Willard #Bascom; Pioneer Oceanographer, Explorer, Controversial Researcher. Member of the famous French #Basque family who were among the earliest European colonist in North America. And person of interest...

Writer, painter, photographer, cinematographer, miner, archeologist and iconoclastic scientist, Bascom joined #Scripps in 1951 and set out to sea with the revolutionary Capricorn Expedition. Exploring the bottom of the equatorial Pacific Ocean...

#Scripps Institution of #Oceanography was founded in 1903 as the Marine Biological Association of San Diego, an independent biological research laboratory. It began institutional life in the boathouse of the Hotel del #Coronado located on San Diego Bay.

Diagnosed with bone cancer during the expedition, Bascom was said to take unusual risks, theorizing that he had only a few months to live and one chance to make his mark. But he subsequently subjected himself to unusual doses of radiation and conquered the cancer.

Using an oil drilling ship off the coast of Mexico near Guadalupe Island at a time when the record depth of water in which drilling had been done was about 400feet Bascom drilled under 11,700 feet of water to obtain the first samples from what he called the Earth’s “second layer"

in 1962, according to a secretive civil case he brought in San Diego more than a decade later, he proposed a daring plan to the Air Force and the CIA for raising sunken Soviet missiles...con't

Bascom’s suit claimed he had patented the method. His plan was rejected, but his ideas were applied by the controversial ship #GlomarExplorer, which was discovered trying to salvage a Soviet submarine for the CIA in 1974.

#Bascom's case was tried starting April 19 before the Court of Claims, where all cases of patent infringement against the federal government and tried. The trial, ende May 2, is described as the #most #secret #case #ever heard by the Court of Claims. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/05/22/glomar-roots-go-back-to-1962-scheme/485b1be7-c90f-4270-85cd-82b2db92fbca/

How about them Basques eh..?

The history of #PointLoma Naval Base began in 1795. The Spanish began building a fort at the base of Point Guijarros, opposite the tip of North Island ( #Coronado). After  Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 ended the Mexican–American War -the Americans claimed Point Loma.

Submarine Group, San Diego at Point Loma was established in 1946. #Bathyscaphe #Trieste arrived at NEL in 1958; and modified Bathyscaphe Trieste II was based here from 1965 to 1984.

#SilverStrand, is a low, narrow, sandy isthmus or tombolo 7 miles long in San Diego County, California partially within the Silver Strand State Beach.  It connects  #Coronado Island with Imperial Beach. Together with the  #PointLoma peninsula it shelters and defines San Diego Bay

Following the death in 1891 of Helena #Blavatsky, Katherine Tingley moved the headquarters of the  #Theosophical Society to " #Lomaland", a hilltop campus in #PointLoma overlooking the ocean.

#Bascom first proposed using Neoprene for wetsuits to fellow scientist  #HughBradner. In 1943, Bradner was recruited by  #Oppenheimer to join the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. There, he worked with scientists including Luis #Alvarez, John von #Neumann and George #Kistiakowsky...

And then there's #Tonopah, #Nevada, is located in the Tonopah Basin near the #Nye County border.
Hugh Bradner was born in Tonopah..
Trust me it gets even..

Firstly...

The #Great #Nevada #Meteor of 1894

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/the-great-nevada-meteor-of-1894/

Men of #wealth and #power entered the region to consolidate the #mines and reinvest their profits into the infrastructure of the town of #Tonopah.  #GeorgeWingfield, a 24-year-old poker player when he arrived in Tonopah, played #poker and dealt faro in the town #saloons.

By 1904, after investing his winnings in the #Boston- #Tonopah Mining Company, Wingfield was worth $2 #million. When old friend George S. #Nixon, a #banker, arrived in town, Wingfield invested in his #Nye County Bank.

In 1881, #Nixon was transferred to Nevada, where he organized and became cashier of a bank at  #Winnemucca. He also built an opera house in Reno, a theater in Winnemucca and was one of the financiers of the  #MizpahHotel in  #Tonopah, #Nevada.

Can ya hear me now..?

#Wingfield was born at Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1876. His family moved to Oregon when he was five years old, and he became a  #buckaroo on a ranch in Burns. At age 20, he became a cattle drover in Nevada. He arrived in Tonopah in 1902 and dealt cards at the Tonopah Club.

By the time the partners moved to  #Goldfield, Nevada and made their Goldfield Consolidated Mining Company a public corporation in 1906, #Nixon and #Wingfield were worth more than $30 million..

Since the late 20th century, #Tonopah has relied on the nearby military Tonopah Test Range as its main source of employment. Tonopah Test Range is located about 70 miles northwest of Groom Dry Lake, the home of the  #Area51 facility.

The  #Mizpah Hotel in  #Tonopah according to legend was where  Wyatt Earp kept the saloon, Jack Dempsey was a bouncer, and  #HowardHughes married Jean Peters at the Mizpah..

https://web.archive.org/web/20120319204919/http://nsla.nevadaculture.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=706&Itemid=418

Laxalt was born on August 2, 1922 in Reno, Nevada. He was the son of  #Basque parents, Therese (Alpetche)and Dominique Laxalt, who emigrated to the United States in the early 1900s from their homeland in the  #FrenchPyrenees.

Laxalt's tenure as governor was noteworthy for coinciding with the purchase of several hotel-casinos by reclusive billionaire  #HowardHughes. Laxalt allowed Hughes to secure his gaming license without appearing before the state's gaming regulatory...