kengr | hiding a spaceship

I've been thinking on yet another variation on the "people stumble across a spaceship and get it working" trope.

I'm trying to figure ways this (not alien, but from the future) spacecraft could be hidden yet findable. I figure it should have been hidden several hundred years ago, after getting sent back to the past via [much handwaving]

I figure that about the only practical way is for it to be in an underground location. Probably one that was excavated, not natural. I'm sorta stuck on how to hide the entrance since most of the ways that come to mind would either require gear they wouldn't have or look suspicious to surveyors ("Looks like somebody blasted down that cliff face, Charlie.")

So I'm asking for ideas.

Technology is pretty much that of the Treveller RPG, but with somewhat better computers.

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From:

siliconshaman

Peat bog. If it landed there, thinking it was a nice flat grassy spot, it would sink. If it was deliberately sunk, they could use ground scan radar to get an idea of where the bedrock was, and pick a spot so the very top of the craft [and a dorsal hatch] was just at ground level, and then cover it with moss. A few months, never mind hundreds of years, and you'd never know it was there. It's a just moss covered hump in the middle of a bog.

Plus peat bogs tend to be in out of the way places.

Failing that, ie if being immersed in slightly acid water is likely to be a problem for the craft, then an abandoned quarry might be an idea. Depending on when 'insertion' into the time stream occurs an old roman or medieval stone quarry. You could park your vessel in one of the dug out galleries, or bury it under loose rock at the bottom without anyone thinking more than 'Huh, the side of the old stone quarry collapsed... better tell people to keep out of there.'

Edited Date: 2021-01-16 10:31 am (UTC)

From:

warriorsavant

I just park mine in the garage.

Yeah, okay, not helpful. I like siliconshaman's ideas.

From:

siliconshaman

Actually... that's not a bad idea. Ok, lets say that the vessel had at least one person aboard when it arrived in the past. It wouldn't be unreasonable, if it was a planned incursion, that they'd do their research first.

So, they could arrive in lets say the victorian era with enough synthetic gemstones to be quite wealthy, and with a fore knowledge of events, parley that into a substantial fortune.

Now, they could purchase a warehouse, or some such open structure, and depending on the size of spaceship, park it there. Cover it in tarps, set up a trust fund to pay for maintenance of the building and some security, and you could quite easily leave it there for century or two. After a decade or two, no-one's going to question the existence of this old building, and if you've done your research so it's not in the way of any new developments, then it would easily remain undisturbed for a century or two. Especially in Europe or Britain.

From:

warriorsavant

In some ways, that was what happened at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The Ark filed itself onto a shelf in a government archives, which it would be buried by bureaucracy.

From:

siliconshaman

Exactly... it was filed away in the proto area-51 and forgotten, along with crystal skulls and other assorted weirdness that the government would prefer to forget about but didn't want anyone else to have.

This would be a little more private enterprise than that, but essentially the same idea.

Hm.. come to think of it... if we're talking about a spaceship being there since 1850's or earlier, you could order a building started, with a basement, land your ship while it's at the big hole in the ground stage, backfill with concrete, and bury the ship under the building with a hidden staircase down to the hatch. All it would require is a bit of precision building to have the brick-built staircase in place down into the [open] basement first, lay off the the initial workforce, land, fill in around the ship and brick over the entrance, then hire a new workforce to finish the building on top of the concrete pad.

Getting your spaceship out again however..

That also raises the question of why though. Fugitive time traveller perhaps?

Edited Date: 2021-01-16 12:00 pm (UTC)

From:

warriorsavant

Not that hard to get it back out, depending if you needed to do it stealthily or not, and how big said ship was. If no bigger than a TARDIS, quite easy. If you don’t need to be stealthy, could wrap it in plastic (or equivalent, put sand around it, then cheap concrete over it. Later, just jack-hammer the concrete. Don’t need an access stair (rather same as your bury it in a peat bog idea doesn’t need access stairs).

I wonder. How long have self-storage rental places been around?

The key to having it be in a building would be the administrative/corporate structure that does the upkeep and continuity of the building itself. I suppose it’s rather like stories about vampires, where they run corporations for 100’s of years to keep their wealth/treasure/keepsakes. In those stories, they pass the directorship on to a “nephew” or “cousin,” who is actually the same vampire. I suppose our time traveler could do the same, show up at the annual corporate board meetings once/year as “a different person.” Even without that, banks and trust companies can run a building for you for 100’s of years. I suspect that in UK/Europe, there probably are such things, with or without vampires or time travellers.

From:

kengr

Well, they *could use the low berths (cold sleep) to do something like that, but over centuries, that could get risky.

Though this talk of buildings has given me an idea. cut the cavern back into the side of a canyon or mesa, and then build a fake pueblo in front of it.

From:

siliconshaman

If we're talking North America that could work, but you might have problems with archaeologists poking around... OH! unless you're far enough back to have actual natives build the fake pueblo, which would mean it's not a fake.... you'd still have archaeologists, but they're unlikely to take a sledge hammer to the back wall, and it would have protected status.

From:

warriorsavant

Yes, but still the issue of keeping people out of said pueblo. National Park/ landmark, someone living there, rented out by a “corporation,” whatever. Biggest question is what timeline. Even if National Park, that could change over the centuries.

I think your peat bog is best idea.

From:

kengr

Nope, Folks on their way to explore so new systems several thousand years in the future who somehow came out of jump a long ways from where they were aiming. In both space and time.

*If* this is their own past (something they aren't all that sure of) they don't want to try making contact with any nearby civilizations because that have *major* consequences to their history.

If it isn't they have even more reason to stay put.

From:

stickmaker

London, England is good for that. Several years ago they found an entire wooden sailing ship in an enclosed drydock off the Thames, in a building which the government was paying to keep maintained and guarded, but which no-one had entered in centuries.

I think it was also in London that during demolition of a parking garage a few years ago they found an isolated nook with a car which had been there for decades. (IIRC the owner had reported it stolen when he couldn't find it.)

From:

siliconshaman

I heard about that ship!! I was of half a mind if it was a urban legend but no, it was true.

From:

kengr

It was not deliberate. They made a seemingly normal jump to [somewhere] in the 47th century and arrived in the Sol system in the 17th century (or earlier)

Their records of things that far back are pretty slim in spite of having extensive historical databases (it was an exploration vessel, so they had that sort of thing for references when dealing with "lost colonies" and aliens)

I haven't decided yet if there's evidence that they aren't in their own past, for that matter.

They picked an isolated area away from "civilization" so they wouldn't be noticed coming and going (at least not by anybody who "counts" historically).

They also needed to be able to get in and out with "small" vehicles (your basic "flying car" and "flying large RV) with provisions to get the ship (Type S scout?) out if they *have* to (likely involving blowing open whatever they hid the entrance with)

Edited Date: 2021-01-16 06:05 pm (UTC)

From:

siliconshaman

Ok, so a disused stone quarry sounds about right, miles from anywhere [wales perhaps], secluded and with a number semi-derelict buildings that could be used to house small craft out of sight, with a larger gallery/cavern to put the main ship in.

From:

kengr

Oh, the main ship is hidden off planet. Maybe the moon, maybe an asteroid.

But they'vw got a "small" (200 dtons) ship on earth, as well as an air raft and g-carrier. :-)

From:

siliconshaman

Ah! right.. best place to hide a space ship is the backside of the moon, with a light covering of lunar regolith. Nice and handy for access, no maps of the far side until 20th century so no chance of anyone noticing a discrepancy, so you could park in in a crater and cover it over and no-one would know it's there, it's just another bolder field in the middle of the lunar scape. You could even hide access hatches as smaller craters with a bit of paint.

From:

kengr

Well, I was thinking more North America, most likely middle-eastern Oregon or Washington.

Also wanted it to be hidden deliberately, with the p[ossibility of getting back to it without *huge* amounts of trouble.

The stone quarry idea is interesting.