MANZANO UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR STORAGE FACILITY AT KIRTLAND AFB IN ALBUQUERQUE: Old Manzano underground facility as of 2012 – YouTube
Construction of the Manzano Underground Nuclear Storage Facility at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico began exactly in 1947. It was created to store nuclear weapons/materials such as warheads, etc. (although some people say it also kept under secure storage some “other sensitive items”). It was supposedly closed down in 1992 when Kirtland AFB constructed another site within the base as a replacement. 
Paul Bennewitz used to live not too far from the fence, when beginning around 1979 and continuing through 1980 and 1981, he started observing some unusual lights over the Manzano Mountain coming from behind it, i.e., from the Coyote Canyon areas (where even today Sandia Labs have sensitive structures scattered in the area).
Some ascribe the lights seen by Bennewitz as probable Project Starfire tested during those years. (According to researcher Greg Bishop, the “artificial stars” used by the Starfire Optical Range behind Manzano Mountain from the point of view of the Bennewitz home, used a high-powered laser to calibrate their Adaptive Optics System for sighting enemy spy satellites.)
Some say that the Air Force had to create a cover story and convinced Bennewitz that he should concentrate his research into an alleged underground facility in northern New Mexico, thus detracting his scrutiny of what was taking place at Manzano and making him focus his attention to northern New Mexico’s “strange” goings-on. Since Bennewitz was conducting business with Kirtland AFB (he was president of Thunder Scientific Corporation, which still conducts business with the base through Paul’s sons), the Air Force invited him to come inside the base and gave him a “briefing” of what he was allegedly looking at. 
Paul died in 2003. His sons still operate the Thunder Scientific Corporation located right next to the main gate of Kirtland AFB on Wyoming Blvd. Paul’s wife still lives at his residence (in Four Hills) right by the fence of Manzano underground facility.
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conducted weapons research and development after the war. Its close involvement with some of the government’s most sensitive technologies has led to its being cited in conspiracy theories related to Department of Defense black projects.
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“Project Gasbuggy” Atomic Explosion Site

 

Dulce, New Mexico   By the late 1960s the U.S. government was anxious to find some use for its surplus of nuclear bombs. Its friends in the petroleum industry had the answer: explode them underground to release natural gas! It would be a lot faster and cheaper than drilling. On December 10, 1967, that’s what the U.S. government did. A 29-kiloton bomb was exploded almost a mile underground here, which knocked observers off of their feet over two miles away. The gas that was released was too radioactive to ever be used, and the ground was so contaminated that it had to be hauled away — or most of it, anyway. Today, ground zero is marked by a plaque on a small concrete block in the middle of an otherwise peaceful field, and visitors are warned not to dig anywhere .