"Travelers are in for a uniquely Colorado experience when they pass through Denver International Airport. The works of art that grace the airport create a journey through our state's history and diversity. Like all successful public art, the program at DIA exemplifies an expression of ourselves and provides an opportunity to educate others" - Mayor Wellington B. Webb
"What in God's name is that all about? Man, that's sick! - Doug McGivens of Glen Burnie, MD. while looking at the mural
"Ah, terrific...I don't need this right now. What a horrible thing to have up for people to have to look at!" - Karen D. from Broomfield, CO after her 8-year old daughter got upset at seeing the mural
"The damn sneaks" - Me, when I saw they painted over and changed some of the murals
An African woman in colorful native garb; a Native American woman who's heritage the airport's art supposedly celebrates; a blonde girl with cupid bow lips, a Star of David on her chest and a bible in her hands. Each lay dead in open coffins for your viewing pleasure. A burning city, children sleeping on piles of bricks, a line of mourning women in rags with dead babies, limp in their arms. A huge, looming military figure in a gas mask brandishes a sword and machine gun. Part of an actual note written by a child interred in a Nazi death camp. Strange words embedded in the floor with no explanation about what they mean. Welcome to Denver International Airport!
That's just the part you see up close, though. What you don't see are 8 sub-basements, low- and high- frequency sounds that make people sick, air vents jutting out of the surrounding barren acres of fenced lots that have barbed wire along their tops - pointing in. Whole buildings that were constructed below ground level and then buried as is, the excuse being they were "built wrong". An entire runway constructed, then buried under a layer of dirt and "forgotten". The layers of workers and companies who were fired so no one would have a Big Picture. And workers even reported seeing Aliens working there. Are you rolling your eyes and going, "Oh sure..Nazis? Aliens, too huh? CRIPES". Well, I have to admit when I got to that part I did, too. But there's a lot of credible stories about a lot of documented things, so we can start there. With the dead babies and buried buildings. As far as Reptilian NWO and Nazis...I'll mention it...ok? As far as the place being something Not Right Under There, I'm convinced. Except you'll have to take my word for some of it because when I re-researched things to update this section..well! It seems they painted over two of the four walls that make up this sick mural and altered part of one that's still there. But of course, I have pics, and so do a lot of others.
Part One: The Airport
The airport was built in 1995 on 34,000 acres (53 square miles; 137.593 Sq.km) in spite of the fact that Denver already had what everyone said was a perfectly fine airport - Stapleton - which was ordered closed when DIA was built so there "wouldn't be any competition". In fact the new airport has less gates and less runways than Stapleton did (I hope you're saying, "That makes no sense"...). All it does have is a lot more acreage. More acreage than an airport that size could possibly need. Most which sits unused. They say it's in case they need to do any future expansion. DIA is the 7th busiest airport in the US according to a 2002 Crain's Chicago Business report.
The initial cost of this New Beast was to be 1.7 billion dollars (with a "B") but by the time they were done playing games, having problems, getting bailed out and got extra government money (and money from private corporations on top of that), it cost about $4.8 billion - obscenely over budget. I have yet to meet a local who wanted the thing built, or didn't have a frothing, rabid story about the whole mess. Words used to describe the DIA were "buried in technical problems", "poor project management", "overwhelming complexity" and "America's most inconvenient airport". It was built in a high wind area (Stapleton hadn't been) that causes it to be shut down or flights delayed often. The extensive automated baggage system so was messed up, such a circus of errors that it was worse than unusable - it was an industry joke. But it had to be built, and built there. Some say the reason that this was built and there was no stopping it, no cost spared to do so and why it was so SO overbudget and took so many years is because it's really an underground military base and a civilian detainment camp.
Some interesting facts:
Even though the area is basically flat (with a stunning view of mountains all around, since it's in a valley), the expense and time was taken to extensively lower some areas and raise others. They moved 110 million cubic yards of earth around. This is about 1/3rd of the amount of earth they moved when they dug out the Panama Canal.
The airport has a fiber optic communications core made of 5,300 miles of cable. That's longer than the Nile River. That's from New York City to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The airport also has 11,365 miles of copper cable communications network.
The fueling system can pump 1,000 gallons of jet fuel per minute through a 28-mile network of pipes. There are six fuel hold tanks that each hold 2.73 million gallons of jet fuel. This is somewhere in the "no one will ever ever need this much" range.
Granite was imported from all over the world - Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America - and used in making the main terminal floor. This is a ridiculous expense, especially when you're already over budget. They say, "The floor pattern echoes the roof design and subtly reinforces passenger flows". Ah...subliminal messages to move your ass. It might look pretty but would any of us know Chilean granite from Chinese granite? Or care? You can dye rock if it's colors you're after. Cheaper rocks. (I wonder what the "stones have power" people say about this...)
The huge, main terminal is Jeppesen Terminal, named after Elfrey Jeppesen, who was the first person to create maps specifically for aviation (the company is still in business today). This area is known as the "Great Hall"; it's said this is what the Masons name their meeting place.It is 900 feet by 210 feet big. This is over 1.5 million square feet of space. All told, there is over 6 million square feet of public space at DIA. The airport brags that they have room to build another terminal and two more concourses and could serve 100 million passengers a year. The airport flew 36 million in 2001.
The only way to get to the other two concourses/terminals from the Great Hall, or vice versa, is via the airport's train system.
There are more than 19 miles (30 km) of conveyor belt track, luggage transport cars and road in their own underground tunnels that move baggage and goods. They're so huge you can drive trucks through them, and some remain unused.
The entire roof of DIA is made of 15 acres of Teflon-coated, woven fiber glass. The same material is on the inside as a layer, also. The place looks like a bizarre (but kind of cool) scene out of "Dune", comprised of huge, spiked tent-like structures. The material reflects 90% of the sunlight and doesn't conduct heat. So you can't see into the place with radar or see heat signatures. I added helpfully.
And as I poked around I found some lovely, light reading entitled:"Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035Becoming a 21st-Century Force"Volume 9: Modeling and Simulation 3 Potential Failures and Disasters for DOD's M&SBroad Observations: Intellectual and Technological InfrastructureComplex 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?
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?
P.S. Bolds added...Blogmam.