No such place

If you don't know where you are or indeed where you're going, then the logical thing to do is to check a map. But if the place isn't on the map, what then?

There are entire towns that are know today, but back in the day they existed on no map.

Why would anyone bother erasing entire towns, you ask? For security, of course. It seems most of these places were instrumental for atomic research, so naturally they exist mainly in the U.S. and Russia.

First up, in the U.S. we start with Oak Ridge. Located 40 kilometers west of Knoxville, Tennessee, Oak Ridge was created and hidden by the military in 1943. This is where the Manhattan Project was born, so they were very keen on keeping spies out.

Once they were done being all theoretical, they moved to The Hill in Los Alamos, because setting off experimental atomic bombs near large cities wasn't and still isn't a good idea. The place was centered on an old school and quickly expanded to a small town. This is where Fat Man and Little Boy were created, and the place was so secure that babies born there simply had P.O. Box 1663 written on their birth certificates. In other words, doesn't exist.

The final location connected to the Manhattan Project is Hanford/Richland, in Washington state. This is where the fissionable materials needed for the first atom bombs were created, and where ultimately the first weapons grade plutonium in the U.S. was made. It's also the only one out of the three that was active during the Cold War.

If these places don't seem very interesting, keep in mind that they showed up on no map, and no one would admit that the places existed. If you lived and worked there, you lied to your families and friends, or else...

Let's now shift across the oceans to City 40, also known as Ozersk. This is where, in 1946, the Soviet nuclear program was born. The same levels of security that surrounded the three American locals were in place, except the Russians went one better: if you lived and worked in City 40, you didn't exist either. Your identity was erased from all records, and you were a ghost. All 100.000 of you...

In compensation, it was in all but one aspect the nicest place outside of the Kremlin. The living standard was incredibly high, and for good reason. They had several contamination issues, including one that was only surpassed by Chernobyl.

Today, people are free to come and go, but most inhabitants refuse to leave, they just like it so much.

Finally, we look at the Chinese variant of the above. Named 404, this city was built in four years at the edge of the Gobi desert an housed anywhere from 100.000 people to a million. That sounds high, but considering the Chinese population, it's still possible. It took them six years to develop nuclear weapons, and in 1964, China became an atomic power.

That's it for part one. More to follow next time. Until then, have a great week!