(Image: Google Earth)

Situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean 750 nautical miles west of Hawaii, Johnston Atoll boasts an impressive abandoned airbase that is now little more than a vast paved runway, and must be a contender for the world’s most isolated military base. The islands, covering 50 square miles, were established as a wildlife refuge in 1926, but when the U.S. Navy took charge in 1934, it wasn’t long before they became a testing site for nuclear weapons. The remote location was also used to launch America’s first spy satellites, dispose of chemical weapons, and is even rumoured to have served as a landing site for top secret aircraft. In 2003, Johnston Atoll was turned over to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and is now part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. (Read our full Johnston Atoll feature.)

20 Spectacular Military Abandonments of the World	Abandoned Gun Emplacement, Midway Atoll	Downed F-117 Stealth Fighter, Kosovo War	Maid of Harlech: The Periodically Reappearing P-38
Pointe du Hoc: Abandoned German Coastal Defences near Omaha Beach, Normandy	Deserted Guam Northwest Field in the Marianas	Abandoned Military Runway, Bulgaria	Mothballed Sea Shadow Stealth Ship, Suisun Bay
Abandoned Control Tower: RAF Coleby Grange, UK	Abandoned Radar Dishes, RAF Stenigot, UK	Abandoned Midget Submarines, Aberlady Bay, Scotland	Wreck of Russian Battlecruiser Murmansk, Norway
Russian Surveillance Ship Wreck, Red Sea	Abandoned Chieftain Tank, Lulworth Firing Range, UK	Crash Landed (Intact) B-17 Flying Fortress, Papua New Guinea	Derelict Hawker Hunter at Former Airfix Factory in Hull, England
Dismantling Vulcan XM652 at RAF Waddington	Crashed Harrier GR3, Goose Green, Falklands	Russian Aircraft Graveyard, Moscow	Wrecked F-4 Phantom Jet, Hanoi