Uncovering the US Navy’s Hidden Test Facility Near Death Valley | Junction Ranch/ China Lake

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>> The remote corners of the Mojave Desert

are a very interesting place, not only

for the majestic desert landscapes and

very dark brilliant night skies, but

also for its significance for aerospace

development projects and black project

military activity.

I spent the last few days in a remote

corner of the northern part of Death

Valley where I've been hunting for some

potential exotic aircraft similar to

that Dorito that I saw at Area 51. I've

been following a few witness reports

who'd seen similarly shaped aircraft

either paired with tankers or sometimes

making very low passes over the desert

mountains.

Unfortunately, I haven't had any luck

these last few nights out here. So, I'm

going to be pivoting to a different

place that's also here in the Mojave

Desert. The next phase of this trip is

to head to a particular military test

site that's been on my radar for quite

some time, but this is the first time

that I'm going to be showing it on this

channel.

Today's trip will take us to the far

northeastern of the massive China Lake

Navy installation to a place called

Junction Ranch.

Like the Mojave Desert aerospace

facilities at Helendale, Tejon Ranch,

and Gray Butte, Junction Ranch is an RCS

or radar cross section facility, but

this one is unique in that it's not

operated by a private defense contractor

like Lockheed Martin or Northrop

Grumman, but rather it's owned and

operated directly by the US Navy as part

of the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons

Division at China Lake.

Funding for this facility comes from the

MRTFB or Major Range and Test Facility

Base Program with test installations

under this program being considered

highly important assets critical to

national security. Given that this is

the only of these Mojave ranges that I

have yet to visit, I'm excited to get

out there and see what exactly can be

seen and documented.

Other than some very old press release

photos officially released by the Navy's

Public Affairs Office, there is very

little on the ground imagery of this

remote facility tucked away in an

isolated valley deep in the Mojave

Desert. So, let's head out there and

poke around and see what interesting

oddities we might stumble on here at the

mysterious Junction Ranch test range.

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The China Lake ranges are the US Navy's

largest single land holding covering

over 1.1 million acres of land.

Situated in a very sparsely populated

desert region, it is here that the Naval

Air Warfare Center Weapons Division,

NAWCWD,

conducts research, development,

acquisition, testing, and evaluation of

all sorts of advanced cutting-edge

systems.

If you're going to hunt for potential

black projects, this area would

certainly be a good place to do so given

its significance.

I kind of think of this place like the

Navy's Area 51. Though it's not

completely analogous, it does share many

similarities such as having range

facilities operated by Amentum, which is

the company contracted to provide Area

51 security, aka the infamous camo

dudes, and to operate the secretive

Janet flights that transport employees.

In fact, Janet flights, typically of the

smaller Beechcraft variety, can

sometimes be tracked making visits out

here to China Lake.

The Junction Ranch facility in the

northern ranges up here is where today's

expedition is focused. The closest

little town, if you could call it a

town, is Darwin.

I have a weird fondness for strange

desert towns that sit on the border of

classified military installations, and

Darwin is certainly one of the more

bizarre ones.

This place first came onto my radar when

quite some time ago I received an email

from someone who was in the Darwin area

at the time, and they described seeing

some unusual lights in the hills within

the China Lake boundary.

And that late night low-flying aircraft

could sometimes be seen darting in and

out of the vast mountain ranges.

Given that this is a Navy test site, I'd

expect projects here potentially related

to the FA-XX program. And of course, I

always like to speculate about things

even more exotic like inventor Salvatore

Pais's patent assigned to the Navy of

what purports to be a triangular

aircraft that uses an inertial mass

reduction device.

We've left the highway now, and after

heading south for a while on this

desolate two-lane road, we're coming up

now on the aforementioned very remote

community of Darwin. Let's take a closer

look.

The town of Darwin was founded in 1874

as a small mining settlement with the

discovery of silver and lead.

According to a local resident I spoke

with further back down the road, the

current population is only about 20

full-time residents. Apparently, some

limited mining activity is still

occurring in the hills here.

For a while, the town used to be a

flourishing stop on the way to Death

Valley when the Ike Bomb Toll Road

opened, which accessed the park from the

west.

In 1937, the original road was bypassed,

which led to Darwin becoming completely

isolated out here.

So, the town of Darwin is a really

strange vibe. I actually kind of like

it. It's grown on me in the few minutes

that I've been walking around here so

far. It reminds me a lot of a cross

between like uh Bombay Beach by the

Salton Sea

and um like a Fallout settlement.

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>> You see these really old buildings kind

of just scattered around the hillside.

Some of them are from probably 100 plus

years old, kind of rotting into the

ground, and then you have these newer

buildings that people have created using

a lot of repurposed materials, and they

made all kinds of sculptures. It's

really cool. Highly recommend checking

it out if you get the chance.

Wow, this truck here is super old and

looks like it's been sitting here for

quite a while.

There are no services of any kind out

here, no stores, gas stations, or

anything like that.

Amazingly, there is actually an active

post office servicing this tiny

community.

Looks like this area kind of doubles as

a little community center with

announcements and notices.

Walking through each of the side

streets, you can see all sorts of

sculptures and art installations that

people are working on on their

properties.

You would definitely have to to want to

get away from it all and sort of remove

yourself from society to make it in a

place like this cuz we are really really

far away from any kind of civilization.

The vibe out here is certainly

interesting. It's very peaceful other

than the occasional roar or sonic boom

from the F-18s at the nearby Navy range.

This building here looks like it must

have been the old post office back in

the day.

This thing is pretty awesome. This

perforated metal roof makes it look

almost transparent.

And this one might take the cake for the

creepiest statue that I've seen so far.

Well, but I can say that the town of

Darwin seems to have a higher population

of headless statues and rusted out cars

than it does people.

I think I'm done poking around here for

now. So, let's go ahead and hit the road

again and head south towards the gate of

the China Lake installation.

Another somewhat ominous feature of this

town is the fact that on some of the

back roads around the outskirts, you

have these warning signs advising

wearing eye protection due to lasers.

I imagine due to laser targeting from

aircraft at the test range.

Heading south out of town, we have this

relatively wide, well-graded dirt road.

I would guess that since this road leads

directly to the the gate, it seems like

this is probably maintained by the Navy.

I don't know how often this gate gets

used down here, but any vehicles that do

come in and out in and out of here

probably have to drive through the town,

which means they have to go through all

the uh interesting sculptures, which is

kind of funny.

A couple of miles down the dirt road,

we're greeted by warning signs and a

barbed wire fence marking the perimeter

of the China Lake installation.

While the dilapidated guard shack over

there might not give the appearance

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high-security facility, looks can

definitely be deceiving. And while they

may not employ the camo dude tactics of

noticeable white pickups chasing me

around, they no doubt are employing a,

shall we say, more passive monitoring

system.

I'm sure I'm currently on remote

surveillance footage, and were I to

cross this barbed wire fence, no doubt a

response would be dispatched from the

nearest security office.

It is designated as the Darwin Gate, and

it seems to be the main point of entry

for anybody accessing the Junction Ranch

facilities and anything else here in the

northern reaches of the test range.

This sign says US government property

rather than Navy property.

With the sun getting low in the sky, it

was time to set up camp in a nearby wash

off the road.

One thing that became abundantly clear

is that I really need to get some new

tires on this bus. These interstate

tires are not cutting it in the deep

sand.

You just have to haul ass.

There's only so much ass I can haul.

Looks like we have some lights on over

at the range.

One thing I'll never get tired of is

staring up at the cosmos in places like

this with no light pollution.

Even to the unaided eye, the skies

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With white phosphor night vision, it's

like a whole new world opens up.

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>> All right. So, good morning, everybody.

For now, I'm going to go up into these

hills uh just to the the east of me here

and see if I can scout out some good

vantage points to look down on the base.

The wind was absolutely insane last

night, and I woke up this morning, and

it still is, unfortunately, and it's uh

it's freezing cold, so I'm all bundled

up. I was thinking about taking the bike

out, but I think I'm just going to hike

it on foot cuz it's mostly

cross-country, not not any trails up

there, it looks like. So, uh yeah, let's

uh let's get to it.

So, this facility up here in the remote

northeastern section of China Lake is

under the Panamin MOA and was chosen for

its excellent air and ground security.

In fact, a very large portion of this

facility will be completely invisible to

us today cuz it's blocked by the

surrounding mountain ranges, and there

are no public viewpoints.

Junction Ranch consists of three

distinct ranges. You have the original

RCS range, which is the one that's

completely hidden out of sight. You also

have what's called the look-down or wet

range, which was used to simulate sea

surface. And in fact, the Skunk Works

Sea Shadow stealth ship was likely

tested here.

I'd completely forgotten about this

thing's existence until researching this

place, and uh it's super crazy looking

at this design. It's kind of like an

amphibious F-117.

Lastly, we have the newest range, which

was constructed in 2007, which will be

the most visible from our vantage point

today. There's also quite a number of

other clusters of structures that could

be very interesting, which I'll be

getting some imagery of as well.

I noticed a glint of sunlight off what

looked like a windshield down on one of

the roads out in the valley there inside

the perimeter. I'm going to pull out the

telephoto lens real quick and take a

closer look.

Zooming in, it looks like we have a

security truck escorting a flatbed

carrying a bunch of junked cars.

That's kind of interesting.

Hopefully, getting a closer look at some

of the structures inside the base will

give us some insight as to what these

may have been doing and what they were

used for.

If I had to guess, I'd say they were

probably placed on the ground as

targets.

And for whatever reason, they're now

being removed from the range.

As I made my way further into the hills,

I came upon a network of tunnels and

random metal objects sticking up out of

the ground. Definitely some remnants of

some old mining infrastructure.

I didn't find anything of particular

interest in the mine tunnels, just this

random metal chair.

But, it did provide a brief respite from

the wind, after which I continued on to

my final destination.

Zooming in on the closest cluster of

buildings, we have what appears to be a

mock town, likely based on Middle

Eastern design given the architectural

features we see here.

I can surmise that this area is probably

used for weapons testing and tactical

training in various urban combat

scenarios.

I'm noticing this somewhat odd-looking

device or vehicle over here.

Looks like a parabolic antenna on

wheels.

I'd guess it's some sort of a mobile

telemetry or tracking dish.

My guess would be this thing is towed to

wherever a specific test is taking

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or data collection purposes.

There are some junked cars there in the

background, so it's possible that truck

driver we saw earlier pulled them from

here, where they were used in a

simulated combat scenario.

Panning directly upward, south of this

area, we can now take a look at the

Junction Ranch facility proper, or at

least the portion of it that's visible

from this public location.

Again, this facility is comprised of

three separate ranges, and we're looking

here at the newest one constructed in

2007.

According to the excellent resource

globalSecurity.org,

Junction Ranch is equipped for four

major areas of testing.

Of course, you have RCS or radar

cross-section, but they also do

high-power transport electromagnetic

testing, HPET,

antenna pattern measurement, APM, and

GPS jamming.

The location of Junction Ranch was

chosen because the natural environment

provides some added security features.

Notably, the surrounding mountains are

extremely high in iron content, which

provides a degree of RF shielding,

blocking both incoming and outgoing

signals.

I can definitely attest to having no

cell service anywhere around here for

miles, and I've been relying heavily on

my Starlink, which luckily, being

satellite, still works.

I'm fairly certain this area up here is

part of the lookdown range or wet range.

The lookdown range uses antennas placed

high up in the nearby mountains to point

downward at the test article, rather

than being a horizontal range like is

typical for most RCS ranges.

And just out of view, behind one of

these ridges, would be the small

saltwater pond to simulate sea surface

conditions, and this is where the sea

shadow would have been tested.

Over here, we have another training and

testing area with what looks like an

F-15 and a Chinook used as practice

targets.

The final noteworthy area that I'm

seeing from this vantage point is this

is this crevice between these two hills

with what looks like some sort of a

metal storage building between them.

It's pretty far geographically separated

from the Junction Ranch range, as well

as the other clusters of buildings.

I wonder what's being stored in there.

For now, that's a question that will

have to remain a mystery.

All right, everybody. Thanks so much for

tuning in to today's adventure. If you

haven't done so already, make sure you

hit the like and subscribe button and

hit that notification bell to be alerted

whenever I post a new video. Anyways,

guys, until next time, it's Anders with

Uncanny Expeditions, signing off.

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