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Italy - Abandoned nuclear research facility, July 2019 | Oblivion State Urban Exploration

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Italy Abandoned nuclear research facility, July 2019

The Urban Tourist

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I'm finally back posting something!

This time we visited a very large complex with a mysteriuos story and even if it has been completely vandalized, you can still find some very cool rooms or objects...

This is a former nuclear research laboratory, which focused on studying new technologies regarding nuclear energy and nuclear physics. For example, a new way to synthesize heavy water was developed here, they also used to measure the fission cross point of uranium 235 (which was a top secret info at that time), they even had a particle accelerator! This facility had been linked to nuclear power in Italy for many decades, in fact a model of a nuclear reactor for an actual power plant was tested here.

As I said earlier this place is enormous, there are more than 20 buildings and many tunnels, but the place is very vandalized. My main goal was to find the nuclear material storage area. But we couldn't find it! It actually took us 5 hours, and we were on the verge of surrender. But at that moment a homless person showed up and asked us what we were doing, yes it's the same situation everyone here is familiar with. But then I asked him if he knew where we could find the storage area. And he not only knew the exact location, but he offered to guide us throught this place. He told many things about this research center, but many of them were... "strange".

Let me say one thing: this man didn't even look like a homeless person: you could have thought he was some random dude who sneaked in this place for some reason. And most importantly, this man did not seem crazy or a psycho. He was very calm and he used some technical terms in his explanations... So, I cannot ensure you that what he told us was true or not. But nevertheless it was very interesting.

He studied this subject in the past and he knew what kind of experiments were conducted here. According to what he told us this place closed down suddenly in 2001 because of some kind of "radioactive leakage". Many underground tunnel were closed and the archive was burned to destroy all the secret papers (I actually found a very big archive completely burned). He also told us that some areas of this place are radioactive still today: not incredibly dangerous but still radioactive. And some parts are also polluted with heavy metals: he told us that if you burn some branches the flames will be green.

After explaining all of this he showed us a very small and hidden room where there were 4 holes on the floor: here there used to be some kind of barrels of radioactive waste for some kind of test. He explained us that even if they removed 4 barrels, there are still 2 of them that are still there. Here are a few pics I took with my phone: 1 , 2. Sorry for the low quality but our guide told us not to stay for too long there.

He then showed us the radioactive material storage area. It was hidden in the basement of a small shed and our guide pointed us some kind of nozzles: they should have "shot" water in case of some kind of emergency.

And before leaving us, this homeless man showed us the coolest thing: even if the archive was destroyed, he told us that he had saved a few documents and kept them safe. He showed us his "treasure": there were pictures of nuclear power plants all over the world (even those under construction), microscope images, test results of various kind, there were pics of the "crash tests" nuclear falsks are subjected to. You can see what I'm referring to >>here<<. In this complex you can even find a 1:2 scale model of one of these flasks. Here are some other pics I took with my phone: 1, 2, 3.
This man kept asking me if I wanted those pictures because "they made him get in trouble" and because "in case something happens to him, they would be in safe hands".


Now, here are some photos of this very unique place: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmFrp8nP


This was probably some kind of lab. The color here was very odd: all the other rooms in the building were white.

Tentacles.jpg



A nice corridor where scientists used to walk.

Tropical lab.jpg



I think that this room is called cleanroom: it's a room where the air is extremely poor of particles; in this kind of cleanroom the external light is filtered aswell throught special orange windows.

The Amber Room.jpg



Probably the particle accelerator was here: on the left you can see a sign saying "beam emergency switch".

Cathedral.jpg



We almost fell in this giant artificial pool. It was 30 meters long and 5 meters deep. Also, I have no idea about what was its purpose.

No swimming.jpg



External view of only one small part of the complex:

Città della Scienza.jpg



The burned archive:

Alexandria.jpg



One of the many underground tunnels:

Wicked phenomenon.jpg



And finally, the nuclear material storage area. Until 2017 there was a "nuclear danger" sign but our guide told us that he had sold it.

Radioactive door.jpg



And that was it! Thank you very much for reading all this.
 
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The_Raw

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That's awesome man. Never heard of this before. Are there meant to be some phone pics at the top as well?
 

The Urban Tourist

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Thank you guys!

Are there meant to be some phone pics at the top as well?
I actually put my phone pics at the top. You just have to click on the actual numbers you see on the text, where I said "1, 2, 3".
This font doesn't actually help users to tell the difference between links and normal text.

Anyway, I'll leave my few phone pics here aswell so it's easier:

The holes:

IMG_20190721_142012 (2).jpg


IMG_20190721_142020 (2).jpg



The cool documents:

IMG_20190721_144217 (2).jpg


IMG_20190721_143915 (2).jpg


IMG_20190721_144858 (2).jpg
 

The_Raw

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You just have to click on the actual numbers you see on the text, where I said "1, 2, 3".
This font doesn't actually help users to tell the difference between links and normal text.

Ah sorry I didn't realise they were clickable. Thank you
 

AndyK!

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Wow what an interesting place! Love the documents in the phone pics too.
 

Dubbed Navigator

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Thats the most interesting post in quite some time. Sounds very odd!

Not sure I'd be quite as enthusiastic about finding the nuclear material storage area, but maybe i'm a bit paranoid. Bit dodgy the geezer selling the sign off for it too!

Pools are used in Sellafield over here in the UK to store spent nuclear fuel. I was thinking it could be possible your photo is the same thing, but if that were the case I'd also expect to see some evidence of lifting plant.
 

The Urban Tourist

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Thank you all guys! I really appreciate your interest for this location and my visit.

Not sure I'd be quite as enthusiastic about finding the nuclear material storage area, but maybe i'm a bit paranoid.
Yeah I understand that... A few years ago the facility was heavily guarded with armed security ready to shoot you, probably because some radioactive material was still stored there.
I forgot to point out an important detail about my exploration: for a couple of reasons we did NOT have a dosimeter/radiometer. First of all, among other things, this laboratory used to store uranium and it's half life can be veeeery long. But it emits mostly alpha rays, which is the least dangerous radiation. And a Geiger counter able to reveal alpha particles is goddamn expensive, so I ended up buying nothing, hoping for the best. The second reason is that when we planned the visit, we knew for a fact that the place had been officially cleaned up a few years before by a government agency, so it should have been safe. But then the dude we came across told us a different story so... I dunno.
In other words, I can't be sure about what kind of danger there is, but actually I don't even know if there is any danger at all! So, maybe I risked a little bit with this exploration, but I doubt my health has been compromised. In any case, now that I know that some legends say that the place is still radioactive, if I went back there I would surely take a dosimeter with me: even if it doesn't detect alpha particles, it would surely be helpful.

Pools are used in Sellafield over here in the UK to store spent nuclear fuel. I was thinking it could be possible your photo is the same thing, but if that were the case I'd also expect to see some evidence of lifting plant.
I think that the pool was more used for some kind of experiment: you can see some portholes on the walls and some kind of "lifebuoy" on the right, also we saw a float near the stairs.
 

Dubbed Navigator

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Thank you all guys! I really appreciate your interest for this location and my visit.


Yeah I understand that... A few years ago the facility was heavily guarded with armed security ready to shoot you, probably because some radioactive material was still stored there.
I forgot to point out an important detail about my exploration: for a couple of reasons we did NOT have a dosimeter/radiometer. First of all, among other things, this laboratory used to store uranium and it's half life can be veeeery long. But it emits mostly alpha rays, which is the least dangerous radiation. And a Geiger counter able to reveal alpha particles is goddamn expensive, so I ended up buying nothing, hoping for the best. The second reason is that when we planned the visit, we knew for a fact that the place had been officially cleaned up a few years before by a government agency, so it should have been safe. But then the dude we came across told us a different story so... I dunno.
In other words, I can't be sure about what kind of danger there is, but actually I don't even know if there is any danger at all! So, maybe I risked a little bit with this exploration, but I doubt my health has been compromised. In any case, now that I know that some legends say that the place is still radioactive, if I went back there I would surely take a dosimeter with me: even if it doesn't detect alpha particles, it would surely be helpful.


I think that the pool was more used for some kind of experiment: you can see some portholes on the walls and some kind of "lifebuoy" on the right, also we saw a float near the stairs.


Life is full of risk I guess!

I was hoping to get a picture of the pant shield from the HBO chernobyl series. Couldnt find it, and got fed up of searching around for a cock cup :ROFLMAO:
 
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