Secret installations.

We know that the suburbs are full of secret spy stuff. Oh, yeah, we do.

After all, when you're planning your secret installation, whether for the CIA, U.N.C.L.E., Dr. No, the FBI, CONTROL, SPECTRE, the Слу́жба вне́шней разве́дки, SMERSH, Chinese Ministry of State Security, KAOS, or anyone else, you want to be out of town so no one sees you digging this big hole in the ground, but you don't want to be so far in the countryside that it takes your top agents eight hours just to drive their sports cars there. You want the suburbs, where there's not much going on, someone's always building something, and people schlep from there into town every day. 

Things are quiet in the 'burbs, and there's tons of nondescript wilderness around to build in. 

Blah, wilderness.

Another advantage is that everyone drives in the suburbs, so no one will come across the secret entrance to your lair.

No one... but the DOG-WALKING GUY!

(Me, that is.)

Secret entrance hatch.

I was rather surprised that they didn't even bother to put any signs around the hatch, like "KEEP OUT" or "HIGH VOLTAGE" or "NOTHING TO SEE HERE" or "PERFECTLY ORDINARY CIVILIAN HATCH HERE." Don't they know how suspicious things are when there's no signs?

I'm hoping it's CIA; at least they'll be on our side. Not evildoers like SPECTRE or the NSA or the IRS. I totally would expect the IRS to have secret headquarters where they bury incriminating hard drives.

But I don't know who it is. Not that they aren't clever, despite their lack of signs. I saw a big tank truck with "markings" from the county "sewer department" running "hoses" down the hatch. Yeah, right. Maybe delivering stolen gold through those hoses. Or maybe delivering SECRETS!

So the takeaway now is that you need to be alert to these kinds of installations in your neighborhood. There's plenty of Web sites for UFO sightings; bah! We need to start monitoring secret installation locations. Maybe if we can mark them, we'll figure out what they're up to. Pay especial attention if your suburb has features that are particularly attractive to secret lairs, like abandoned mine shafts, or volcanoes. Especially volcanoes.

We'll get to the bottom of this. The truth is down there.