In order to have a calmer life, John Sims moved to Tucson, Arizona. He had no idea that it would become one of the most memorable times in his life.

The trouble began when the previous owner of his new home told him about a scary rumor.

Someone said that there was something buried on the property. John could not take it out of his mind, so he dug in the backyard. It gave him chills what he found out. He did not sign up for this at all.

The house with a strange back yard


Before John Sims knew it, a friend was selling a house in the middle of Tucson, Arizona. He was eager to get the deal. He knew he would be safe with the owner because they were friends. But after the paperwork was done, his friend told him a story about the house.

What the town’s elders say: they think there was a strange object buried somewhere in it. His friend never found the answer, but John might. It turned out that John would find something that would make people all over Arizona talk.

Getting interested made him do it.


While John was moving his things into his new home, he couldn’t help but think about what his friend had said. He wanted to know more and was interested. Soon, he was set on discovering the hidden secrets of his new home.

John went outside to look around and started digging. He dug four holes in the backyard in the end, but John didn’t find anything. He must have found it under the bricks since he couldn’t find it under the grass.

It’s marked with an X.


John looked through city records and found the record of when his house was built. In 1961, a company called Whitaker Pools built a strange building that it showed. John was more determined to figure out what was going on now that he had proof that something was buried on the property.

To help him find the exact spot, he hired people with metal detectors. A group with the right tools showed up and searched John’s backyard. The metal detectors started to go off soon after. John put a big X in the ground at the two places where the metal detectors went off.

Being hit by something


John got excited, grabbed a shovel, and started digging after sending the consultants home. His shovel didn’t take long to hit something metal. He finally found something three feet below the ground. John chose to stop and think now that he had made progress.

But what if this was a sewage tank? For example, what if he broke or damaged a pipe? He had to work slowly. It took him a while to figure out that this wasn’t what it seemed to be, but finally he did. In his yard, he was about to figure out what was going on.

Getting the hatch open


In the end, John found what looked like the opening to a hatch. He got on his knees to wipe off the dirt and pry the metal lid open. John was careful not to breathe in too much because there was a good chance that there were mold spores or toxic gas fumes.

John left the lid open for a day so that any air that was coming up from below could escape and let fresh air into the building. He also knew that mold had to be checked in the air before he could go into the small space.

It wasn’t safe.


John looked inside the hatch in the morning. He discovered a spiral staircase that led down. Most people would be so excited that they would start going down right away, but John wasn’t that stupid.

He should have known better. He had to have someone nearby in case the lid fell back on because he was captain of the Rural/Metro Fire Department. There was no way he could lift the lid from the bottom by himself since he was at home by himself.

Making a group


John was trained and had a lot of experience saving people who were stuck in small spaces, so he knew all the risks. He could tell the stairs weren’t stable, and going into the shaft by himself would be too dangerous.

John chose to put together a team. He asked some friends to come over and help him. These people could help him dig further, and some of them could watch the shaft until it was safe to go inside and look around.

Making a plan


The next day, when everyone got together, they sat down and made a plan. They also talked about what they should do next. The concrete structure around the stairs was fixed and made stronger as one of the first things they did.

To make sure they didn’t damage anything while they worked, they put up Sonotube cardboard around the doorway. John and his crew worked to put down layers of concrete and make sure the rebar inside the hatch was safe.

It was a lot of work.


It was important for John to cover the hatch with a tarp to protect both the hatch and the team. Things were getting tough because of the Arizona heat. While they took breaks to cool off, they thought about what might be down there.

There was a lot to do to figure things out. There had to be an electrical line put in so that they could use power tools and have good lighting inside the shaft. Also, a black pipe was put in to bring fresh air into the shaft.

Getting inside


Finally, they were done with their work around the building. That being said, the spiral staircase was another problem. It wasn’t clear if the steps could hold any weight because they were so rusty. They couldn’t use the stairs, so they had to find another way in.

They used a ladder, and John had to be careful as he went down to avoid cutting himself on the rusty stairs. John was very happy and excited. He was the first person who could figure out what was going on. He was finally ready for this moment.

There was more to do.


John was glad that they didn’t have to dig any further because he had reached the bottom. Still, there was more work to do. Fiberglass was used to cover the ceilings of the tunnels, but it was slowly coming apart. In other words, the building was still not safe.

John carefully looked around and couldn’t believe that the building was mostly in good shape after being ignored for almost fifty years. Even though the building was empty at first, it became clear what it was: John’s yard had a nuclear bomb shelter!

As far back as the Cold War


Everything made sense at once. The shelter was built during the Cold War, when there was a real chance of a full-scale nuclear war between the US and the USSR. At that time, Whitaker Pools became a bigger business by building bomb shelters.

Indeed, there were a number of homes in the Tucson area that had bomb shelters. The smartest thing for a family man to do back then was to make sure their loved ones would be safe in case of a nuclear war.

History of Tucson


It turns out that Tucson and bombs have a long history. There used to be 18 ballistic missiles in Tucson that could go across continents and destroy an area of 900 square miles. The city was known as “rocket town.”

The government kept the missile silos a secret, and because the Cold War was over, almost all of the rockets were turned off. In the early 1980s, most of the nuclear shelters were also destroyed or locked up.

Getting around


When John wrote on Reddit about what he found in his backyard, the story went viral right away. In just a few hours, there were a lot of comments on the post. Newspapers and TV shows in the area started calling to ask to talk about it.

There were even articles about it in newspapers around the world, like the Daily Mail. Japan had also heard about John’s story. It really was a big find. People in Tucson began to wonder if they had one in their yard too.

What will happen next?


Because of all the attention, John was able to get in touch with other people in the area who also have fallout shelters on their land. They were able to give him ideas about what to do with it by telling him how they cleaned it out.

John wants to make a Cold War museum out of his, while most people turned theirs into wine cellars or man caves. John learned a lot about the Cold War and began to collect things from that time, such as Geiger counters, water supply barrels, HAM radios, and sanitation kits.

What he thought about his find


John said in an interview, “I really hoped it was going to be a little microcosm—a time capsule full of first aid kits, radiation detectors, cots, and other things like that.” The bomb shelter was very sad because it didn’t even have any furniture in it.

John also said he had read a lot about the Cold War. In the 1960s, he thinks that the Cuban Missile Crisis was the main reason why people in Tucson built bomb shelters in their backyards.

Advice for people who live in Tucson


If people in Tucson want to know if they have a bomb shelter in their backyard, John suggests that they look up information in the City of Tucson or Pima County records. It’s likely that the information will be in the building permits.

John also tells everyone that when they find a bomb shelter in the yard, they shouldn’t go in too quickly. “Jumping into holes in the ground is usually not a good idea,” John said, adding that the poisonous air in a tunnel or cave-in can easily knock someone out.


Needing money to get by

John is 100% determined to fix up the bomb shelter. He didn’t have that much cash, though. He made a GoFundMe page to get money to fix up his 1960s bomb shelter. He was going to rebuild the front door and do work on the inside too.

One of John’s main goals was to fix the staircase so that it was safe for people to use. With the money he was able to get, John was able to do that. He and the people working on the renovations can now go in and out safely.