As it turns out, this abandoned "secret city" was the site of a secret Cold War project known as Project Iceworm which called for the construction of 2,500 miles (4,023 km) of tunnels that could be used to nuclear intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) at the Soviet Union.

The CIRES-led study used ground-penetrating radar to estimate the amount of waste under the ice. The team found that the waste at Camp Century covers about 136 acres, about the size of 100 football fields, and contains an estimated 53,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 63,000 gallons of wastewater.

NASA's radar revealed Camp Century, a Cold War base under Greenland's ice. It provides data on ice sheet melting and rising sea levels.

A radar image taken by Nasa scientists while flying over Greenland has revealed an abandoned Cold War -era “city” under the ice. Scientists and engineers took the radar image in April 2024 as they flew over northern Greenland aboard Nasa’s Gulfstream III jet.

Scientists flying in a NASA Gulfstream III jet to measure Arctic ice with a radar therefore got something of a surprise when they found just such a secret base, long since given over to the elements and buried deep under the ice sheet of Greenland.