From the air, this tiny suburb looked like any other American neighbourhood, but up close things were a little bit off.

Windows were painted on to houses, the leaves on the trees never changed colour and the cars didn’t drive anywhere.

That’s because this town was completely fake.

During World War II the US military teamed up with Hollywood set designers to disguise important wartime factories to fool enemy aircraft.

[Image via taphilo.com/Boeing]

This particular “town” was actually built on the top of a Boeing factory - Plant 2 - in Seattle.

It was created with the vision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer art director John Stewart Detlie, who began working on it in 1942.

Dubbed “Wonderland” by locals, this elaborate camouflage stretched across about 10 hectares, comprised of burlap, wire and a whole lot of fakery.

The effort cost somewhere around $US1 million in 1942, which would by roughly $18 million today.

Wonderland contained roughly 300 fake trees, constructed from chicken wire, tar and feathers – some of them standing at 3.5m tall.

[Joyce Howe and behind her Susan Heidreich walking in "Wonderland". Image via taphilo.com/Boeing]

“Chicken wire was lightly coated with tar, and then dipped in chicken feathers,” historian Bill Yenne wrote for Warfare History Network.

“The finished product, which had a soft, leafy appearance, could be formed into a rigid structure of any shape and sprayed multiple shades of green.”

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Wonderland had at least three major roads, with names such as Synthetic Street and Burlap Boulevard.

There were cars on the streets, but they were made of wood and barely cleared one metre in height.

Most of houses were empty inside – except for a safety sprinkler system – and stood at an average height of 1.2m.

[Suzette Lamoureaux and Vern Manion Imager via Seattle Times/Boeing]

However, as Yenne writes in his book Panic on the Pacific, two homes were actually designed to be lived in – with the residents being soldiers manning anti-aircraft guns between 1942 and 1942.

In total, the neighbourhood comprised of 53 homes, 24 garages, three green houses, a store and even a servo.

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Underneath all this, it was business as usual.

Factory employees worked in two shifts on assembly lines, pumping out planes for the war effort.

According to Boeing, employees were able to build an average of 12 B-17 planes every day.

Thankfully the factory never came under fire from enemy bombers.

Wonderland was eventually dismantled in 1946, with all materials sold for scrap or to members of the public.