Have you ever visited the “Malibu of the Midwest”? Better known as Wisconsin, this state is home to many historic firsts and, of course, the legendary NFL team, the Green Bay Packers.
The first ice cream sundae was made in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, back in 1881, and the first kindergarten classes in the country took place in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1856, inside the home of a German couple. The iconic term “cheesehead” came from an insult the German soldiers used to describe the Dutch soldiers in WWII.
While we associate the cheesehead hats found at every Packers game, the first cheesehead hat was worn at a Brewers game and was made from a couch cushion with holes burned into the foam before it was painted yellow.
Wisconsin was also the proposed site for something even stranger back in the day: the world’s largest radio antenna was going to be built there back in the 1960s, and it would have ended up covering some 40% of the state. What was Project Sanguine, and what happened to it?
ELF
Project Sanguine was a project the United States Navy proposed in 1968 that would allow for communication between submerged submarines using extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves. Project Sanguine proposed the creation of a giant antenna composed of 6,000 miles (9,700km) of buried radio cables in a square grid that spanned 22,5000 square miles (58,000 square kilometers) or approximately two-fifths of the state of Wisconsin.
Project Sanguine was centered around using extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves. ELF are radio frequencies ranging from 3-30Hz. ELF waves are produced by lightning and other natural disturbances in the planet’s magnetic field.
Building ELF antennas that can communicate over long distances is very difficult. As a result, only a few ELF frequencies have been utilized in a small number of man-made communication systems.
The low frequency of the waves allow them to travel for very long distances without being overwhelmed by interference. What is especially appealing about these ELF frequencies is that they can penetrate seawater, making them incredibly useful in communications between submarines.
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The Cold War was in full swing back in the 60s, so having ways to communicate with submarines was seen as highly advantageous to the US Navy. Current doctrine, which gave an extraordinary degree of autonomy to submarine captains, carried great risks.
Seawater prevents standard radio signals from reaching submarines, effectively cutting off the ability to “receive communications from military command authorities while submerged.” But, low-frequency waves can penetrate seawater.
The lower the frequency, the deeper it is able to penetrate the ocean. ELF waves are able to cut through depths of 10 to 30 meters (32.8 feet to 98 feet). ELF frequencies were a better option compared to VLF (very low-frequency waves) because submarines using VLF waves had to “rise to just under the surface of the water or trail a shallow antenna buoy to receive signals.”
VLF communication also left subs vulnerable to detection by the enemy as they rose to the surface, so ELF was seen as the smarter, safer, and more effective way to facilitate communication in the eyes of the Navy.
The Proposed System
Project Sanguine was to be powered by 100 underground power plants kept inside concrete bunkers. The large grid of cables were to be grounded at each end, and loops of “AC electrical currents flowed deep in the earth between the ends of the cables” to generate the ELF waves through ground dipoles.
The goal of Project Sanguine was to establish a communication system that would allow tactical orders to be sent one-way to US nuclear submarines anywhere in the world. Project Sanguine was designed to withstand nuclear attack, which was becoming more likely during the Cold War.
But, while Project Sanguine was a proposal, it was never created for many reasons. Project Sanguine had two significant issues: the cost and the pushback from politicians and environmental groups. The proposed project was projected to cost several billion dollars, and this was back in the 1960s.
The obscenely high cost turned off politicians who did not want to spend that much money just to make an underground antenna. Project Sanguine also faced harsh criticism from residents of Wisconsin, environmental groups, and anti-war groups who were very concerned about the effects of “high ground currents and electromagnetic fields on the environment.”
Along with the ecological concerns, Project Sanguine’s antenna was supposed to be buried six feet (1.8 m) under the earth and would span across 41% of the state. An attempt was made to relocate the project to the Llano Uplift in Texas, but it, too, was forced to stop due to public opposition. This led to the abandonment of Project Sanguine.
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The Navy scaled down the Project Sanguine system and created a more modest solution. Dubbed Project ELF, it was conceptualized in 1969, and testing began in 1982.
Project ELF involved two transmission facilities, one in Clam Lake, Wisconsin, and the other in Republic, Michigan. Project ELF spanned a total of 84 miles (135km) of above-ground line antennas. These transmission facilities functioned at a frequency of 76 Hz, which fell within the extremely low-frequency range, and could operate at a frequency of 45 Hz using 2.6 megawatts.
Unlike Project Sanguine, Project ELF was not able to withstand nuclear attack. Project ELF facilitated communications with submarines over half of the earth’s surface. However, there were issues. ELF frequencies have a small bandwidth and are incredibly slow. Audio messages could not be transmitted, so short-coded text messages with a small number of letters were possible. It took about 15 minutes to transmit a “single three-letter code group.”
The signal established with Project ELF was incredibly weak and required the message to be sent several times in a row. A Navy engineer described the signal as being “like someone standing across a room whispering. At first you can only hear part of what he’s saying, but if he keeps repeating and repeating, eventually you can hear it all.”
When the Cold War ended, keeping Project ELF in action was seen as unnecessary, and following 1996, Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin senator, “introduced several bills aimed at closing the project.” In 2004, the US Navy shut down Project ELF.
Who Uses ELF Today?
Only four countries, The United States, India, China, and Russia, were known to create ELF communication facilities. The US facilities operated from 1985 to 2004 before being decommissioned and deactivated.
The Russian Navy still uses ELF for deep-sea submarine communications, while the US uses shorter VLF waves and buoys to communicate with their submarines underwater. Happily however, there are no plans to dig up half of Wisconsin any time soon.
Top Image: Project Sanguine would have allowed communication to a submarine without the sub needing to surface. Source: James Kimber / Public Domain.
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