Highwater Test Range, Vermont

The legendary Canadian weapons engineer Gerald Bull operated a test site that straddled the international border, near Jay, Vermont. First known as Highwater Station (the name coming from the closest town on the Canadian side) the location was created on land Bull already owned in the 1960s to develop and test components for weapons projects including the construction of the largest guns in the world. Subsidized at times by the Canadian and U.S. governments and working with McGill University, Bull's designs were even thought to be capable of launching satellites ballistically. Saddam Hussein hired him to build a "supergun" that might have been able to launch missiles at Israel, but it was never completed. The Highwater Site was owned by different Bull-related business entities over the years, including the Space Research Corporation. Facilities at the site included a 16" barrel gun, shooting horizontally on a 1km long range, and a 5" gun that sent payloads to altitudes over 70km, from where they would descend by parachute. The location on both sides of the border facilitated otherwise complex, and hindering, import and export restrictions. Dozens of building were constructed at the site. Though some buildings remain on the Canadian side, all of the buildings on the US side now lie abandoned in the overgrowth. Bull was assassinated in 1990, likely by Israeli Intelligence.