He definitely didn’t expect to find this in his backyard!

Cryptic message

John Sims bought himself a new home in Tucson, Arizona. The previous owner was a friend of his, so he knew it was a good buy. But when his friend handed him the keys of the house, it also came with a strange message. There was a certain mystery surrounding the house – something that still needed to be discovered. John didn’t realise that his friend’s cryptic message would be the start of a chain of events that had the entire state of Arizona talking about it long after it ended.

Blueprints

The blueprints clearly showed a round space in the backyard. John decided to start digging, even though he had no idea what he was digging for. Pretty soon, his shovel met metal. When he’d completely dug up the object, it turned out to be a round, metal door. After some investigation, he found out he’d discovered a bomb shelter or storm cellar of sorts. With a little help from his friends, John managed to open the metal door. A rusty, old winding staircase appeared and John carefully took the stairs into the room. He ended up in a big, dome-like space. The cellar appeared to be in surprisingly good condition. John also found a collection of supplies like emergency water and food. Because the cellar hadn’t been opened since the sixties, these supplies were obviously out of date.

Cleaning and renovating

John decided it was high time to properly clean and tidy the cellar. Together with his friends, he cleared away all of the rubble that had fallen into the cellar. After he’d cleared everything out, the space turned out to be a lot bigger than John had initially thought. The next step was to get rid of the rusty old staircase and replace it with a sturdy new one. Next, the concrete structure needed to be repaired and reinforced. John even considered installing electricity in the cellar.

Cold war

John later found out that what he’d discovered in his backyard was a nuclear shelter. It had been built at the height of the tension during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Whitaker Pools was the man who wanted something else than a pool in his backyards: he preferred nuclear shelters. When John found out more about the treasure on his property, he also found out he wasn’t the only one. Apparently, the Tucson area was full of these types of shelters. We wonder if there will be any similar discoveries in Tucson, Arizona!