In Response To My Very Own NUCL Question

[Proteus]

I feel slightly cheated by the razing of the magical NUCL building :/

My dad had a job as a network facilities maintenance worker while he was here and was assigned with the task of updating hardware for the Maeser building. Because the maps and alarm document are probably copyright, I haven't included them for now. Papa Proteus is a pretty histrionic fellow who likes to embellish any tale he tells just enough. He's a great storyteller, but I can't vouch for historical accuracy.

“Dad, tell me about the tunnels…”

… it was our first phone conversation in over a month since he’d left for school… and I had waited 25 years to hear those words.

With one son on a mission and the other starting his freshman year at the Y, I didn’t know how much to tell. Should I tell him that his nerd-for-a-father was once “Mike, the Tunnel King”? Would he believe me or think I was a greater geek than he’d ever suspected?

When I attended the Y, rumor had it that one could get expelled from the University for trespassing in the underground labyrinth that seemingly connected every major building on campus with super-heated steam pipes and communication cabling. Criss-crossing campus in long cement tubes, the tunnel tops are, unsuspectingly, the sidewalks themselves. These curious tunnels become evident when the Utah snows are quickly melted off long sections of the campus walkways above them.

Over the years, very little has been published about the campus tunnels – probably to discourage interest – but the opposite occurs. One film crew was allowed in the tunnels and then quickly removed because the crew strayed and got burnt on a pipe. In the summer of 1999, a student editorial intern in Brigham Young Magazine wrote a one-page article, “Tunnel Vision” about her disappointing journey down the campus tunnels.

My experience was much different – the kind of adventure that legends are made of. But after 25 years, memories get cloudy and so I’ve chosen to write them down for my son and let them stew a bit to be able to retrieve some of the details, embellish some of the facts, and maybe correlate stories with some of my old accomplices like John, Brian (Beneee – named after the “bend-over” tunnel to the Richards Building) or the legendary Gecktor [proteus note: I'm pretty sure this was both a nickname and a rarely-used term for a computer geek] of them all – Vaughn. Vaughn accompanied me on many of my journeys in the maze of passage-ways connecting cadaver storage and under-ground laboratories – he would remember some of the adventures and help me fill in missing gaps.

I related the following epic tunnel story in 2009 to Brigham Young University, President Cecil Samuelson while he was visiting Libertyville, IL and I attempted to return a piece of evidence from my journey – a tattered warning placard that I had borrowed (for 25 years). He laughed about my experience and told me to keep my trophy.

THE STORY OF THE SECRET MAESER TUNNEL:
The Maeser Building is the oldest building on the campus plateau and as such was by far the most difficult to document and retrofit for the newest in wiring for the IBM/Rolm digital phone and internet system in the late 1980’s. As student employees of Network Facilities under the direction of Sam Whitehead, we were responsible for documenting the wiring closets of each building and physically locating EVERY phone/ computer/ fax outlet to be sure that ALL analog wiring and equipment was replaced with the newer digital equipment. This was the first such upgrade in the campus telecommunications in the history of campus.

We had access to all building diagrams, campus tunnel maps, cabling routes etc… our job was to floor-by-floor, document every phone jack and wiring-closet and we had special “sniffing” equipment to track an electronic signal that we could send down lines and locate through walls and floors. We had located the ends (or jack outlets) for all but two of the lines from the Maeser’s wiring closets and we were determined to find these final two jacks. We attached our signaling device and began tracing the lines along the external walls. When the signal disappeared on a north wall of the basement, we knew the only thing beyond the wall was the entrance to the steam tunnels connecting buildings.

We retrieved the special keys for the access doors and entered the tunnel leaving the Maeser with mini-mag-lites in hand. Curiously, the tone was strong but the wires were heading away from the building strapped high on cast-iron pipes. At about 10 to 20 feet, the signal disappeared. We were following the main part of the new tunnel and were sure that we hadn’t seen a wall-phone outlet. We re-traced our steps and sure enough the signal and the wires disappeared in a gap over the south wall of the tunnel… huh? With much effort, we were able to scrape and crawl our way over the tunnel wall and drop down in what seemed to be an older tunnel/ gutter right out of Les Miserables. We inserted ourselves in the center of dusty, cob-webs so thick that they blocked the light from our mag-lites and mossy, moldy cobble-stone slanted into a four-inch trough at the bottom full of primordial ooze.

There were dead things in the trough too and the rank smell almost sent us back over the wall… but… the signal was strong and, sure enough, there were two old wires bailing-wire-strapped to the cast-iron pipes above our heads. It was our duty to find the terminations of those lines, for life, love and liberty! We put the mag-lites in our mouths and trudged on in the dark, dank, cold tunnel that now seemed to be leading us off the slanted south end of campus, slicing the dead webs in our path with our hands.

At one point, we could hear the traffic directly above us 10’ or 20’ feet along South Campus Drive (there is one man-hole cover there – hint hint), but we could tell it was darkening outside quickly from the limited light through the hole far above our heads. After another 50 yards, we were stopped dead in our tracks. There was a crusty, crumbly red-brick wall, built across the whole tunnel with only the 4in trough draining through. We would not be deterred so I swung my body up around the cast pipes and shinnied down to the top of the wall which was crumbling and gave the smallest of kicks – the bricks at the top complied and I had quickly made a hole just large enough for a body to inch through. With a little coaxing, my companions shinnied through and we were now in pitch darkness. Dust was thick and not quickly settling. The air was ancient in this part of the tunnel. We proceeded down, down, down, the moss was starting to dry, but the air stank worse.
Then our lights no longer hit the walls of the tunnel… in fact, our lights weren’t hitting anything!

One step further and I would have fallen to my death (Ok, maybe an exaggeration – but it was dang scary!). We had come to the ledge in the tunnel which emptied out into a cavernous, dark storage facility. We couldn’t see the opposing walls, but there was a small ledge heading to the right from the tunnel and an iron ladder at the end of the ledge to climb down to the floors below. It was dirty everywhere and there was a pile of dummy terminals taller than our heads heaped in one corner. There were two rooms on the south side of the partially underground facility. When we entered the southeast room we were startled by a large 6 foot diameter metallic container about 14 feet high with a diagram labeled “Core Housing Chamber”. It appeared to be a small nuclear power plant (what I would envision a submarine would use). There were other diagrams labeled “Dept of Defense” describing the “10 watt nuclear reactor” placed there in 1970’s.

Then we noticed something we hadn’t seen before – NOW there was a bright red LED light flashing quickly on the ceiling of the main lab. We were sure we had not seen this before. We could hear sirens – coincidence? I ran back to the core and grabbed the only evidence that wasn’t fastened down with bolts or rivets – a warning placard.

We tried the main double doors facing south – they were heavily chained and of course alarmed in several places. We ran to the southwest room and saw a second heavy door – shelves were partially blocking it, but this one had a crash-bar on it. We heard the sirens getting closer – to the south of us just off of campus. Crap. We both pushed with all our might – and the mud and earth that had blocked the door from the outside gave way a couple inches - just enough to slide our bodies through and slammed the door shut. We raced around the bushes and back up on to campus and on the steps of the Maeser just as two Provo City Police Cruisers screeched up with their cars lined up on the walking path down the side hill. We kept out of site and peered over to see that they had dropped down over the hill by the earth covered building.

Seriously concerned about our trespass (since Provo Police responded and NOT Campus Police), we went to Sam’s office and recounted our story. He smiled and said, “you know boys, I serviced this campus for 30 years as an old Mountain Bell Phone Technician long before I took this job with Network Facilities. I installed every analog line in almost every out-building on campus.”

He then pulled out a list… “These are the Alarmed Areas of Campus … and I have never been able to locate this one. Today, I think you did!” Sam pointed to the building listed NUCL and admonished us, “don’t go back and don’t speak of this again…”

I didn’t speak of my adventure for years, but finally after the 1999 article, I decided to break my silence. I received a response to an inquiry about the secret Nuclear Reactor on BYU’s campus at the NUCL bldg.

Clifford Alleman wrote, “There was a small, 10 watt output nuclear reactor placed in that building…. In 1987, permission was granted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to remove the fuel pellet…. In 1992, the core/housing was removed by the NCR personnel. In 1996, the NCR inspected and released the site to unrestricted use…. all this information is accessible to the public.” Bla bla bla

I have often wondered what is meant by “accessible to the public” is – I have never seen a word of this printed anywhere ever.

At any rate, it makes for a good story. I was hoping to see some of the things he saw. Unfortunately, they're gone.