History Main / BlackSite

* ''WesternAnimation/RoswellConspiracies'' has one out in the desert near Roswell disguised as a large mesa. That one is the headquarters of the Alliance, serving as both a bunker and a lab, but they have several others around the world which cover the other categories as well.

While this trope frequently overlaps with ElaborateUndergroundBase, a Black Site might be concealed merely by being remote. This was particularly common for UsefulNotes/ColdWar-era media, as both the US and the USSR have/had perfect locations for isolated facilities. In American settings, sparsely-populated deserts such as those in Nevada and neighboring states are a popular choice. Meanwhile, Russian settings give you all the vast wastes of Siberia to play with. The occasional China story could take advantage too, using the Gobi Desert, Tibet, or Inner Mongolia. Alternately, if your setting doesn’t allow such extreme isolation, the facility can just be behind so much security that even if the public knew it was there, they'd never be able to get close enough to see it. Often times the site will not appear on any maps, and be airbrushed out of satellite and aerial photography, although they'll just as often be in the center of a strictly enforced no-fly zone, preventing aerial photographs from ever coming into being in the first place.

** There is a plausible explanation for this which does not invoke StupidJetPackHitler. Accurate weather forecasting is essential for military planning, both for your own operations and in anticipating those of your enemy. [[note]]The D-Day landings were delayed by one day because of foul weather in the Channel. Eisenhower was warned by his own weather forecasters that June-July 1944 would be characterised by foul sea conditions and he should use the periods of calm in between storms to land as many troops and supplies as he could.[[/note]]. Germany in particular needed accurate weather forecasts concerning weather fronts building up in the Atlantic, and passing east and north over Europe. Therefore Germany landed clandestine advance stations in the Arctic and Greenland to radio back weather reports. It is entirely possible they also did this in the Antarctic so as to get advance weather forecasts for the benefit of their U-boat fleet operating far from home. There are accounts of the secret Arctic war between German meteorological detachments and Allied units sent to hunt them down.

* ''Hangar 18''. A crashed alien ship is stored at the eponymous U.S. government installation (see RealLife below).

[[folder:Film — Animated]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* In ''[[Film/{{Godzilla2014}} Godzilla (2014)]]'' a black site is built on the site of the ruined nuclear power plant in the heart of the Janjira exclusion zone, to contain the cocooned [[{{Kaiju}} MUTO]]. The facility is heavily fortified despite surrounded on all sides by irradiated ruins that are off limits to the public (but thanks to [=MUTO=], the facility itself is not actually irradiated), but the hero manages to sneak in just in time to see [[CardboardPrison the containment]] [[OhCrap fail]].

* ''Film/EscapePlan'' has the aptly named prison, "The Tomb". Complete with small plexiglass cells, armed and masked guards who beat up prisoners for as much as just looking at them the wrong way, and solitary cells that subject prisoners to cramped and hot conditions with the help of a heating lamp. [[spoiler: The prison itself is located on a freighter out in the middle of the ocean, which helps to make escape virtually impossible.]]
* Erewhon Prison in ''Film/FaceOff'' is a secret super-max in which the prisoners are tossed in and the key is tossed away, and inhumane acts like electroshock therapy is imposed upon them unrestricted. The prison itself is on an oil rig just off the coast of California.

* The OldDarkHouse belonging to the titular family in ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles'' becomes one of these in ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'''s [[SettingUpdate setting-updated]] version, replacing the Victorian GothicHorror trappings of the original story with [[ConspiracyKitchenSink those of the more contemporary conspiracy and paranormal horror genre]]. Given that many British military installations were originally old manor houses, it's quite possible that Baskerville Hall ''literally'' became one of these.
* The plot of UK miniseries/''Series/MasterpieceTheatre'' episode ''Series/{{Sleepers}}'' kicks off when the KGB rediscovers an abandoned black site/program where agents [[DeepCoverAgent were trained to pretend to be British citizens and sent to blend in]], to be activated at some point in the future. By the time this happens 25 years later the two agents involved have gone thoroughly native and don't want to be activated or recalled.

* One episode of ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'' dealt with a secret prison where disidents who hadn't even been charged with crimes were placed into a fluid that causes sensory deprivation. Another showed an illegal internment camp where hybrids were rounded up and locked away.

* One episode of ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'' dealt with a secret prison where disidents who hadn't even been charged with crimes were placed into a fluid that causes sensory deprivation.

* One early story mission in ''VideoGame/{{XCOM 2}}'' involves investigating an Advent Blacksite.

* Area 51 is probably the archetypal example, appearing in fiction often enough to [[{{Area51}} have its own trope]]. Sadly (for conspiracy theorists and fiction writers, anyway) it was declassified in 2013 revealing what most non-conspiracy theorists already suspected, that it was a facility for the development and testing of new experimental military aircraft and military aircraft technologies, most of which get declassified themselves after a decade or so, and nuclear research after being commissioned post-WWII. This has done nothing to stop rumors of [[TheConspiracy sinister conspiracies]] and ImportedAlienPhlebotinum, since conspiracy theorists rarely believe "The Official Story" anyhow.
* Nearby is Area 19, containing a high voltage power line that terminates in the middle of the desert, far from the nearest building. Many believe the power line must be powering one of these.
** It should be noted that the surrounding Nevada desert is actually littered with numbered government "Areas" purchased under the Nevada Test Site land grant, though for the most part, Areas 51 and 19 are the only ones with any sort of intriguing air of secrecy or with any place in conspiracy lore. There are about 28 confirmed areas that are officially part of the Nevada Test Site, numbered 1-30 (13 was deliberately skipped over due to ThirteenIsUnlucky, and 28 was decommissioned, split up, and reassigned as additional land for Areas 25 and 27) They were originally allotted for nuclear testing, which the government eventually realized that they didn't need ''nearly'' that much space for, and re-purposed the majority of the sites as things like bombing-ranges and [[SubvertedTrope boring non-secret]] [[SecretGovernmentWarehouse government warehouses]] (for stuff like ration stockpiles, surplus service weapons, and archived paperwork). Area 51 is located off-site, and given the number, it stands to reason that there must be ''at least'' 20 other off-site "Areas", but information about them is so difficult to come by that [[ExtraStrengthMasquerade there aren't even any rumors or conspiracy theories about them]].
* The British equivalent, meanwhile, is Porton Down, an extremely secretive biological and chemical weapons testing facility in the Cotswolds of Southern England that's run by the Ministry of Defence. [[note]] And by secretive, we mean that when there was a very carefully managed documentary made about it ran on BBC 4 (the broadcasting equivalent of leaving something in the desert sun to die), most of the first part of the film was buildings being filmed, the presenter asking questions and being stonily told, "Sorry, that's classified." And those were just the ones they were actually allowed to film. [[/note]] Like Area 51, it has a reputation for dissecting alien corpses and human experimentation. Unlike Area 51, no one with any sense wants to get anywhere near it (house prices are notably lower in villages downwind of the facility), and the human experimentation thing is based in fact: a 50 year legal battle by the family of Aircraftsman Ronald Madison, who died in 1953 at the age of 20, revealed that his death was caused by Sarin exposure during 'volunteer testing'. Between 1953 and 1976 it also released ''E. Coli'' bacteria, among others, off the coast of Britain to simulate an Anthrax attack, invented the nerve agent 'VX', and rendered Gruinard island off Scotland uninhabitable by testing Anthrax on it (though it has supposedly been decontaminated since 1986).
** Currently, the official story is that while they do still test and study biological and chemical agents, they only do so in order to figure out how to cure and counter them. The British government also freely admits that there have been over ''20,000'' human volunteers involved in studies at Porton Down since it was founded in 1916, with current human trials apparently being restricted to ensuring that protective gear works. This proclamation would be more believable if it wasn't preceded by the words [[BlatantLies 'The Volunteer Programme has always been operated to the highest ethical standards of the day.']] And if this doesn't sound quite enough like an organisation of supervillains and/or the real life [[ComicBook/XMen Weapon X Project]], the head of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee (equivalent to a Congressional Committee) said in 1999, "I would not say that the Defence Committee is micro-managing either DERA or Porton Down. We visit it, but, with eleven members of Parliament and five staff covering a labyrinthine department like the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces, it would be quite erroneous of me and misleading for me to say that we know everything that’s going on in Porton Down. It’s too big for us to know, and secondly, there are many things happening there that I’m not even certain Ministers are fully aware of, let alone Parliamentarians." In other words, if the zombie apocalypse starts in Britain, this place will probably be the location of Patient Zero.
* Los Alamos National Laboratory was founded during World War II as a secret, centralized facility to coordinate the scientific research of the Manhattan Project, the Allied project to develop the first nuclear weapons. In September 1942, the difficulties encountered in conducting preliminary studies on nuclear weapons at universities scattered across the country indicated the need for a laboratory dedicated solely to that purpose. Over the course of the project, Los Alamos hosted thousands of employees, including many Nobel Prize-winning scientists. The location was a total secret, and all mail had to be sent through a Santa Fe post office box. The lab had a long-term relationship with the University of California, but due to the heavy classification, University of California president Robert Sproul did not know until after the bombs were dropped just what the purpose of the laboratory was and thought it might be producing a "death ray". The only member of the UC administration who knew its true purpose—indeed, the only one who knew its exact physical location—was the Secretary-Treasurer Robert Underhill, who was in charge of wartime contracts and liabilities.
* The Metro-2 (the Russian presidential metro). Its existence is still vehemently denied by Russian authorities. However, several spelunkers claim to have visited the Metro-2, many government officials have spoken of it (albeit mostly describing it as being in disrepair), and the CIA even has maps of it.
** Mount Yamantau is the Russian equivalent of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, as it reportedly contains a secret extensive bunker complex for either the Russian government, armed forces or both. Repeated questions have yielded several different responses from the Russian government regarding Mount Yamantau, including it is a mining site, a repository for Russian treasures, a food storage area, and a bunker for leaders in case of nuclear war. In 1997, a United States Congressional finding, related to the country's National Defense Authorization Act for 1998, stated that the Russian Federation kept up a "deception and denial policy" about the mountain complex after U.S. officials had given Cheyenne Mountain Complex tours to Russian diplomats, which the finding stated "... does not appear to be consistent with the lowering of strategic threats, openness, and cooperation that is the basis of the post-Cold War strategic partnership between the United States and Russia."
** Kapustin Yar is Russia's Area 51, as while it's a rocket test, launch and development site in Astrakhan Oblast and not far from Volgograd, it is also the site of numerous Soviet-era UFO sightings and has been nicknamed "Russia's Roswell".
* In the 1950s the US government built an elaborate top secret nuclear bunker code named Project Greek Island under the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia that was intended to protect members of congress in the event of nuclear Armageddon. The site was decommissioned in 1992 after being exposed by the press, and now offers tours to visitors.
** Several other still-active elaborate bunkers in other locations were also built to house other government bodies, although most of the others (despite the government doing very little to broadcast their existence) were never officially classified as any sort of secret and, after being dragged into the public eye by the press, smoothly transitioned from being places you could only really find out about by looking up the relevant (but publicly available) documentation to being openly discussed locations complete with their own government websites and numerous appearances in fiction. The two most notable being Raven Rock Mountain Complex in Pennsylvania--assigned to the military and the Department of Defense--and Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in Virginia, which is assigned to assorted civilian and military top brass and a very popular location for conspiracy theorists to claim as the headquarters of the Shadow Government.
* The notorious Hanger 18 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio is often alleged to be a small Black Site where the wrecked flying saucer and alien corpses from [[RoswellThatEndsWell the Roswell crash]] were taken to be studied, although this theory seems to be on the decline, with more recent retellings saying the wreckage was taken to [[{{Area51}} Area 51]] instead, despite the fact that [[CriticalResearchFailure Area 51 didn't exist in 1947]].
* In modern Western democracies, this trope is inextricably mixed up with the OpenSecret. Britain's Ordnance Survey maps are rightly acclaimed as one of the best, most accurate and most detailed representations available anywhere. This leads to several rather contradictory situations brought about by the military origins of the OS - the maps were first created for military use, hence the name - and the fact they have evolved over a century of refinement and differing priorities. For instance, the location of Britain's special forces bases is officially a close-guarded secret, but anyone buying the relevant map section will see an Army barracks with virtually all its buildings faithfully represented and even ''named'' as Stirling Lines. Anyone looking on the maps for the Aldermaston nuclear research base, the GCHQ research station at Martlesham, Suffolk, or the American spy station at Menwith Hill, will, however, just see rolling empty countryside, with no apparent sign a large military installation is there. Despite the fact locals will happily point you to the radomes and buildings and the razor wire fences.
* P.O. Box 1142 was a Black Site of the Secret Prison variety. Located in Fort Hunt, Virginia, it was the home to the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Service sections X and Y during World War II. MIS-X was concerned with aiding American [=POWs=] and providing them the means to escape. MIS-Y was the final destination for captured high-ranking German officials, including Operation Paperclip recruits. In a subversion of the example at the top of the page, no torture ever took place there, however prisoners' cells and certain facilities were bugged to gather intelligence outside of interrogation rooms.
* In 2015 the Chicago Police Department came under fire for operating what's been [[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/19/homan-square-chicago-police-disappeared-thousands termed a black site at Homan Square]], a warehouse where criminal suspects would go missing for days and be interrogated without being booked or having access to a lawyer.

Note that in RealLife, the existence and locations of Black Sites will often not be officially classified as secret, but all information about them beyond that ''will be''. This is why [[OpenSecret everyone and their dog knows about]] {{Area 51}} but details about the facility such as what it's for, what's inside it, what goes on there, who works there, and what it looks like from any vantage other than low earth orbit is still very much an [[StockUnsolvedMysteries Unsolved Mystery]][[note]]Or at least it was, until being largely declassified in 2013 (see dedicated trope page for more info), but [[RuleOfCool that's not as cool]][[/note]]. However, even if the facility's existence isn't classified, that just means they legally ''can'' tell the public about it, not that they necessarily ''will''.

* The Aeonar in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' is a Chantry prison reserved for rogue mages, its location is a closely guarded secret known only to a handful of Templars and its not even listed in the world map (presumably, its somewhere in Southern/ Western Thedas outside of [[TheEmpire Tevinter's]] control). Though its never actually seen in the game, the Aeonar is said to be a miserable place to be sent due to the presence of demons and being sentenced there is considered AFateWorseThanDeath.

* The Black Mesa Research Facility from ''VideoGame/HalfLife1''.

In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', the various bases belonging to the Air Watch, Ankh-Morpork's nearest thing to an Air Force, where all manner of flight research goes on as well as unorthodox operational flying. It doesn't help that Air Witches with a ''wicked'' sense of humour will drop hints about ''[[Area51 Area Fifty-Seven]]'' and what may be going on there. Just for a laugh.

* In ''Disney/BigHero6'', the entire island where the transportation experiment was carried out gets quarantined after the accident. The heroes enter the location to look for the villain.

In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', the various bases belonging to the Air Watch, Ankh-Morpork's nearest thing to an Air Force, where all manner of flight research goes on as well as unorthodox operational flying. It doesn't help that Air Witches with a ''wicked'' sense of humour will drop hints about ''Area Fifty-Seven'' and what may be going on there. Just for a laugh.

* During WWII, ThoseWackyNazis sent an exploratory expedition to a region of Antarctica which they dubbed "''Neuschwabenland''" ("New Swabia" to English speakers), but never constructed any form of base camp or research station there. May conspiracy theorists claim they ''did'' construct a facility there. A secret one, built in secret and hidden somehow to keep it secret, which, despite it's secrecy, is somehow known to be named "Base 211" by conspiracy theorists. Depending on who you ask, Base 211 is either still manned by loyal Nazis who plan to use it as a staging ground from which to orchestrate the creation of a Fourth Reich, a the launch site for [[StupidJetpackHitler an expedition to the moon, where they built]] [[SpaceBase another base]] from which they plan to orchestrate the creation of a Fourth Reich, or an entry point into the fantastic lands inside the Earth ([[HollowWorld which is hollow]]), [[RuleOfThree from which they plan to orchestrate the creation of a Fourth Reich]]. Rarely is it brought up that [[WritersHaveNoSenseOfScale the original expedition happened almost 80 years ago, and that even if there was a permanent Nazi crew stationed in New Swabia (or wherever they went after that), they'd surely be dead by now]].

# SecretGovernmentWarehouse, holding anything from the paperwork that reveals WhoShotJFK to HiddenSupplies in case of an emergency (such as AlienInvasion--the more secretive, the more unusual the emergency it is CrazyPrepared to encounter).

!!Examples

** The Emperor had a great many such Black Sites, such as Weyland (another out-of-the-way planet, housing the biggest of his secret cloning facilities), the Maw Installation (built in a gravitational oasis inside a cluster of black holes, devoted to superweapon research) and Lusankya (a Super Star Destroyer buried in the cityscape of Coruscant itself, used as a max-sec prison, secret base and imperial getaway vehicle).

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild "The Empty Child"]], Limehouse Green Station in London, the place where the "bomb" fell, is sealed off by the army.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E7TheIdiotsLantern "The Idiot's Lantern"]], the Wire is stealing peoples' faces through their TV sets from Magpie's shop. The police, not wanting to cause a panic with the coronation leaving them deprived of needed officers for a full investigation (and Torchwood breathing down their necks), abduct the victims, putting bags over their heads to hide their faceless faces, and store them in a black site. This is first made clear when the Doctor and Rose, upon arriving in the area, spot one such faceless victim being taken away by the police. They chase down the police car on their scooter, but the police officer, realizing he's being followed, radios ahead "Operation Market Stall! Go go go!" so by the time the Doctor and Rose make it to the black site entrance, they find only the disguised entrance (plainclothes cops pretending to sweep market stalls).

** The Black Archive, [=UNIT=]'s "[[SecretGovernmentWarehouse depository of everything that shouldn't exist on Earth but does anyway]]", appeared first in ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' episode [[Recap/TheSarahJaneAdventuresS2E11E12EnemyOfTheBane "Enemy of the Bane"]] as a rather difficult-to-miss, advanced-looking military base within sight of at least one road, but by the time it appeared on ''Doctor Who'' proper, in [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], it had been relocated to under the Tower of London. Ironically, [[LandmarkingTheHiddenBase Landmarking the Black Site]] is actually a ''less'' obvious hiding place.

* [=CONTROL=] Headquarters in ''Series/GetSmart'', with its now-iconic oft-referenced entrance corridor full of dozens of dramatically opening automatic doors. It's only ''after'' going through all the doors (which presumably require clearance to pass) that you come to the elevator (unnecessarily disguised as a phone booth in an otherwise empty room), which leads to the real facility, located [[ElaborateUndergroundBase underground]].

* One such site appears on ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', which the team is tasked with breaking into as part of a security exercise. It turns out to be part of a larger operation to expose a mole.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'': Vigil tells Shepard's party that the Prothean research facility on Illos survived because it was top secret and went completely dark when the Reapers began their invasion.