The land that became Harvey Point has been claimed by powerful interests since the 1670s, when the Harvey family settled there. Among them was Thomas Harvey, North Carolina's first native-born governor, whose family name stuck to the peninsula long after the Harveys departed. The location offered strategic advantages even then: a finger of land extending into the broad Albemarle Sound, with deep water approaches and unobstructed sightlines. When World War II transformed the American coastline into a network of military installations, Harvey Point became Naval Auxiliary Air Station Harvey Point, an operating base for seaplanes conducting anti-submarine surveillance along the Atlantic coast. Nearby, Naval Air Station Weeksville served as a blimp base from 1941 to 1957, part of a constellation of naval air facilities guarding the eastern seaboard against German U-boats.

After the war, NAAS Harvey Point was decommissioned in 1946 and sat dormant for over a decade. Then, in 1958, the Navy announced an ambitious new purpose: Harvey Point would become the testing ground for the Martin P6M Seamaster, an experimental jet-powered seaplane bomber designed for long-range strike missions. The Seamaster was a bold concept -- a swept-wing jet that could take off and land on open water, delivering nuclear weapons without needing a conventional runway. Harvey Point's sheltered sound waters and existing seaplane infrastructure made it an ideal testing site. But the Seamaster was plagued by problems. The program was cancelled in August 1959 after the Navy concluded the aircraft was not successful enough to justify continued support. It remains one of the more dramatic dead ends in American military aviation, a futuristic bomber that briefly turned this quiet Carolina peninsula into a proving ground for jet-age ambitions.

In 1961, the Navy returned to Harvey Point, closed the property to the public, and it has remained that way ever since. What emerged was something far more secretive than a seaplane base. Harvey Point became a training facility used by the CIA for paramilitary and counterterrorism courses. The Department of the Navy holds the title and budgetary responsibility for the installation, a bureaucratic arrangement that satisfies procurement regulations while keeping the facility's true purposes at arm's length. The ATF and FBI also use Harvey Point for complex training scenarios related to overseas counterterrorism and asset protection. The facility has a sister installation in Virginia: Camp Peary, often called "The Farm," the CIA's primary training facility. Together, these sites form a quiet network where America's intelligence operatives learn their tradecraft.

Harvey Point operates two usable landing fields, with plans for a third. The FAA designates the airspace above the facility as Special Use Airspace R-5301, continuously restricted from the surface to 14,000 feet above mean sea level. Adjacent areas of the Albemarle Sound fall under restricted airspace R-5302, controlled by the military radar facility known by the callsign GIANT KILLER. For general aviation pilots, the restricted zones are clearly marked on the Charlotte Sectional Chart -- prominent blank spots that announce their presence by their very absence. The explosions used to simulate terrorist bombs during training exercises carry for miles across the flat, sound-side terrain, a regular reminder to the surrounding communities that something significant happens on that peninsula. Satellite imagery has occasionally revealed provocative details, including what analysts identified as a mock compound resembling the Abbottabad site used in the raid on Osama bin Laden. Harvey Point endures as a place where secrecy and spectacle exist in uncomfortable proximity.