The White House on Tuesday denied that a secret dig appears to be underway beneath the National Mall and that an exclusive photo released last week by the online entertainment network @lantisTV merely shows the construction of a new underground visitors center.
“The visitor’s center has been planned for years, and its costs have not been without controversy or publicity,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. “Construction has been going on in plain view of the American taxpayers. What we are witnessing here is some enthusiastic curiosity prompted by movies like ‘National Treasure’ and novels like Raising Atlantis. It’s entertainment, folks. For the record: There are no secret U.S. digs underway in Antarctica or the National Mall. There is no link between Atlantis and the founding of the United States of America. Period.”
McClellon had no comment on why the Department of Justice sought to block the photo’s release for eight months, nor why the White House issued its comment on a day that President Bush was out of the country.
Conspiracy theorists had their own ideas, however, some of them federal employees within a stone’s throw of the work.
“For a day or two last February, it was like the earth was opened up and the innards beneath the National Mall were laid bare,” said a researcher from the Library of Congress who could see down the barricades from the second floor looking over First Street. “Now that the big dig is sealed up, work can proceed underground without prying eyes. That’s how they like it.”
The @lantisTV photo, taken from an undisclosed location last February, captures a massive excavation beneath the U.S. Capitol. Officially, the site will house a brand-new underground visitor’s center. But the scale of the undertaking, together with an unpublicized construction of a secret network of tunnels beneath the National Mall, is leaving some observers scratching their heads.
“They’re digging up the National Mall, looking for something,” said one exasperated U.S. Senator from a large industrial state who requested anonymity. “They’ve been at it for years, all under the guise of ‘renovations’ for the monuments or ‘security upgrades.’ Let me tell you, at this point there’s more to see of Washington, D.C., under the Mall than above ground. Talk about a shadow government. I think it’s a horrific abuse of taxpayer money.”
What that “something” could be that the feds are searching for has been the cause of countless speculation in the American capital for decades and the subject of such pop-culture phenomena as the No. 1 Amazon bestseller RAISING ATLANTIS, its bestselling spin-off eDoc WASHINGTONOPLE, and last month’s release of the movie “National Treasure” starring Nicolas Cage.
