Events
Scot UFO visits Area 51 in Nevada (17 February 2003)

Remote. That’s the feeling you get out there at the gates of the USA's most secretive base - Area 51. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

How can any UK UFO investigator go all the way over to Las Vegas and not plan a trip out to the UFO Mecca that is the Nevada Test Site a.k.a Area 51, Groom Lake or Dreamland?

I opted for a guided tour courtesy of "Adventure Photo Tours" (highly recommended), as I've only ever driven in the USA once before and that was only for about 30 mins on an empty interstate.  Automatic car? …don’t think so.  SUV? …what’s that?  Guided tour it was then!

On most excursions when abroad, waiting for the tour guide at 06:30 in the morning is usually a sleepy quiet affair, but not in Vegas.  Although not as busy as it was the previous day at noon , there were plenty of people, cars, limos, helicopters and planes on the go.  In fact while walking through my hotel, “Circus Circus”, there were still “punters” at the various slot machines and tables not really looking the worse for wear at all for being in a 24x7 city that never stops.

The plan for the day was simple.  Coast 3 hours (150 miles) “up the road”, as we like to say in Scotland; the I-15, then U.S. 93 north, followed by State Route 375 (the E.T. Highway) and onto Rachel and then the base.  Easy.  Hmmm…  The route is highlighted, badly, on the image at the side (click for larger map).

I had the bare essentials with me – APS camera, binoculars, digital camcorder, shades, one nephew (along for the ride), a bottle of water and half a pack of horrible local mints.  I’ve still to find a decent packet of mints over in the USA .

First stop didn’t go quite as planned.  The golden arches of McDonald’s round the corner from the hotel, for breakfast, and then we were on our way!

On leaving Vegas our tour guide Bill took the road out that runs alongside Nellis AFB to see if there was any activity – there wasn’t unfortunately.  

Approximately two-and-a-half hours and one “loo stop” later we were at State Route 375 a.k.a. the Extraterrestrial Highway .  The sign (see image right), has been vandalized somewhat now, but is still readable and certainly stands out against the normal run-of-the-mill signs we’d seen up until then.

Bill took us out to a dry lake bed which is out near Alamo on the E.T. Highway .  I must say at this point that if anyone is planning their own trip out here or to the base, make sure you hire out a damn fine 4x4 as these places are accessed only by dirt tracks and the SUV we were in took a fair pounding from the bumps and stones (as did it’s passengers!).

The dry lake bed was an eerily quiet and remote place that gave a good indication of what the Area 51 Groom Dry Lake bed would have been like before the USAF slapped a humongous runway across the poor thing.  Here we took a spin on the dry lake bed which was surprisingly very smooth indeed and had a good look around, finding some obsidian flint chips from tools and possibly weapons of a previous ancient culture. 

Then it was back into the SUV and onto Rachel and the “Little A’le’ Inn ” (see image right), for a spot of lunch and a good old nose around.  Rachel is not a town as such – more a collection of small buildings a long, long way away from anywhere else.

We met the proprietor of the Little A’le’ Inn , Pat, who was very friendly and courteous.  Lunch was scoffed down quickly as it had been over 3 hours since that McDonald’s breakfast and was washed down with a very welcome and nicely chilled bottle of Bud (I didn’t get asked for ID either which was a welcome change!).  We had a good look around some of the merchandise, bought a shot-glass or two and toured the many photos that adorned the wall, some local some not.  There were a few other people popping in and out but on the whole we had the place to ourselves and it was nice and cozy.  I made a mental note to find out what this place was like at night time, next time I’m in the neighborhood.

After saying our goodbyes it was off to the main part of the tour and the part we’d all waited patiently for – the base!

Bill thought it may be an idea to nip round to the back door of the base to see if there was anyone hanging out washing, conducting secret experiments with alien technology or such. 

We made our way up the long (and I mean long!), winding dirt track, our SUV kicking up one hell of a dust trail.  Could they possibly know we were on our way?  You betcha!

On the way up the dirt track (about 20 mins),  we passed an old clapped out truck on the side of the road with a very nice and very new Chevrolet pickup truck parked neatly in front of it – the only other vehicle we’d seen in quite a while.  What a strange place for a car to park I thought… Oh well - on to the base.

We finally made it all the way up to the back gate (see image right).  The barriers were down and there was a collection of “stop”, “prohibited” and “warning” signs (see image above, right).  Not a very friendly place this, but that was OK because we were going to stop, get out and have a look about anyway.   And we did.

Actually, there’s not much to see around the place – unless you know what you’re looking for.  Having a good optical zoom on my camcorder (x24), I scanned the surrounding area and seen plenty of remote sensors splattered around the scrubland.  There was also a strange looking tree that was just out of my zoom range but had a curious glint to it.  Hmmm….

After taking a few holiday snaps and realizing that we weren’t going to get invited in for a cup of tea, a scone and some jam, it was almost time to head off to the front gate and announce our presence to – well – someone!  And then…  We notice a pickup truck parked somewhat down the road, in the middle, with lights on (see image right).  Strange place to park, I thought for the second time.

I had a quick look out for any more remote sensors and found a glaringly obvious one at some distance off to the right of the gate (see image right).

As I was panning round to the left again I also spied some satellite looking dishes and another communications array.  Quite a little pad they got going here.  Bet they still can’t get a decent Channel 5 reception though!

Spinning around once more with the camcorder, who should I see behind us?  That darn Chevy again and guess what… it was oddly parked yet again (see image right).  This time it was parked at an angle across the road and facing into the scrubland.

Zooming in on my camera, it was just about to auto-focus on the occupants when the Chevy started to move off up a small dirt track leading into the scrubland.  Who were these people?  We had to find out so we all piled hurriedly into our SUV and decided to follow our newly found “friends”.

Making our way up the small dirt track was a bumpy twisty ride.  Although there was nothing but scrubland for miles around us the track undulated quite a bit.  Just in front of us the Chevy was again parked across the dirt track – strange.  We stopped our SUV for a second to ponder, then suddenly – a bright flash of light from the Chevy!  Base guards were taking our picture and we didn’t even get the time to adjust our hair or say “Cheese”.  What a cheek!

Our SUV lurched forward, Bill at the helm.  The Chevy spun around and quickly headed up the dirt track in front of us.

The chase was on!

We followed our newly interested buddies along the dirt track for a while.  And then…  Where did they go?   Wow – they disappeared!  Nothing around us for miles and miles except for flat scrubland, silly looking little trees and.. oh yes.. a largish, rusted old fuel looking trailer that was just big enough to hide an.. erm… a Chevy, behind it. Doh!

Where oh where could those guards in the Chevy be?? (see image below). 

Yes indeed – the guards were trying to hide behind the only hiding place for miles and miles (and not very well either!).  As we approached their Chevy from behind they took off at break-neck speed back up towards the gates we had come from.

We spun our SUV around just in time to see them racing into the base, the gates already closing slowly behind them.

You can download and watch a small 1 minute movie clip of the episode – click here.

It’s 12MB so you judge how long it’s going to take to download on your Internet connection (it won’t Zip down any further either!).

Cool – we had chased Area 51 guards, in their non-license plated Chevy, all the way back to their base huts where no doubt our photos were rapidly being uploaded into some fancy face recognition system.  Hopefully it was running Windows XP – we would be safe then…

Now it was off to the front gate.

The road that leads up to the front gate starts at the well known “black mailbox” (see image right), which is now painted white and severely vandalized.

Many people seem to think that this was the mailbox for the base.  Like the worlds most secretive base would have a little mailbox for drops out here at the end of a dirt track.  Anyway, the mailbox belongs to an innocent rancher who probably in all fairness must be really irate with the many people who have scored their names into his mailbox over the years.

There are also some accounts of UFO sightings in and around the mailbox, but seeing as its damn close one of the weirdest testing grounds for exotic craft in the world – that’s maybe not too surprising either.

We had a good look around.  This place is so desolate that it becomes very clear why the USA decided to hide their secret base away here.

Everything is just so flat with mountains at the edge of the horizon and beyond the mountains in front of us was Area 51 (see image right).

The road that leads to the front gate is equally as long, winding and desolate as the one to the back gate (see image right).  Our SUV was soon kicking up one hell of a dust-ball behind it as we bumped and bounced up the track at a respectable 20 mph.  We kind of suspected that the guards we had encountered at the back gate had long since called the guards who we were heading towards, warning them to expect some “visitors”.  But that wouldn’t really have been necessary as our dust trail could be seen miles away – we were coming!

As we approached the front gate we noticed that we were not alone.  Sitting atop a hill, not too far away, was another suspiciously parked pickup.  We were under observation yet again but these guys were quite happy to monitor us from the comfort of their hilltop on their restricted land (see image right).

So we headed up towards the front gate.  This is not actually a gate as such – there is no physical barrier stopping anyone so it would be quite easy to carry on and drive into restricted land on onto the base itself – but that would be just silly!  You could get the feeling that these guys wouldn’t mess around if you did.

The “gate” is a collection of the, by now usual, “warning”, “prohibited”, “stop”, “violation”, “danger”,  “prosecution”, “trespassers will be cavity searched” and general  “go away - your not really welcome here” type signs we’d seen at the back gate (see image right).

As I mentioned there is no physical gate to stop you, however, there is a “hidden” line you must not cross.  This is fairly marked with bright orange posts stuck in the ground every 10-30 meters or so apart.  I guess “the line” goes directly from one post to the other although there’s no sign saying as much.  The lack of any sign that may have said something like “Do not cross the invisible line marked with the bright orange markers” may have just tempted some people.  I think the absence of such a sign was ominous enough not to try.  You could almost hear the guards atop the hill muttering “Go on…  Just put one toe over. Make our day!”.

We had a good wander around the end of road and the signs, always under the observation of the guard in the pickup on top of the hill.  It’s not very exciting as there’s not really much to see.  We waved at the guards but didn’t get a response.  I went up to the markers and waved again – no response.  Hmmm…   This was getting boring – time for some action.

Accompanied by my nephew who by now was finding the whole experience “very cool”, we decided to climb up an adjoining hill to see if we could get a good look at the guards and perhaps some response.

Off we set, climbing up the side of the hill being careful not to cross that invisible line between the orange markers.  Halfway up the hill we stopped for a pose next to another “warning” sign (see image right).

Continuing up the hill we started to get a bit wary of exactly where those orange posts were.  We looked up and across to the hill where the guards were but we were too far forward for them to see us at that angle so we continued up.

We got up a bit further and checked the guards across the way – they had moved their pickup truck forward quite a bit.  A reaction at last, so we continued up as far as we could go before coming to an orange marker post.

We decided to play “footsie” with it seeing how close we could get to Area 51 land (see image right).  We got fairly close and started to arouse some attention from across the hill. One of the guards was now standing outside of the pickup.  I tried to zoom in but it was just too far for my zoom to clearly focus (see image above, right).

It was at that point something bright red glinted – I knew what that was!  I quickly looked down onto my chest and there was a little red dot.  It was only there for a second or two before disappearing but it was definitely there.  Cool.  I had been targeted by Area 51 guards either a sniper rifle or a laser listening device.  This was a definite reaction!  We waved to them and smiled.  They got back into their pickup and reversed off a little.  Perhaps the guy was wondering how good an optical zoom I had on my camcorder?

We turned and waved down at the rest of the tour party (see image right).  They were a long way down and we didn’t realize that we had gone that far up!

They had now been joined by another couple of cars and Bill and the party were waving back at us, either happily or frantically concerned – we never really found out.

Having a good look around we spied a few odd looking “plants” and a fairly large listening and broadcasting antenna at the top of the hill we were climbing.  It looked pretty alien against the scrubland, but impressive nonetheless.  It looks like the one that’s reproduced in many of the Area 51 visit reports.  I didn’t want to be left out, so here it is (see image right).

Being very pleased with ourselves because we had obtained a reaction from the guards, not to mention probably coming very close to being capped in the ass, we started to head back down the hill.  It seemed to take longer than the way up to navigate the steep incline and various attacking plants.  One had a good lurch at me and took a bite at my leg.  Damn weeds.

Safely back with Bill and the party at the bottom we roamed around a little more.  I went over to the line and slid my foot cautiously across a little.  No reaction from the guards.  I picked up a stone and chucked it across the line.  No reaction.  I picked up a largish twig and tossed that across into Area 51.  The guard was outside the pickup again probably with binoculars in hand.

Bill mentioned that he’d been chased out of the area by helicopters before.  That sounded like fun but highly unlikely on our visit. 

We waved goodbye to the guards and headed off south on the dirt track back to the E.T. Highway and off to Vegas for some well needed “shut eye”.

It was quite an eventful day.  For me, it was a place I just needed to see.  For my nephew, it was a place that used to be just on demeaning TV documentaries but was now a very real and “very cool” place to have been. 

Rachel was as an interesting little place and we felt warm and welcomed at the Little A’le’ Inn .

Chasing the guards Chevy at the back gate and having our photo taken was fantastic fun – probably for them too – and ending it all with standing on a hilltop a centimetre away from Area 51 and being targeted by a laser device was just ace.

If you’re out in Las Vegas – get yourself out to the base.