(05-07-2015 04:18 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(05-07-2015 03:08 PM)gsloth Wrote:  Or sometimes they won't be on any maps due to national security reasons. Got a "funny" story of a construction crew in Tysons Corner who unexpectedly hit a fiber optics bundle while digging, then shortly found themselves surrounded by black Suburbans with rather intense passengers to whom they had to explain a few things.

gsloth, were you involved in, or merely referring to, this incident, described in the May 31, 2009, Washington Post?

Amy Gardner Wrote:This part happens all the time: A construction crew putting up an office building in the heart of Tysons Corner a few years ago hit a fiber optic cable no one knew was there.

This part doesn't: Within moments, three black sport-utility vehicles drove up, a half-dozen men in suits jumped out and one said, "You just hit our line."

Whose line, you may ask? The guys in suits didn't say, recalled Aaron Georgelas, whose company, the Georgelas Group, was developing the Greensboro Corporate Center on Spring Hill Road. But Georgelas assumed that he was dealing with the federal government and that the cable in question was "black" wire -- a secure communications line used for some of the nation's most secretive intelligence-gathering operations.

"The construction manager was shocked," Georgelas recalled. "He had never seen a line get cut and people show up within seconds. Usually you've got to figure out whose line it is. To garner that kind of response that quickly was amazing."

Black wire is one of the looming perils of the massive construction that has come to Tysons, where miles and miles of secure lines are thought to serve such nearby agencies as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Counterterrorism Center and, a few miles away in McLean, the Central Intelligence Agency. After decades spent cutting through red tape to begin work on a Metrorail extension and the widening of the Capital Beltway, crews are now stirring up tons of dirt where the black lines are located.
. . .

I was not involved, but that's the incident. I used to work right around the corner (20 years ago) and am familiar with that access road, Clyde's Restaurant, and that oddly placed tower. (Though not really odd - it's the highest point in Fairfax County. I used to have a west-facing corner office on that same hill and could watch planes landing at Dulles and see to the mountains on a clear day.)