Something strange is going on at Ascension Island

Ascension is described by the BBC as the “island where nothing makes sense”.

(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36076411.amp)

NASA tracked the Apollo moon landings from here and the European Space Agency monitor rocket launches from here. The airport runway at Ascension was once the longest in the world.

The BBC article linked states “Hilltops across the island are festooned with aerial arrays and satellite dishes - but who is listening, and to what, nobody is willing to say.”

An experiment that happened here is referred to by the BBC as Charles Darwin’s “best-kept secret”.

(https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-11137903.amp)

Here’s a description of the Green Mountain at Ascension (the Parsley Fern, which was long thought to be extinct, was rediscovered here in 2009):

“It is totally artificial.

Such ecosystems normally develop over million of years through a slow process of co-evolution. By contrast, the Green Mountain cloud forest was cobbled together by the Royal Navy in a matter of decades…

In effect, what Darwin, Hooker and the Royal Navy achieved was the world's first experiment in "terra-forming". They created a self-sustaining and self-reproducing ecosystem in order to make Ascension Island more habitable.

Wilkinson thinks that the principles that emerge from that experiment could be used to transform future colonies on Mars. In other words, rather than trying to improve an environment by force, the best approach might be to work with life to help it "find its own way".

However, to date, scientists have been deaf to the parable of Ascension Island. "It's a terrible waste that no-one is studying it," remarked Wilkinson at the end of the interview.

Ascension Island's secret is safe for years to come, it seems.”