In 1971, a United States military communications base was established in South Australia on Kokatha country: it was called Nurrungar. Apparently, there was no consultation with the Kokatha people, who are the traditional owners of the country, and the wider Australian community were not consulted either. This base was used to receive and relay data to and from satellites which monitored everything, like missile launches and nuclear explosions.

I remember passing by this site on the way back from Coober Pedy with my young family, and my husband wounded a kangaroo which hopped over onto the site of the Nurrungar military base. Of course we were not aware of this, until my young family looked up to find that they were surrounded by some military jeeps and soldiers pointing army rifles at them, after they had chased the kangaroo onto the site. I and my family were naturally terrified, and I believe that some of the soldiers drove away red faced, while others were unmoved. It was an experience that we have never forgotten, and we have often talked about that late afternoon just before sundown near Pimba.

The Kokatha people are not allowed to go there anymore, and that is a shame, because we have walked over that area many times in the past, and our old people have lived and hunted all around there for hundred of years. The scary thing about it is that one nuclear bomb detonated at Nurrungar would see see fallout reaching Adelaide within 20-30 hours, so all of the wider Australian community would suffer if there ever was a nuclear attack.

Davenport, Sue Cleared out: first contact in the Western Desert/ Sue Davenport, Peter Johnson and Yuwali Nixon. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2005