From the beginning, at the height of the Cold War the Strategic Air Command recognized Big Rock Point's wide open location as a perfect target for bombing practice. Not real bombs, but electronic ones. In 1963 a radar scoring station was erected in 1963 in Bay Shore five miles east. For the next 22 years, B-52s, B-47s, and B-58s dropped electronic "bombs" down the emissions stack while cameras in the bomb bay recorded their flight path accuracy and the radar station scored their electronic accuracy. By the time the program ended in 1985, Big Rock Point had been targeted over 10,000 times, twice by the British Royal Air Force.