UK’s most secret nuclear bunker ‘haunted’ by ghosts of Cold War officials

It lay buried under the fields of Britain’s countryside for over half a century as a secret to the outside world – now Hack Green is an open visitor attraction said to be haunted by its past

A hidden underground network of covert rooms where ghosts and tales of Cold War spies roam free – this nuclear bunker beneath the country’s rolling rural hills was once one of Britain’s most secret locations.

Cheshire’s Hack Green was used during WWII as a decoy to confuse Luftwaffe bombers looking to obliterate Crewe Railway Station and later became a hub to protect the country against possible attacks from the Soviets.

Part of the Government’s ROTOR system, the bunker outside Nantwich doubled up as an air traffic control centre until its closure in the 1960s, following which it laid empty for a decade.

Still shrouded in complete secrecy, Hack Green was bought from the MoD in 1976 to protect officials in case of a nuclear attack during the Cold War, ensuring Britain’s Government and military would be able to rise from the ashes.

In the event of a nuclear attack threatening to flatten Britain, technology at Hack Green stood ready to sound alarms across the country heralding impending doom.

The bunker ceased operational used at the close of the Cold War, and in 1998 was transformed into a living museum educating the public about underground warfare.

Still on display today is the old Polaris equipment – which would have launched retaliatory missile attacks at the orders of the Prime Minister – before this was later upgraded to the Trident system in use today.

Visitors can get up close and personal with some of the most powerful thermonuclear weapons ever produced, which, if detonated over a Russian city, would have the power to annihilate millions in one blinding flash. Don’t worry – it’s perfectly safe nowadays.

Curator Rodney Siebert said the site’s preservation is as close as people can get to seeing “how close we came to oblivion”.

“The Cold War is over, and the nuclear holocaust we all feared never happened yet,” he said.

“We have real weapons of mass destruction here at the bunker and not many people have ever been close to a real nuclear bomb.”

The tourists are not the only souls to wander about Hack Green’s network of underground passageways and secret rooms, however.

Multiple ghost sightings have been reported at the museum, including the apparition of a woman in uniform. It’s thought the spirit is that of a lady during the war who had become embroiled in a relationship with another woman, and for an unknown reason took her own life in a tragic fall from a stairway.

A ghostly man in uniform has also been spotted in the bunker’s corridors, while staff and visitors regularly experiencing harrowing feelings of unease and have even fainted on the site.

Others have claimed to have been pushed and shoved, while most chillingly, it’s reported that people have seen disembodied human legs and torsos.

These reports remain unverified, but paranormal investigators regularly visit the bunker in attempts to capture evidence of the supernatural on camera.

Those brave enough to venture below England’s green and pleasant land to a world of impending nuclear Armageddon can still visit Hack Green today.