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In 1963, the US leased an area of North West Cape for theestablishment of a VLF Communications Station, as part of its worldwide nuclear submarine force communications network. The area'scloud-free atmosphere suited to VLF transmissions. The base wassubsequently named the Harold Holt US Navy Communications Base, namedafter the former Prime Minister of Australia - who mysteriously drownedwhile he was in office.

The town of Exmouth, which is quite remote, was constructed in 1964as the support town for the base. Today, Exmouth's claim to fame is thefact that it is the closest mainland town to the continental shelf.This results in there being very rich fishing grounds within closereach. In addition, it has colourful coral reefs very close to theshore.

The base's vast array of antennas and towers stand out in starkcontrast to the harsh natural beauty of the surrounding terrain. Thefacility is divided into three principal sites - Areas A, B and C.  Area A lies on the northernmost tip of the peninsula is theNorth West Cape VLF Transmitter Station. It is supported by a centraltower surrounded by two concentric circles each of six smaller towersranging from 304 to 387 metres in height and is 2.5 km in diameter. Itcommunicates over immense distances with submerged submarines in theIndian Ocean. The towers are the tallest located on a tropical cycloneprone coast in the world. When constructed, they were the tallestman-made structures in the southern hemisphere.

Rising to a dizzying height of 387 metres is Tower Zero, the tallestman-made structure in the Southern hemisphere when it was completed. Ithas carried anemometers at several levels since the early 1970's,although these have been in a poor state of repair for some years.Another 12 towers stand in two concentric rings around it. The towerssupport "large spider webs of wire" - the Very Low Frequency (VLF)antenna array covering one thousand acres - the largest in the world.In 1967 a navigation light was fixed to Tower Zero, making the nearbyVlamingh Head Lighthouse obsolete.

A few kilometres to the south is Area B. It consists of theinstallation's headquarters and the High Frequency transmittersite.  Area C - the main receiver site of this secretive facility- is located 60 km further to the south.

Collectively the three sites function as a window into anextraordinary world that few of us are privy to, the vast and oftenmind boggling world of military intelligence. In the overall web offacilities that make up the worldwide US intelligence gatheringnetwork, North West Cape, for many years, played an important andacutely sensitive role. It was never very far from the drama andcontroversy that pivoted around the fears of possible nuclear warbetween the superpowers.

The base played a major role in US communications and intelligencethroughtout the Cold War, its importance first being realised by theAustralian Government during the Middle East War of 1973. On 11thOctober, 1973, five days after the Middle East War broke out, NorthWest Cape along with other US bases in Australia were put on fullalert.

According to Richard Hall, in his book The Secret State (1978), thisalert status was to escalate dramatically due to "an NSA misreading ofArabic in a Syrian message to the USSR which led Kissinger and Nixon tobelieve that Soviet troops might be sent to the Middle East." Thisfiasco climaxed early on the morning of 25th October, 1973, inWashington. A full nuclear alert went out to all US forces. North WestCape was used to communicate the alert to both conventional and nuclearforces in this region. The acute security alert status "Def Con 3" wasreached.

During its early years, the base was manned totally by hundreds ofUS military personnel whose left-hand-drive fully imported Chevrolets,Pontiacs and Chryslers were more common around the town of Exmouth thatAustralian right hand drive vehicles. The Boeing Aircraft Company alonehad 145 employees based at Exmouth to instal and service thecommunications equipment it had manufactured for the base.

In 1972, US Naval Communications Station Harold E Holt became ajoint facility, with an RAN officer as second in command, and 35 RoyalAustralian Navy personnel integrated into the general operations at thebase. Though many of the US personnel went home, enough stayed toretain the "American" flavour of the town.

At the time, the United States presence on Australian soil furthercomplicated the political picture at a time when Australia supported anIndian Ocean 'zone of peace' and nuclear disarmament was a major ColdWar issue.

In May 1974 several hundred people travelled to North West Cape fromaround Australia to protest and occupy the base and "symbolicallyreclaiming it for the Australian people". During the occupation theEureka Flag was flown over the base with fifty five people arrestedduring the protest. Songs composed in the campaign against North WestCape and other US bases in Australia include We don't want no YankeeBases and Omega Doodle which have become part of the Australianfolkloric tradition. As a consequence, from 1967 until October 1992 aNaval Security Group Detachment was stationed at the facility.

The North West Cape transmitter is just slightly north of the Tropicof Capricorn, and its antipode is directly in the middle of the Bermudatriangle.

It is almost certain that the earlier version of Pine Gap's Very LowFrequency Transceiver, which is located at North West Cape, was used totransmit very powerful undersea electric currents to US submarineswhich trail long antennae behind them. It is also known thatelectricity transmitted in this way can be 'strong' enough to rechargeon-board high-voltage batteries known as plasma-dynamic storage cells

On 25th October 1973, two US Navy personnel observed a UFO hoveringnear the Base. Their report, in part, reads, "The object was due westof Area B, the location of the High Frequency Transmitter...it wascompletely stationary except for a halo around the centre, whichappeared to be either revolving or pulsating... It suddenly took off ata tremendous speed and disappeared..."

Perhaps the collapse of the cold war has removed the need for covertcommunication by the US in the Indian Ocean, but for whatever reason,the United States turned over control of the station to Australia in1999 and withdrew all its personnel. It was then run by the AustralianDepartment of Defence with only a handful of staff, none of whom liveon the base.

Today, the base is run by the private concern, Boeing Australia. Inaddition to the operation and maintenance of the Royal AustralianNavy's Very Low Frequency (VLF) and High Frequency (HF) communicationssystems, Boeing's NES Systems Support and Operations division teamprovide comprehensive infrastructure support services at the base.

Boeing Australia is also the prime contractor for the operation andmaintenance of the Transmit and Receive sites associated with the NavalCommunications Station located in Darwin; the Maritime HF communicationfacility in Belconnen, ACT, the Defence Communications Network, locatedat the Defence Centre in Deakin, Canberra, the satellite communicationssystems, equipment laboratory and the telephone system at JDFN Woomera,SA, and to the Australian Defence Force for the operations andmaintenance of classified satellite communications facilities atGeraldton (WA) and Shoal Bay (NT).

During the 1990s those parts of the station not included inoperational areas were passed to the Defence Estate Organisation formanagement. Some buildings are now used for other than Defence purposesincluding dive operations, tourist accommodation, bar and bistro,ten-pin bowling and a community arts centre.

Dramatic suggestions have been made, though never proved, thatpowerful radio signals from the Naval Communications Station at Exmouthinterfered with the computer of a Qantas jet on 7 October 2008, causingit to plunge 650ft in seconds as it passed over Exmouth on its journeyto Perth from Singapore.

A similar event had taken place at almost the exact same spot threeyears prior.  Malaysia Airlines Flight 124, operated by a Boeing777-2H6ER flying from Perth to Kuala Lumpur on 1 August 2005 alsoreceived faulty indications and the plane pitched upwards and stalled.Autopilot was disengaged and proved unusable for the remainder of theflight.

Investigators quickly established that a computer on the QantasAirbus A330-300 sent wrong information to the autopilot, resulting inthe pilots losing control, but just what caused that glitch hasremained a mystery.

Checks were made on the type of laptop computers passengers wereusing - and even electronic games have come under survey - but thebasic cause of the problem that sent the plane rising and then falling,resulting in some 70 passengers being injured when they were thrownagainst the ceiling, was never determined.

The pilot was a highly trained former air force flier who had flownMirage jets. He made an emergency landing at Learmonth airport nearExmouth. At Learmonth, the plane was met by the Royal Flying DoctorService and CareFlight, where 14 people were airlifted to Perth forhospitalisation, with 39 others also attending hospital. Two planeswere sent by Qantas to Learmonth to collect the remaining passengersand crew. In all, 1 crew member and 11 passengers suffered seriousinjuries, while 8 crew and 95 passengers suffered minor injuries.

The report of the official investigation into the incident concludedthat the accident "occurred due to the combination of a designlimitation in the flight control primary computer (FCPC) software ofthe Airbus A330/Airbus A340, and a failure mode affecting one of theaircraft’s three air data inertial reference units (ADIRUs). Thedesign limitation meant that, in a very rare and specific situation,multiple spikes in angle of attack (AOA) data from one of the ADIRUscould result in the FCPCs commanding the aircraft to pitch down."

On 27 December 2008, a Qantas A330-300 aircraft operating from Perthto Singapore was involved in an occurrence 350 nautical miles(650 km) south of Learmonth Airport while flying at 36,000 feet.At this time, the autopilot disconnected. The crew actioned the revisedprocedure released by Airbus after the earlier accident and returned toPerth uneventfully.

The incident again fuelled media speculation regarding thesignificance of the Naval Communications facility, with the Australianand International Pilots Association calling for commercial aircraft tobe barred from the area as a precaution until the events were betterunderstood. The manager of the facility claimed that it was "highly,highly unlikely" that any interference has been caused.

RAAF Base Learmonth, and The Learmonth Solar Observatory, which areboth nearby, were not mentioned in any of the official investigations.The Learmonth Solar Observatory exists for the prime purpose ofmonitoring the sun, however other projects undertaken here, accordingto Government websites, include planetary defence, ionosphere(basically the upper atmosphere) monitoring and meteor detection andtracking. Whether the Observatory's activities could have caused themalfunctions has never been clarified.