MovieChat Forums > The Andromeda Strain (1971) Discussion > Does a Wildfire facility exist?

Does a Wildfire facility exist?

posted 14 years ago by mickeyone
12 replies | jump to latest

Do you think the United States has a Wildfire type facility, as portrayed in this movie? If not, why not? What do you think would happen if one of our satellites or probes came back to Earth with a microbe like Andromeda Strain? How would we handle it?

In the movie, this whole thing was TOP SECRET!! But I have to wonder, why? I like the way, when they come to Stone's house and say, "there is a fire", and he can't even tell his wife. And later his wife tries to call her congressman/father to find out what is going on and she is cut off. That was all pretty cool. But is there really a need to keep it all so hush-hush? I do believe the U.S. Government would probably do that. They always seem to prefer to classify stuff if they can think of any reason to do so.

[–] rockmail 14 years ago

Of course the CDC and other organizations have sterile and secure facilities to manage and examine biological samples. But there is no need for a super complex facility with a nuclear destruct capability like Wildfire.

A nuclear device simply provides heat, pressure and radiation. All of those factors, plus chemical destruction can be provided by individual decontamination devices and procedures - there's no need to destroy the facility.

Of course there is a need to keep it secret, as much of the human population gets irrational and selfish when they think they are in danger, even if they are not in immediate peril. So finding a solution BEFORE the bulk of the population panics is top priority. If preventative measures can be taken first, then that information would be disseminated, such as with AIDS.

[–] mobocracy 10 years ago

Wildfire *had* all kinds of containment and prevention mechanisms -- sealed levels, decontamination procedures, gloveboxes, bodysuits, etc. The nuke was there to backstop all of them as a last-ditch containment system if they failed. Personally I would have thought they would have had a way to incinerate single levels at temps over 1000F versus just blowing the whole facility.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the biowarfare facilities the government had didn't also have some kind of self-destruct mechanism that would be able to ensure the total destruction of the entire facility in case the facilities safeguards failed, and there's always some chance that whatever the hell they do in those places doesn't somehow present a novel containment problem the existing systems can't handle.

I doubt any of them had nuclear weapons as a destruct mechanism since there's probably some risk of actually spreading something from the blast pressure -- but some method of literally burning the inside via a super high temperature thermite reaction that could be contained within the structure would seem to make sense.

But I would bet you a dollar that there was a Plan Z drawn up by a whole lot of stern faced people that DID involve using a tactical nuclear weapon against the site itself as a last-ditch effort to contain something civilization-threatening.

[–] PoppaRotzi 10 years ago

The U.S. government has an entire top-secret nation functioning below the ground. Anyone who says it doesn't exist is in denial.

People who read other peoples spoilers are idiots

[–] savagesteve13 14 years ago

Several.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] WyldeGoose 13 years ago

Actually, there are and have been similar facilities established principally for the purposes of biological and chemical warfare. There is probably no nuclear warhead to destroy the whole facility, but I wouldn't put it past them to put some sort of destruct mechanism in place to prevent the spread of diseases out of a certain room, or structure. Small pox is no joke. And there are weaponized versions of Meningitis that are downright scary (imagine this gets out, but by the time you start seeing symptoms of a plague, it's six months down the road - how many people could potentially be infected with that?).

Biological warfare is actually scarier than nuclear warfare. In most nuclear warfare scenarios there's always the probability that someone survives. In a lot of biological warfare scenarios - nobody survives. Not even eskimos.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] DreamLordsNextDoorNeighbor 12 years ago

Its in Dugway Utah

An object at rest, cannot be stopped!

[–] darryl-tahirali 11 years ago

Utah's Dugway Proving Grounds is a significant facility, and its desert location possibly inspired Michael Crichton, but when The Andromeda Strain was made, Fort Detrick in Maryland was the center of biological-warfare testing and development in the US.

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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." - Refugee in Casablanca

[–] knight_sentinel 11 years ago

They found a new rare bacteria in two different space craft clean rooms in two different facilities thousands of kilometers apart. - http://bit.ly/1gwmhzc

Minds that have withered into psychosis are far more terrifying than any character of fiction.

[–] TVholic 10 years ago

I don't know about you guys, but after seeing news reports about the extraordinary precautions being taken with the Ebola-infected American nurses, I'm going to watch this movie again this weekend.

[–] kurt7825 9 years ago

yes it does