had a copy of an audio tape on which a Denver city official was talking with people from the CIA, and that he was paid 1.5 million dollars to allow the "airport" to be built, no matter what it took. It appears that there was a lot more interest in getting the airport built from just officials in the Denver area. They plan on using this facility for something else other than just landing planes.

DA: So, this guy got you down there to take a look at the underground? AC: Well, he was invited to go along on the trip. I had a friend that actually got us down into the active area in the underground. It's very interesting down there. The baggage equipment area is very unusual. All the old luggage equipment that wouldn't work right doesn't look much different than the stuff that is working today." (There was a big controversy when the airport was built about this. The story was that a lot of the budget over runs and mistakes were caused by the policy that Affirmative Action minority owned companies had to be hired to do the work. Sometimes these couldn't be found or did "inferior" work and had no idea what they were doing and so it had to be redone. And redone. The Baggage area was the worst of it all as the contract for running the thing wasn't awarded to the people who designed and built the baggage system. It was so bad it became an industry joke.) "DA: You were telling me that there are huge concrete corridors with sprinklers all along the ceiling. What are these sprinkler heads doing in a concrete bunker, pray tell?

AC: Well, this is the same question we asked. These shafts are huge and run along adjacent to the tramline on both sides. So, there are two of these huge shafts large enough to fit a two-lane highway in there. There are every few openings into and out of the tram shaft, but at the end of them, going out into this 50 square miles of acreage is a huge steel door that would facilitate the entrance of a great big truck. It could be used for almost anything, but what is so unusual about it is that about every five or six feet on the ceiling, across almost the full width of the area, there is a pipe with three or four sprinkler heads. This goes on for the full length of the thing, which must be close to a mile. There are two of these shafts, and I got picture in the mail the other day which was very unusual that was taken by someone on board the tram in the shaft. The picture appeared to actually show ghost-like figures on it. It was a mother and a baby wrapped in a blanket. When you are down in that concrete shaft, both times I got nauseated. There are some very unusual vibrations down there.

Now, the tunnel shaft that the tram comes in on could connect up with an underground tunnel coming in from five buildings that were built and buried. There was already a 40 foot diameter tunnel there when construction started. Those five buildings were built 3 1/2 years ago (early on in the airport construction), and suddenly they said ,"oops, these are in the wrong place" and buried them, along with a very high-tech runway that is buried under about four inches of dirt. It seems insane that they would build a very technical building complex with interlocking tunnels and a tunnel going back to the tram tunnel at the concourse, and then state that they built it in the "wrong place" and cover it up with dirt. I don't believe that people are that stupid. DA: No. Projects like that are strategically planned, and they just don't go and do that. AC: Some of these five buildings are 150 feet tall. There is one 78 feet tall, and one that is 126 feet tall. They are all in that range. From this complex there is a shaft that runs to concourse "C".

When they started this project, as I said, there was also a huge 40 foot diameter shaft brought in there from somewhere that was off-limits to the work crews. It was there when the project was started. And, everybody that worked on these projects....there were five different contractors, and the people on each contracted crew did not interact with the other ones. When the project was done, everyone was fired and sent away. DA: You would think that during this massive construction they would not be able to keep this stuff secret. AC: I think a lot of the people saw things that disturbed them so much that they would not talk about it. I know several people who worked on the project that managed to find their way down into the depths, probably close to the deep underground base, and saw things that scared them so badly they won't talk about it. I interviewed a few of the former employees on these construction crews that worked out there on these buildings that ended up buried, and they are afraid to talk. They say that everybody is real nervous about it, and they decided to tell some of the secrets that they knew, but they don't want anybody to know who they are.

So, I can tell you that it is a very unusual and spooky type of place, and if you are a sensitive person you get nauseated as soon as you enter the perimeter of the airport. Especially when you go down underground. You become very nauseated a nervous. There is also so much electromagnetic flux in the area that if you get out on the open ground around the airport, you will "buzz". DA: Where is this flux field coming from? What do you think the purpose of this is? AC: I think that its coming from some kind of underground electrical system, because where we were there were no power lines, and the whole place was just buzzing with this free energy floating around. Very unusual. In addition, there are areas in the underground that have chain-link fences with the barbed wire tops pointed inward, like they were there to keep people in, not keep people out. All these areas are there, acres of it, and none of it is in active use. There are many terraced areas that go down. One area in particular is forbidden to go into unless you are wearing a biological protective suit. They say there is some kind of "unidentified biological fungus" in that area that attacks people's lungs.

DA: Hmmm. Some kind of way to hide something that is in this area? AC: Well, we think that area is one that leads to deeper levels underground at the airport. But, it is surrounded by a chain-link fence and you can't get in there. We think this is the area that one of the electricians kind of stumbled into that went down about six levels below the fourth level, and ran into some really weird stuff. He won't talk about any of it now. DA: Real weird stuff. AC: Also, at the airport there are what look like miniature nuclear reactor cooling towers, and I don't understand why they are there. When people asked, the reply is that they are part of the ventilation and exhaust system. Ventilation and exhaust from where? DA: What do you think its for? AC: I think it is all hooked up to the deep underground. DA: They say that this place looks like some underground "holding area"...somewhat like a cattle lot....a place that could hold thousands of people. The gates, fences.... AC: The l uggage transport vehicles move on a full-sized double-lane highway, and along this highway are chain-linked areas that could be used for holding areas.

I don't understand why they built this the way they did, unless they planned to use it for something like that in the future. AC: Things are escalating at an incredible rate. I think a lot of these movies in the media are trying to get us softened up for what they plan to unleash on us. C: So, in just a matter of years, they plan to bring it out and bring people to that airport? AC: You know, Reagan said more than once that the only thing that would bring people together would be some kind of "outside force". DA: Exactly, I remember that. He said that several times. AC: Yes, the Iron Mountain report. The guy that claims to be the author of it now claims that it was nothing more than a joke , but for a joke, it seems to be following the time line to the hilt, so I think it was something that made its way out and they are trying to cover that up. Everything that was in that report is happening in great detail right now. It is interesting that high officials in the Clinton administration, like Cisneros, were deeply involved with the construction of this airport.

Also, there is a fellow by the name of Rodney Stitch*, who writes about the total corruption in the Denver area. He is the one that wrote the book Defrauding America *. He said that they had a tape of a CIA agent paying off the mayor of Denver to get the airport built. There is just so much corruption. They are selling the good American people out. We have some of our own people selling the rest of population out for a few pieces of gold. Then, we have this system of murals at the airport that are the most grotesque things you've ever seen.

Question: Which American city is served by 'Stapleton Airport'?
Answer: DENVER