r/nottheonion • u/diacewrb • 14d ago
US to give away free lighthouses as GPS makes them unnecessary
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/26/us-free-lighthouses-gps9.4k
u/KryptoFreak405 14d ago
I used to collect lighthouses as a kid, this would be the most perfect way to complete that collection.
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u/DefiantLemur 14d ago
I can just image it. You open the door to the stairwell in the tower section and the wall is lined with shelves that have tiny lighthouses on them all the way up.
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u/KryptoFreak405 14d ago
It’s 7 year old me’s literal dream come true
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u/spiralbatross 13d ago
“There's a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry
Which stood on rocky shores
And kept the beaches shipwreck-free
Though I respect that a lot
I'd be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off
And countless screaming Argonauts”
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u/bradorsomething 14d ago •
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I would nope out of this lighthouse so fast - I watch movies, I know where this is going.
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u/DefiantLemur 14d ago
The light source up top is actually the glow from a portal to hell powered by sacrificed curious visitors.
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u/Talks_To_Cats 14d ago
You nope out of the lighthouse immediately, only to find yourself at an oddly flat cliffside. As your eyes adjust to the lighting you realize in horror that the cliff is not a cliff, but a shelf. You're not outside, you're inside a giant, spiraling hallway many times larger than you. Around you are other shelves, with other lighthouses on them.
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u/Sorinari 14d ago
You may or may not enjoy this fun song. It's been a fav of mine since high school and is one of the first things I think of when people infer creepy on a lighthouse.
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u/Buster_Bluth__ 14d ago
I don't even know where he lives.
Buster: He doesn't live at Michael's?
Tobias: I've always pictured him in a lighthouse.
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u/DefiledDemon 14d ago
Same here, except they were all lost in a move :(
I have visited almost every lighthouse on the southern half of the East Coast and Great Lakes....I had so many lighthouse figures. There was a lighthouse for sale in the Michigan UP that already had its keeper's house remodeled and ready to move into. I believe it was used for an Adult Swim sketch as well. But it sold recently.
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u/hmiser 14d ago
I still collect them because lighthouses rule.
We should form a collective and collect all the big free ones together :-)
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u/Atotallyrandomname 14d ago
https://realestatesales.gov/gsaauctions/aucdsclnk?sl=BOSTN123003001 > Current bid 50k (10k deposit required)
https://realestatesales.gov/gsaauctions/aucdsclnk?sl=BOSTN123004001 > Current bid 10k (2k deposit required)
https://realestatesales.gov/gsaauctions/aucdsclnk?sl=CHICA123003001 > Current bid 10k (2.5k deposit required)
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u/BayouGal 14d ago
You’re not even getting the lighthouse. The Coast Guard continues to own it. I guess they want for someone to pay them thousands for the privilege of…maintenance? 🤷🏻♀️ 100% sus
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14d ago edited 4d ago
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u/grapefruit_witchh 13d ago
There is a really cool lighthouse on Monhegan Island in Maine that they use for an art gallery and museum. Afaik it's owned by the lifers on the island and they maintain it. They get some money via donations and such but they keep it maintained just because it's really cool.
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u/cuddlefucker 13d ago
I feel like it's worth maintaining the aesthetics and history of them. I'll have to look up of there's one nearby the next time I'm near the coast to see. I'd love to catch some history and throw some money their way
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u/SlightlyAlmighty 13d ago
I see a lot of people here complaining that they want to live in a (governmental?) building that might still be operational and here you are providing a realistic view.
Thank you!
I was starting to believe I am the only one thinking "hey, it would be pretty cool to live inside a police station, now that there's Robocop around, but that's how it works".
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u/EverettWAPerson 13d ago
I don't know about how it works currently but back in the 90's you could volunteer to stay at Dungeness Spit Lighthouse for a weekend in exchange for completing certain chores, like mowing the lawn and whatever. I wanted to do it but there was a waiting list about a year out.
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u/onlyacynicalman 14d ago
Those are opening bids. The auction hasnt started yet.
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u/SincereChimichanga 13d ago
Trust fund youtubers ready to make content "YOU WONT BELIEVE WHAT WE FOUND IN THIS LIGHTHOUSE"
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u/Hamburger123445 14d ago
Tbh if I was a multi-millionaire i would consider getting a cool little house off the coast and renovating it for me to drive my yacht to.
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u/StandardSudden1283 13d ago
Many are historical, can't renovate. You're paying only for the "privilege" of doing maintenance. So maybe "Yeah I pay the coast guard for the privilege to pay some people to go upkeep the historical lighthouse. I'm pretty cool, right?"
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u/Vaulters 14d ago
Canada did that like fifteen years ago. You could get a lighthouse pretty near free, but you had to take on the upkeep of the lighthouse, specifically the light (They were obsolete from a commercial perspective but still found to be useful to prevent more minor groundings, plus communities tended to get upset when you shutdown their lighthouse).
I remember we talked about getting a nearby one and setting it up as the college bar run by the students, but it was a bigger project than we could take on at the time.
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u/notalaborlawyer 14d ago
college bar run by the students
I don't think the lighthouse was the fatal flaw in that plan.
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u/Vaulters 14d ago
The student body were the executive members of a not-for-profit organisation that operated the campus bar. It was staffed seven days a week by smartserve trained students, held the liquor license for the property and hosted the events. They had AGMs and paid their taxes, had credit and debit machines and corporate bank accounts.
The fatal flaw was that it was off campus. This would massively reduce patronage, so really it'd have to be a one-two night a week bar. You could hype it up with live music and late afternoon BBQs and a lighthouse sundown lighting countdown. But we were in our final year, and really starting to look outward.
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u/notalaborlawyer 14d ago
It was a joke. That is impressive. I know college (heck, high school) kids are completely capable of running a business and being responsible. It is just a laughable statement read without context.
I lived in a massive college house that had a bar. Not a fraternity. Just the 7 of us. But, an actual L-shaped bar, two fridges, one tap, liquor, etc. My brother (2 years younger) and his friends, my other roommates brother (1 year), and other's sister (2 years) friends were always welcome anytime, all the time.
We had an honor system with a box for paying for booze. We never had less than needed to re-up. It isn't all animal house, but the stereotype stays.
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u/soilhalo_27 14d ago
And you youngsters thought you could never own a home. The government is selling old light houses.
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u/keenanpepper 14d ago
You're not allowed to live in it tho
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u/karma-armageddon 14d ago
Gonna wish we had these lighthouses in 2025
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u/UoFSlim 14d ago
Wh…what happens in 2025?!
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u/confidentlybadbotbot 14d ago
You don't know?!?! Oh man are you in for a surprise in 2025.
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u/TheConnASSeur 14d ago •
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He doesn't know about the new rules put in place at the midnight hour by the Trump administrating to "secure our coasts against illegal crossing." Motherfucker wrote 64 new guidelines for coastal structures that applies to all structures within 20 miles of any coastal water. They do some pretty crazy shit that will have far reaching consequences for a lot of industries. The most egregious of which is set to trigger in Jan 1, 2025. It's too much to list here, but just Google "Donald Trump rule 34."
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u/LubbockIsAwesome_JK 14d ago
Lmao this sounded like one of those "stupid enough to be plausible" things until I hit the end.
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u/SovFist 14d ago
I've seen Annihilation, no thanks
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u/KuraiTheBaka 14d ago
I've seen the Lighthouse
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u/Catwearingtrousers 14d ago
I want one
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u/Miss-Figgy 14d ago
Me too. It's my ultimate fantasy to live in one.
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u/yrdsl 14d ago
not the same thing exactly but several National Forests still seasonally staff mountaintop lookout towers for wildfires, you might consider trying to get one of those gigs sometime.
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u/WhiteyFiskk 14d ago
It was always my dream to live in a decommissioned lighthouse. And nobody knows that I live there. And at the top of the lighthouse there's a button I can press that sends the lighthouse into space
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u/LagAmplifier 14d ago
The big things to be mindful of is these things are old. So they are filled with lead, asbestos and other things you don’t want to mess with. Cleaning them up can be very expensive.
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u/Faelwolf 14d ago
They could be converted to LED + solar and practically run themselves. Remember that many of these started with whale oil lamps, using a Fresnel lens, the light source does not need to be all that bright for them to work. (And modern LED lights are brighter than a whale oil lamp by a considerable multiple) Not using these as a backup is foolish, and many people still use lights at night as a navigation source, even in this age of GPS. But when have we ever accused the US government of being smart?
As mentioned above, even in these days of GPS many people still rely on lighthouses and shore light at night to avoid collisions and grounding. Many small craft are not equipped with GPS, and even large craft with all the latest equipment still need to sail by sight as a final safety measure. Bad things can happen when they don't; Costa Concordia, anyone? Exxon Valdez?
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u/ThatDinosaucerLife 14d ago
They could be converted to LED +
They are. They've been maintaining and upgrading these for decades. There isn't like, an old man spinning a light bulb up there or some shit. There hasn't been a need for humans to be on site for operating a lighthouse in the US since the 1970s.
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u/TriAnkylosaur 14d ago
There isn't like, an old man spinning a light bulb up there
Why not? :(
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u/UKSubs47 13d ago
Right?
I'll be that old guy! I'll get a scraggly beard like Thomas Wake & complain about me bum knee & how I let 13 Christmases pass while my wife longed for my company & eventually left me & make up story's about being a sailor at sea & curse people for not loving me lobster cookin' & make sweat love to sea monsters & keep tellin' old Sailors tales of the sea & it's CURSES &...
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u/Cantusemynme 14d ago
It really does seem that they are a great redundancy system.
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u/SplooshU 14d ago
Perish the thought that the government should invest in redundancy and not put all their eggs in the cheapest basket.
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u/HotConcrete 14d ago
The Soviet Union had atomic lighthouses at one point to reduce the need for upkeep.
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u/Vectorman1989 14d ago
Yes, and then the Soviet Union collapsed and a lot of those power sources went walkies
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u/agoia 14d ago
Or led to incidents like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident
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u/Bobert_Manderson 14d ago edited 14d ago
They drove up a nearly impassable road in snowy winter weather, and discovered two canisters at around 6 pm. Around the canisters there was no snow for about a 1 m (3.3 ft) radius, and the ground was steaming. Patient 3-MB picked up one of the canisters and immediately dropped it, as it was very hot. Deciding that it was too late to drive back, and realizing the apparent utility of the devices as heat sources, the men decided to move the sources a short distance and make camp around them. Patient 3-MB used a stout wire to pick up one source and carried it to a rocky outcrop that would provide shelter. The other patients lit a fire, and then patients 3-MB and 2-MG worked together to move the other source under the outcrop. They ate dinner and had a small amount of vodka, while remaining close to the sources. Despite the small amount of alcohol, they all vomited soon after consuming it, the first sign of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), about three hours after first exposure. Vomiting was severe and lasted through the night, leading to little sleep. The men used the sources to keep them warm through the night, positioning them against their backs, and as close as 10 cm (3.9 in). The next day, the sources may have been hung from the backs of Patient 1-DN and 2-MG as they loaded wood onto their truck. They felt very exhausted in the morning and only loaded half the wood they intended. They returned home that evening.
Lmao they used them as heaters all night. Poor guys.
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u/teggchagg 13d ago
There's a pdf floating round of the investigation into the incident, recovery of the sources and the medical care of the patients. The photos of the men's burns and necrotizing wounds despite ongoing treatment are fucking revolting
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u/LagAmplifier 14d ago
The Coast Guard experiment with an atomic power lighted buoy. It was used in the early 60’s outside Baltimore.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2020/august/atomic-buoy-experiment
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u/big_duo3674 14d ago
And then people found the abandoned radioactive sources and slept with them for warmth! (This worked out exactly as well as you'd think it would)
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u/Matryoshkova 14d ago
The lighthouse on the Isles of Shoals has been automated for many years, my dad was part of the last crew of keepers in the late 1980s.
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u/platonicgryphon 14d ago
And while the Coast Guard often maintains aids to navigation at or near lighthouses, the structures themselves are often no longer mission critical.
This year, six lighthouses are being offered at no cost to federal, state or local government agencies, non-profits, educational organizations or other entities that are willing to maintain and preserve them and make them publicly available for educational, recreational or cultural purposes.
It's not like they are getting torn down. The coast guard has other tools so no longer needs them and is offering them up for people to preserve them.
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u/Alldamage 14d ago
Hey there. I was in charge of lighthouses on the Maine coastline for the Coast Guard about a decade ago. This isn’t really new. The CG has been selling off the lighthouse structures for decades. When I was servicing the lights, CG only owned 4 of the 29 in our area.
The deal is that when the lighthouse is sold, the CG retains access to service the light and sound signal. So we would work with the owners, usually a non-profit or local municipality, in regards to scheduling maintenance visits and any structural repairs that needed to be made. CG only maintains the light, sound signal, and electronics that control them.
I saw someone post about solarizing and LED lights and that has also been happening over the past 15-20 years.
The lights are still needed because not everyone relies solely on their chart plotter screen to navigate. It does help to actually look around
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u/algeoMA 14d ago
Alright guys let’s all buy one and paint it flesh-colored or find other ways to abuse it.
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u/SailboatAB 14d ago
And put two little domes at the base?
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u/Lincoln_Park_Pirate 14d ago
It's not the size of the lighthouse, it's the motion near the ocean.
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u/doubled2319888 14d ago
Maybe put some nice shrubbery around the base
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u/1959Chicagoan 14d ago
Not too much though...just a little patch.
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u/Task_wizard 14d ago edited 14d ago
If someone buys a lighthouse they are clearly rich. So obviously it needs a little landing strip above it.
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u/dvdmaven 14d ago
National Treasures that you will maintain to whatever standard we demand. Am I right?
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u/jkswede 14d ago
Hate to say it but it is a bit shortsighted to think GPS will function indefinitely. Tiny global kerfuffle could get them all knocked down.
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u/Gostaverling 14d ago
These are not being decommissioned fully for private use. They mention in the article they are being transferred to maintaining organizations for educational use. Should the need arise, they could be still used.
This year, six lighthouses are being offered at no cost to federal, state or local government agencies, nonprofits, educational organizations or other entities that are willing to maintain and preserve them and make them publicly available for educational, recreational or cultural purposes.
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u/helium_farts 14d ago edited 13d ago
If there's a kerfuffle significant enough to knock every gps satellite out of orbit I think night time ship navigation will be near the bottom of our concerns.
Edit: goddamn, didn't know lighthouses were so controversial. Heaven help us if the government ever offloads some candles or horse drawn carriages.
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u/MikuEmpowered 14d ago
I mean, there's a reason dead reckoning and celestial navigation are still being taught despite not being used.
Even on military vessels, one of the questions is: what happens if we get hit by EMP?
Equipment fails, and even with all the GPS satellite working, if your gps onboard dies, you better know a manual way to navigate.
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u/Navydevildoc 14d ago
Fun fact, the US Navy actually stopped teaching celnav a while back before someone pointed out that was an incredibly bad idea.
They brought in folks from the Merchant Mariner academy to get the courses back up and running again because they never stopped teaching it.
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u/minion_is_here 14d ago
Ships have been the backbone of transportation and logistics for over 3,000 years. If a conflict started that got enough GPS sats disabled to where GPS wasn't reliable, then we'd rely on ships at least the same if not even more. Planes also rely on GPS and are much more expensive to operate than ships. Also, light houses are more for protection from shore and rocks than trans-oceanic navigation.
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u/override367 14d ago
dont need to knock every one out to degrade accuracy
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u/FlipskiZ 14d ago
No, but it needs to knock out multiple. There is some amount of redundancy built in.
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u/SportulaVeritatis 14d ago
Don't even need to knock out any to jam a signal.
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u/SXOSXO 14d ago
I'm already picturing the next disaster movie where the protagonists getting to the old lighthouse to turn it back on is a major story point. And they gotta find the old lighthouse keeper and get him out of retirement to do so.
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u/wanszai 14d ago •
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The Royal Navy is already testing a prototype "Quantum Sensor". It doesnt rely on satellites or other external devices that can be manipulated and is said to be far more accurate than GPS.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/245114/quantum-sensor-future-navigation-system-tested/
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u/ptwonline 14d ago
Somebody somewhere is firing up an AI chatbot to write a movie script about a decommissioned lighthouse run by some weird but surprisingly sexy man who may or may not look exactly like Gerard Butler.
Some kind of solar storms makes GPS systems fail across the globe, and only his lighthouse and knowledge of other old-time lighthouse keepers can save the day from some kind of disaster. The US govt sends an also surprisingly sexy woman in charge of managing this crisis to work with this guy to solve it.
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u/AvariceLegion 14d ago
So to hell with redundancy
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u/OozeNAahz 14d ago
GPS is already a redundancy for LORAN. So they still have redundancy.
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u/AvariceLegion 14d ago
Every time i watch documentaries dissecting ship related catastrophes, it's usually human errors that managed to blow past every safeguard
Unless they just weren't suited for the purpose, i can't imagine how it hurts to have as many layers of redundancy for ship guidance, especially when they've proven to work
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u/OozeNAahz 14d ago
I don’t disagree. Just pointing out this wouldn’t mean GPS was only option.
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u/Zakluor 14d ago
More like the other way around. LORAN sites around the world, but not in every jurisdiction, have been shut down. eLoran is a newer development that is intended as a backup to GPS.
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u/aBoyandHisVacuum 14d ago
I hate stairs. Could you imagine 65 stairs just to get to bed everyday. Nah
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u/doubled2319888 14d ago
Well i could definitely stand to lose a few pounds so this might not be a bad idea
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u/varangian_guards 14d ago
i mean you putting your bed where the giant light is? cool view but maybe extra bed room.
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u/AUWarEagle82 14d ago
There is a lighthouse on a small island in the Chesapeake Bay that is for sale. But you can't live in the lighthouse after you buy it. Somebody in the government thinks this is a bargain.
https://wtop.com/maryland/2022/08/online-auction-of-chesapeake-bay-lighthouse-still-looking-for-first-bidder/