In the rolling blueberry fields of Columbia, Maine, a solitary sign marks an imaginary subway stop—the only visible reminder that this quiet landscape was once considered a potential site for one of the most ambitious scientific projects of recent times. That marker, from artist JT Bullitt’s fictional “Downeast Rapid Transit” system , stands where the control room of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) might have been built had history unfolded differently.

The fact that, between 1985 and 1987, LIGO physicists planned to establish one of the observatory’s two massive detectors in Maine’s Blueberry Barrens is generally known, but the episode has remained largely uninvestigated until now. In a newly published article in Isis, Northeastern University historian Tiffany Nichols reconstructs this chapter of LIGO’s site-selection process, revealing how the pursuit of an “ideal” location exposed tensions between scientific ambition, unsuspected environmental factors, and the views of the local community.

Nichols’s research, which she presented earlier this year at AIP, shows how physicists tried to manage the site selection for a large scientific facility without the full federal backing that other major projects had enjoyed. LIGO was at that time receiving only preliminary funding from the National Science Foundation, which, Nichols stresses, in any case lacked access to the power of eminent domain that allowed the Department of Defense or Department of Energy, for instance, to force the sale of land needed for projects deemed in the public interest.

The allure of the Blueberry Barrens

The story begins with MIT physicist Rainer Weiss, one of LIGO’s co-founders, searching for a vibrationally quiet location to host the observatory’s eastern detector. LIGO’s unprecedented sensitivity requirements demanded sites far from the “vibrant urban areas” that other big science projects actively sought. While, for example, Fermilab’s planners in the 1960s had wanted “access to residential communities” and proximity to airports to serve staff and visitors, such criteria would have doomed LIGO’s ability to detect gravitational waves.

Weiss found his answer in Washington County, Maine, not far from his favored vacationing spot, guided by state officials who pointed him toward the Blueberry Barrens—vast expanses of lowbush blueberry fields that seemed to offer everything LIGO needed. The region appeared remote, sparsely populated, and naturally quiet. The traditional hand-rake harvest of wild blueberries suggested minimal mechanical disturbance, creating what Weiss saw as an ideal acoustic environment for gravitational wave detection.

From his office at MIT, studying topographic maps and consulting with Maine’s state geologist, Weiss became convinced he had found the perfect site. The land appeared flat, dry, and conveniently crossed by power lines. Most appealingly, he believed the desired plots were owned by a single commercial entity, Jasper Wyman & Son, which would simplify negotiations.

In January 1985, Weiss confidently reported to collaborators that the site would allow them to “bury the facilities in a shallow trench so that the tubing would be out of the elements and the land above the tube could be restored to its original use, minimizing the environmental impact.” He envisioned a harmonious coexistence: LIGO would operate quietly beneath the surface while blueberries continued to be harvested overhead.

Challenges arise

But, as Nichols notes, quoting geographer Mark Monmonier: maps “tell a multitude of little white lies.” When Weiss and his team finally visited the site, they discovered that land that would house one of the projected interferometer arms was riddled with granite boulders and possible bedrock upthrusts—features that the incomplete and error-prone topographic maps of 1980s Maine had failed to reveal.

Moreover, legal documentation revealed that the land wasn’t owned by a single commercial entity but by twelve individual parties. What appeared from a distance as a continuous blueberry field was actually a patchwork of private holdings, each with its own owner who would need to be convinced to sell or lease portions of their property.

The physicists’ assumptions about the local community proved equally problematic. While Weiss and his colleagues saw their project as environmentally benign and scientifically exciting, local residents viewed it through the lens of their recent experiences with military land acquisition. The nearby Over-the-Horizon Backscatter Radar installation had already consumed over 650 acres of productive blueberry land, replacing it with antenna towers up to 250 feet high and spanning three miles.

Furthermore, local landowners were concerned that LIGO’s construction would destroy acres of blueberries that might take years to recover, if ever. In one of the poorest counties in Maine, where many residents depended on seasonal blueberry income, the risk was simply too great.

Despite mounting community opposition, the physicists maintained their assessment of Maine as an ideal site. At a town hall meeting in September 1986, local residents made their concerns clear. Arnold Davis, expressing the community’s frustration, declared:

“The Pineo Ridge Delta has been under assault by outside interests since the mid-1850s... The military always comes looking when they want to try out a new idea. Look what they’ve done over at the new radar station. Hundreds of acres of good blueberry land turned into a great wasteland. They destroyed the perimeter of a northern bog. This [gravitational wave observatory] is just another foot in the door.”

Local appraiser Jerome Suminsby later reflected on the community’s point of view: “Their reaction was, to some extent, like how stupid do they think we are? It [was] not going to be a big boon for the town to gain a lot of tax dollars or more jobs in the community.” The project promised to employ highly trained physicists, not local blueberry farmers or seasonal workers.

Lessons for contemporary science

Nichols’s research illuminates challenges that remain relevant today as astronomers and physicists seek sites for next-generation facilities like the Event Horizon Telescope expansion, the Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection, and the Cosmic Explorer gravitational wave detector. The LIGO-Maine story shows how scientific site selection often begins with an abstracted view of landscape—seeing places as empty, quiet, and available for appropriation. But no site is truly empty. The Blueberry Barrens that appeared vacant on topographic maps were actually home to intricate ecological networks, seasonal migration patterns of Indigenous Micmac harvesters, and local economies built around careful stewardship of a unique agricultural landscape.

Nichols introduces the concept of the “expanded laboratory environment"—the recognition that precision instruments like LIGO operate not in controlled laboratory spaces but in field sites where environmental and social factors become integral to the experiment itself. This insight challenges traditional boundaries between laboratory and field science, suggesting that the most sensitive instruments require scientists to engage with their host environments as complex assemblages of natural, built, and social systems.

The Maine episode foreshadowed challenges that LIGO would later face at its eventual sites in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana. Even there, the interferometers had to contend with environmental noise unique to each location, from seismic activity to nearby human activities, that became embedded in the instruments’ output signals.

Nichols’s reconstruction of this episode provides valuable insights for contemporary efforts to site large-scale scientific facilities. It suggests that successful site selection requires more than identifying locations that meet technical criteria. It demands genuine engagement with local communities, deep understanding of environmental and social complexities, and recognition that the most precise instruments operate not in isolation but as part of broader ecological and social assemblages.

The lesson extends beyond LIGO to any scientific endeavor that seeks to transform landscape into laboratory. In an era when science increasingly requires massive, precisely calibrated instruments deployed across vast distances, understanding how to navigate these complex negotiations may be as important as the sophisticated physics that the instruments are designed to reveal.

Rebecca Charbonneau
American Institute of Physics
rcharbonneau@aip.org

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