Project Hot House

Between the years 1985 and 2006, Skywatch authorized Project: Hot House: following the discovery of an abandoned extraterrestrial bunker located underneath Mount St. Helens, the alien facility was seized by the organization and refitted into a highly classified base designed to investigate a range of anomalous artifacts and materials found on Earth.

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

In 1984, Bludgeon led a group to Earth to collect Ore-13 with the end goal of reanimating Thunderwing. Their plot was discovered by Soundwave, who tracked them to their base in Mount St. Helens. Bludgeon and most of his crew escaped, locking Soundwave in his alternate form and triggering a volcanic eruption that buried Soundwave, his allies, and the hapless Bludgeon loyalist Bugly. Spotlight: Soundwave When Eagles Scream

Over the course of their 1985 excavation, Skywatch would eventually discover the main bunker and several of the entombed Cybertronians within, turning the base into one of their research facilities. Around 2006, the facility would join forces with Joe Colton and disgraced scientist Garrison Kreiger as part of a series of experiments involving the deployment of weapons designed to counter the aliens that were now appearing with increasing regularity. At the government's request, Kreiger had the anomalous alien object he had discovered with Colton's Adventure Team — codenamed "Talisman" — relocated to the facility, where it was used in conjunction with a volatile crystalline substance.

Skywatch's experiments extended to several of the deactivated Transformers that had been buried in the base. Hoping to find a way to reactivate the Talisman, Colton and Kreiger reactivated Bugly and let him break containment, attracting the attention of Colton's newly formed G.I. Joe and the time-tossed Sgt. Savage. Kreiger's Cybertronian ally Centurion subdued the runaway Decepticon and lured Savage deeper into the base, forcing him into making contact with the Talisman. When Eagles Scream His body saturated with its power thanks to his trip through time, Strange Visitors Savage's touch brought the Talisman back to life; its energies hurled Savage further into the future once more and blew Bugly apart, proving the Talisman's effectiveness as a weapon. When Eagles Scream

In the years following the Talisman experiments, the bodies of Ravage and Laserbeak, the other two Cybertronians, Skywatch recovered were eventually relocated to Skywatch's base in Washington, D.C.. Escalation #6 Unaware of his true nature, Skywatch would eventually sell Soundwave's deactivated body to goodwill. When Eagles Scream