On our last trip out to Montauk Point, we visit Camp Hero which lies next to the Lighthouse. Again, the parallels with Orford Ness are striking. Camp Hero, like the Ness, was a strategic military defence station looking east from the C18th to C20th. And, like the Ness, its east coast location lead to it being used for long range radar, now decommissioned, and a nature reserve and State Park.
The crumbling former military concrete structures are set within the Camp Hero State Park, but can only be viewed from afar. Most striking of all is the AN/FPS-35 Radar structure, a ghost of the Cold War era with a reflector that is 38m long and 12m high. It is said that it was so powerful that it disrupted local TV and radio broadcasts when it was first used in the early 1960s. It is an incongruous landmark in the State Park and can be seen from miles around (including from the top of the Lighthouse).
Like the Ness, there is an eery, menacing feel to the place that nature is slowly taking over.
Using the footage of the concrete ‘pagodas’ at Orford Ness and the Radar here, I experiment with overlaying the two sites on film.
