The purpose of a perplexing concrete ring at the Orford Ness military testing site on England's Suffolk coast, which has baffled the National Trust and volunteers for three decades, has finally been identified. Researchers Steve Clifton and Olaf Kirchner discovered the 50-meter (164-foot) ring was part of a radar system known as the R-System, developed during the Cold War to detect nuclear explosions and rocket launches.

Clifton and Kirchner confirmed the ring's function by meeting the R-System's creator in the United States. The creator, Ed Lyon, who was unaware the system had been installed in England, provided crucial photographic and video evidence from the early 1960s. "It turned out that Ed himself had no idea that this radar system had been set up in England," Kirchner stated. "He had to get security clearance to talk to us about it, and we listened in awe for over two hours, getting first-hand accounts of Cold War intelligence gathering systems."

The R-System was built by the U.S. Air Force in the early 1960s and supported a steerable helical transmitter capable of detecting activity from thousands of miles away. It is believed only eight such rings were constructed globally. By the end of the 1960s, the technology was superseded by satellite systems.

An old photo of a large radar system made of various metal spherical structures. Some people stand on the ground working on part of the structure.

Orford Ness, a 10-mile vegetated shingle spit, has a long history of military use. A significant portion was acquired by the War Department in 1913, becoming a site for top-secret experiments through World War II and into the nuclear age. Today, it serves as a nature reserve and is home to a large colony of grey seals.

Clifton and Kirchner began their research into the concrete ring in 2020, eventually connecting with the 94-year-old Lyon. Their visit to Maryland in the U.S. allowed them to see two R-System rings, including one in Roswell, New Mexico, which shared similarities in orientation and other details with the Orford Ness structure. "Due to the extreme secrecy under which they worked, people on Orford Ness never spoke of their projects and often took their details to their grave," Kirchner explained. "While the reports covering their work are now mostly declassified, finding them is often difficult."

Angus Wainwright, regional archaeologist for the National Trust's East of England region, expressed his long-standing intrigue with the structure. "Like all the places we care for, our understanding of what happened on Orford Ness is constantly evolving," he said. "Research is important to us, and we are always trying to further our understanding. It's only through the tenacity of these researchers that its secret function has now been revealed."

Three men stand in a line and smile at the camera. The man on the left has thin grey hair, glasses and wears a yellow, brown and white chequered shirt. The man in the middle has grey hair and wears a black jacket with a blue polo top underneath. The man on the right has thin grey hair and wears a blue and red chequered shirt with blue bracers and cream trousers.