Project Sanguine

Project Sanguine was a U.S. Navy project, proposed in 1968 and only implemented in a more limited form, to create a hardened extremely low frequency (ELF) radio transmitter facility in Wisconsin to communicate with deeply submerged submarines. The originally proposed system would have a giant "antenna" consisting of 6000 miles of buried cables in a rectangular grid covering 22,500 square miles, 40% of the state of Wisconsin, powered by 100 underground power plants in concrete bunkers. The cables were grounded at their ends, and loops of AC electric current flowed deep in the ground between the ends of the cable, generating ELF waves. The original design was projected to cost billions and consume 800 megawatts of power. The goal was a system that could transmit tactical orders one-way to U.S. nuclear submarines anywhere in the world, and survive a direct nuclear attack.

The project was controversial from the start and was attacked by politicians, antiwar and environmental groups concerned about the effects of high ground currents and electromagnetic fields on the environment. The nuclear survivability of the system was made doubtful by Soviet development of MIRVed ballistic missiles. After an attempt to resite the project in Texas which was also stopped by public opposition, the Navy abandoned Sanguine and proposed a series of increasingly modest variants: Project Seafarer (1975), Austere ELF (1978), and finally Project ELF (1981), which was constructed.