Silvermine (ECHELON)

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Silvermine is a former ECHELON intelligence gathering station in the Silvermine Nature Reserve in the Cape Peninsula. The station was built when there was still close intelligence gathering cooperation between the pre-1994 South African government and the USA.

In 1969 the head of the South African intelligence agency BOSS, Hendrik van der Bergh, allowed the American National Security Agency access to the station. [1]

Silvermine is strategically located to cover a vast swath of the Indian ocean and Atlantic ocean. Presumably it was mainly used to gather signal intelligence from Soviet vessels operating in the area.

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In keeping with its National Security Agency heritage the site is not sign posted at all and bears no identification markings or signage whatsoever on or within the antennae enclosures.

Antenna 1	Antenna 1 guard tower foundation	Gate into Antenna 1 complex	Antenna 1 through the wire
Antenna 2 through the wire	Antenna 3 through the wire	Antenna 3 & 4 control bunker	Antenna 4 through the wire