Area 51 Loose Ends

Lazar Story: A Fraud for Bigelow Funding?

2011-10-01T04:54:00.000-07:00

I just came across this 1997 article of mine offering a skeptical theory about Bob Lazar and his claims:

Lazar Theory #1: Fraud for Bigelow Funding

Excerpt:

Lazar made up the story on his own based on his own significant technical knowledge, his peripheral work with a contractor on theNellis Range and the prior Area 51 alien claims of John Lear (aliens eating humans in a vast underground base), which Lazar "cleaned up" and made more plausible.

What was Lazar's motivation? Money. Under Theory #1, Lazar cooked up the story to obtain funding from Las Vegas philanthropist Robert Bigelow, who was known to sponsor far-out projects.

Some details not mentioned in the article...

The registration for the "Zeta Reticuli 2" corporation is a public record at the Nevada Department of State, which registers corporations. Both Lazar and Bigelow are listed as officers. As the story goes, Lazar not only worked with Element 115; he managed to smuggle some of it out, and the corporation was somehow intended to test or exploit it. (So much for intense base security! How can a low-level employee smuggle what is arguably the most precious substance on Earth?) We still don't know the purpose or business plan of the Zeta Reticuli 2 Corporation. The only thing certain is that it existed. We can also assume that when a private corporation is formed, its intent is to make money.
Lazar himself had no idea his story would get so big. He was just out to pull off a modest con (according to Theory #1). Almost from the day the story was broadcast (and he was identified publically as the source), Lazar has been trying to put the brakes on it.
Lazar has never been to Area 51! If he had, he could have described innocuous details of the base that any genuine worker would know -- like the cafeteria or what you first see when you get off the plane. There are a LOT of people who can verify these details, and one former worker in particular (who I met) grilled Lazar in private about them and got nowhere. Funny that someone would be willing to reveal details of a super-secret saucer program but not details of the cafeteria.
Lazar had reason to be afraid of the government! If he had a security clearance, he could have been prosecuted for releasing classified information or any information about classified facilities -- even innocuous non-alien information. (LOL! So maybe THAT'S why he can't discuss the Area 51 cafeteria! If he had been there, he could have been prosecuted for that, whereas he can't be prosecuted for revealing a nonexistent saucer base at Papoose Lake.)
FBI interest in Lazar was real. Knapp describes interaction with an agent "Mike Thigpin" who was apparently investigating Lazar. Knapp takes this as evidence the Lazar story is true. My interpretation, however, is that as soon as the Lazar story was broadcast on KLAS-TV, the government itself was scrambling for answers to determine if any classified (non-alien) information had been released.
Lazar says that he went public on KLAS only to save his own life. There could be an element of truth to this! Remember that Lazar first appears on KLAS in shadow as "Dennis". If the government managed to identify him anyway and Lazar had a security clearance, then they are going to start harassing him. Every if the story is fictitious, he has certainly breached security protocols. The best way to save his own ass is to go fully public with his (fake) story. Then he is protected by publicity and the government can't touch him.
Knapp says that Los Alamos denied Lazar worked there, but Knapp found Lazar's name in an official facility phone directory. Proof of a cover-up? Not exactly. Los Alamos is a big place, with lots of contractors and sub-contractors. Lazar could have worked "at" Los Alamos without working "for" Los Alamos. There is no question he worked for a contractor there (which certainly would have given him a primer on government secrecy).
I remember seeing a document in the pre-internet era (although I haven't been able to find it again) which purported to be an internal military memo, released at the time of the KLAS broadcast, confirming that Lazar had worked on the Nellis Range, but that he had never been to any "forward areas", apparently meaning Area 51. It remains plausible but unproven that Lazar worked briefly on the Nellis Range and could have picked up many details of his story there. That he worked on the range and/or had a security clearance was reason enough for the FBI to take an interest in him after his claims were broadcast.
Lazar is a smart dude, no question about it! (That is, smart in technical ways, not necessarily in his own life choices or in the ways of other people.) Although he probably misjudged public response to his story and probably didn't gain the reward he sought, he can certainly look a few chess moves ahead and say, "If I do this, then this other bad thing will happen to me." That may explain why he hasn't exploited his story in the obvious ways, like taking big fees for speaking at UFO conferences or giving interviews. (However, that hasn't prevented him from seeking Hollywood deals. Maybe he is just trawling for bigger fish.)
In May 1989, around the time Lazar first went public, Scientific American published an article on hypothetical elements in that vicinity. Back in those ancient pre-internet days, everyone read the same magazines. Lazar was certainly well-read and intelligent, and Scientific American would have been on his reading list. It is conceivable he picked up Element 115 from there.
My ex-wife once worked at TTR and she drove back and forth in her own car between there and Rachel. She passed "Site 4" every day, although she swears it was labelled "S4". It's a radar facility on a plain with no hillsides you could build saucer hangers into, but this real name could have found its way into Lazar's story. Perhaps he indeed worked there! (If so, then he might have attained a degree of legal protection by displacing it to Papoose Lake.)
Before making his UFO claims, Lazar was a friend of Jim Tagliani, who worked at TTR at the time. He could have told Lazar about "Site 4" on the Nellis Range as well as other information about range operations.
There's nothing at Papoose Lake. Nothing. We've looked at it from every angle (short of setting foot there). The key thing is roads. There's no road infrastructure that could support even a few buses a day, let alone a major construction project in the area.
I like this quote from my article: "True or false, I feel the Lazar story has enriched my life in many interesting ways."

Area 51 Guide Service Discontinued

2011-07-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

As of Aug. 2011, I have discontinued my Area 51 guide service, at least for the general public. (I may still do it for members of the media, however.)

The reason is simple: I don't live in Nevada anymore. I haven't lived there since 2008, but until now, I have been a laid-off airline worker who could fly for free, so I could go back there whenever I wanted. As of September 2011, I lose that privilege, so continuing the guide service just isn't practical. (Anyone who employed me would have to pay my airfare to Las Vegas from whether I happened to be.)

I have enjoyed the tours I have given and the people I have met, but the orbs are telling me to move on to new adventures.

I am still VERY active on social media, so check in there to see what I'm up to:

Glenn Campbell

Paul, the Area 51 alien (movie trailer)

2011-01-09T16:36:00.000-08:00

I can confidently say I had nothing to do with this. Learned about it just now on Twitter.

I think you pretty much got the whole movie in this here trailer. Worth the 2:23, I'd say! (But not necessarily worth the two hours to sit through the movie.)

It's not the only Area 51 movie in the pipeline.

I am Investigated by Homeland Security for Suspicious iPhone Photography!

2011-01-08T14:59:00.000-08:00

Honest, I'm trying to be good. It has been years since I've tested security at Area 51, and I've been trying my best these days not to antagonize authority. Still, every once in a while, authority and I seem to bump into each other.

Turns out, I have been investigated by the FBI and Homeland Security! Not in the 1990s, but within the past week.

Two days ago, I got an email from a driving client. One of my business schemes is to drive people's cars and pets across the country, and I had driven this car from Cleveland to Florida in late November. The client was a bit concerned because he just received a visit at his Cleveland office from an FBI agent working with Homeland Security. Apparently, the federal government was concerned about my activities while driving the car.

As the story goes, a man was lurking outside a chemical plant in West Virginia on Nov. 29, taking photos. As soon as a security guard approached him, he jumped in the car and drove off. In this era of heightened security, there was concern that he might be a terrorist casing the facility for a future attack.

That was me! I emailed the client that it was true: I was indeed taking photos outside a chemical plant. Only the "jumped in the car and drove off" part wasn't quite right.

I was lucky that my client was a lawyer, familiar with the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". (Most people would be totally freaked out by a visit from the FBI, regardless of guilt.)

Truth is, I had stopped for a couple of minutes along the side of a public road and snapped three photos with my iPhone of this pretty DuPont Chemical plant on the banks of the Kanawha River in Belle, West Virginia. Above is one of the photos. Although it shows a No Trespassing sign, it clearly establishes that I am on the GOOD side of the sign and that a fence prevents anyone from going any further. For the record, there was no No Photography sign of any kind (which I doubt would be legal anyway).

These weren't my best photos by any means, just bearly meeting my standards for publication. Later in the day, I posted them in my Virginia and West Virginia album.

The exact location, on Google Maps, is here. (I know it for sure, because it is a point where a stream enters the plant, as shown in the photo below.) The other two photos were nearly identical, as shown below...

You see some tiny people on the bridge, who may have notice my presence.

The photos were taken with an iPhone app calls proHDR, which analyses the scene, takes two photos and combines them into one (for more vivid colors). So I had to stand there for 30 seconds for each photo. My entire excursion a few feet out of the vehicle lasted no more than 5 minutes, but as I was getting back in the car, an unmarked pickup truck pulls up across the road from me, driven by a security guard with Wackenhut insignia.

Right away, I know what was happening, and it amused me to no end. This was a CELLPHONE camera, and I'm on a public road. Instead of "jumping in the car and driving off", I sloooowed myself down to West Virginia speed and waited for the guard to come over to the car.

At this point, I was in the driver's seat of the car, and I rolled down the window as he approached. He was a very timid guard, obviously inexperienced. He asked me if I was taking pictures. I said I was, and I showed him my iPhone. He asked me why, and I said I was just driving by and the plant looked pretty.

I pointed out that I was on a public road and there was nothing illegal about taking a photo here. I then SHOWED HIM THE PHOTOS I HAD JUST TAKEN, but I also made sure the phone remained securely in my own hand and not in his.

I pointed out the photos were very low resolution and that any terrorist can get better photos of the plant from Google Earth without leaving home. (If it had made a difference, I could also have talked to him at length about the only federal photography statute, 18 USC 795, and its case law, but clearly this fellow didn't have a clue about anything called "law".)

The guard then asked me if I would come with him—apparently inside the plant.

I said (in a slow West Virginia way): "I see no reason at all I should come with you. I haven't broken any law. You want me to go from a public road, where I have rights, onto private property, where I have none? I'm sorry. If you want to call the police, you can, but I'm not going anywhere with you."

He then said he would have to record my license plate. I said: "You can do anything you want." I then patiently waited for him to walk to the back of the car and write down the plate number, then he walked back his truck and I SLOWLY drove away.

He didn't even have the courage to ask for my name or ID. (If he had, I would have SHOWN him my ID, but it wouldn't have left my hand. This is not a law enforcement officer, and I am not on his property. I have no obligation to give him anything, and I put myself at risk if I do.)

So then, a month and a half later, the FBI visits my client, the owner of the car.

I think my client/lawyer did a pretty good job of defending me. He gave the agent my name and phone number, but he also pointed out that I take a lot of photos, which are available online. He suggested to the agent that I was probably just driving by on the trip from Cleveland to Florida and stopped to take a photo of something that struck my eye.

The FBI agent told my client he would contact me, but it hadn't happened 24 hours after the visit, so I called him myself! Yesterday, I called a number the agent gave my client and introduced myself. The agent knew who I was right away! He said he had been looking me up on the internet and was quite impressed with what he found. As far as I could tell, he had no special knowledge of me from FBI files, but he seemed to have a pretty good grasp of what I was all about just from what he gleaned on the internet. Honestly, I should have more fans like that!

I told the agent the whole story (with great amusement), and it seemed to satisfy him. He said they investigate 100% of these complaints, and most of them turn out to be dead ends like this one. Although he didn't say so explicitly, I imagine the case is closed.

I think the agent was relieved that I called. He had found my Facebook page (which is mostly public), was looking through my massive cache of photos and had been debating about whether to contact me. My call relieved him of the burden of deciding.

I told the FBI agent he should friend me... although I imagine they're not allowed to do that (friend the person they have just been investigating for possible links to terrorism). In any case, the phone call ended with no further action required.

But is the case really closed? If the agent looks more closely at my Facebook page, he will find that I spent Christmas in PALESTINE—a hotbed of terrorism. Maybe I was delivering my iPhone photos of the chemical plant (because the internet isn't secure enough). And where else would terrorists strike first than West Virginia? After all, it is the crossroads of Appalachia. A Bhopal-style accident might wipe out the entire town of Belle and a few more communities down the river. Why hit Manhattan when you can strike at the heart of America?

Fortunately, I am not the young Psychospy of the 1990s. He would not have taken it so calmly. He would have come back to Belle with the biggest-ass camera lens he could find and shot the hell out of that plant! He would have taunted those Wackenhut dudes from two inches outside the boundary until the local police came and there was an assertion of rights. Of course, there would have been a website recording all this. It might have got ugly.

This incident wasn't damaging to me, but it could have been to someone else. When the FBI visits your employer, that can have a huge effect on the security of your employment, regardless of your guilt. This spurious complaint is also using up a significant amount of law enforcement resources—at least a day of one FBI agent's time. Is it Dupont's policy to report anyone to the FBI who points a cellphone at the plant? If so, Dupont is probably doing a lot more damage to national security than helping it.

It irritates me that I'm engaged in a legal activity on public property, I'm completely open about what I'm doing and am willing to answer questions, and still I get pulled into an FBI investigation. The only "crime" I committed was choosing not to go inside the plant's property when I was asked to. Had I been less certain about my rights, I would have essentially been kidnapped to a place where I had no rights. Once I was on their property, could Dupont have seized my iPhone?

What are Dupont's policies on this? I'd really like to know.

Facebook comments

Groomstock Photos

2011-01-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

Groomstock 2010 is three months past now, and I forgot to post any photos, so here they are...

Groomstock 2010 Album

We had a nice time, but not really much to report. No helicopter fly-bys. No encounters with security. Just your standard secret base doing what secret bases do: sitting there. It was a surprisingly small group, given that the WHOLE WORLD was invited, but it's quality that counts, not quantity. (In addition to those shown here, there were several who camped with us but didn't make the hike, including Agent Coyote from our early years.) The trip proceeded as previously announced, with most of us camping at the trailhead and a few staying in Alamo.

I have no idea yet whether there will be another Groomstock in 2011. (If there is, it will probably be in the summer.)

Groomstock 2010 - THIS WEEKEND!

2010-10-05T04:36:00.000-07:00

Our free public campout and hike at Tikaboo Peak is STILL ON -- just as previously announced! Oct. 9-10, 2010

You can join us for the camp-out on Saturday night or just for the hike on Sunday morning. RSVP is appreciated but not required. Just come!

For more information, including meeting time and place, see the Event Announcement and the Facebook Event Page.

Groomstock 2010 - October 9-10, 2010

2010-09-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

Join us for a free public campout and hike at
Tikaboo Peak (Area 51 viewpoint),
Oct. 9-10, 2010
THE WHOLE WORLD is invited to a free public camp-out and hike at Tikaboo Peak, the last remaining public viewpoint into the secret Area 51 base in Nevada.

Tikaboo Peak is an 8000-foot mountain about 2-1/2 hours north of Las Vegas. It is indistinguishable from other local mountains except that it offers an unobstructed view of the secret military base at Groom Lake (albeit from 26 miles away). Getting there requires a 2-1/2-hour drive on paved and dirt roads and a strenuous 1-2 hour hike to the summit. We will be camping in the desert near the
trailhead on Saturday night (Oct. 9) and making the hike on Sunday morning (Oct. 10). You are free to join us for one or both events.

This is the same hike portrayed (with some dramatic license) on UFO Hunters and MysteryQuest on the History Channel. The hike itself is a little over a mile and ascends from an elevation of 7000 feet to 8000 feet. The trail is steep, rocky and unmaintained but not dangerous in itself. The main burden is the altitude. Most people who exercise regularly can handle it, but couch potatoes and smokers may see their life pass before their eyes.

For more information, including meeting time and place, see Event Announcment

(A Facebook event page will be coming soon!)

Public Hike of Tikaboo Peak on October 10 - Good idea???

2010-08-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking of putting together a FREE PUBLIC HIKE of Tikaboo Peak on Sunday, Oct. l0, 2010 -- but before I commit myself, I want to get people's feedback and gauge if there is sufficient interest.

NOTE: This is currently a PROPOSAL only! Wait until a formal announcement around Sept. 1 before making any plans!

Tikaboo Peak is the last remaining vantage point on public land where you can still see the Area 51 base. (The base is very small and distant--26 miles away--but you can see the main buildings and runway.) The hike requires a 90 minute drive from Las Vegas on paved roads, followed by a 45 minute drive on good dirt roads, then a hike of 1-1/2 to 2 hours (and 1000 feet elevation change) on a primitive trail. Experienced hikers in good shape will find it a breeze, but most people (especially sea level dwellers) regard the hike as strenuous.

It would be just like the old days! The whole world would be invited, but because the location is remote, the whole world isn't likely to come. At the peak of the Area 51 hype in the 1990s, no more than 20-30 people would come to these hikes.

I'm targeting Oct. 10, because I've already agreed to do a hike then and it's the perfect time of year for it. This also happens to be the weekend of a big Renaissance Faire in Las Vegas, one of the best in all the land. See http://LvRenFair.com . On Friday night and Saturday, I expect to attend the faire (dressed as a mere peasant), and perhaps you'd like to, too! See my past photos.

I normally conduct these tours for a fee (See my webpage.), but if I invited the whole world, I would waive the fee for everyone. It would be free! (apart from the significant expense of getting there)

There would be two possible ways we could meet up: (1) We could meet at the paved highway (US 93 south of Alamo) at a certain time Saturday evening, then we would all drive to the trailhead and camp there, doing the hike in the morning. Or (2), We could meet at the paved highway early on Sunday morning, and convoy up to the trailhead for the hike. (#1 sounds more fun, but I want your feedback. Camping in these parts is easy: All you need is a sleeping bag and an air mattress. In either case, people arriving later would be given instructions on how to find us.)

After the hike, there would be an optional journey into the Tikaboo Valley (to wave at the border guards), and some people may want to go on to Rachel.

I'll decide around Sept. 1 whether I'm going to go ahead with this public invitation. If I do, I'll put it up as an event on Facebook as well as posting it on this here blog. That would give everyone plenty of time to plan their travel. The invitation would include detailed directions and information.

What do you think?

Glenn Campbell - email: glenn {at} kilroycafe.com

Video: Area 51 Exposed at Last! (again!)

2010-08-07T02:25:00.000-07:00

After a 2-month hiatus, Pointline is back!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRIqb7JPrSI

New Video: Area 51 Exposed at Last!

2010-06-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

NOTE (7/2): I have "unexposed" the video that was posted here. It was bad timing, given the SyFy show coming up. I'll "reexpose" the video at some later date.

Area 51 Workers Talk... But, Sorry, No Aliens!

2010-03-29T15:57:00.001-07:00

New article published March. 27 in the Seattle Times...

Area 51 vets break silence: Sorry, but no space aliens or UFOs - Newly revealed stories from people who used to work at Area 51 shed light on a site still shrouded in mystery.

Noce and Barnes say they never saw anything connected to UFOs.

Barnes believes the Air Force and the "Agency" didn't mind the stories about alien spacecraft. They helped cover up the secret planes that were being tested.

On one occasion, he remembers, when the first jets were being tested at what Muroc Army Air Field, later renamed Edwards Air Force Base, a test pilot put on a gorilla mask and flew upside down beside a private pilot.

"Well, when this guy went back, telling reporters, 'I saw a plane that didn't have a propeller and being flown by a monkey,' well, they laughed at this guy — and it got where the guys would see [test pilots] and they didn't dare report it because everybody'd laugh at them," says Barnes.

Updated Photo of Sean Morton

2010-03-09T07:04:00.001-08:00

Here's Sean and his wife in their limo, from UFOWatchDog.

Looks like securities fraud is treating him well!

His wife looks surprisingly normal. Either she's a con artist like him or a hopeless sucker.

Sean Morton Charged With Securities Fraud!

2010-03-05T07:27:00.000-08:00

OMG! This is fantastic! Sean David Morton, my arch-nemesis in the 1990s (who happened to be the subject of my last post a month ago), has been formerly charged with securities fraud by the SEC, for allegedly swindling investors out of $6 million based on his alleged psychic powers.

New York Times: For Psychic, Suit Came as Surprise

He calls himself “America’s Prophet,” a psychic, trained by Nepalese monks in the art of time travel, who can foretell the future of the stock market. But to the authorities, Sean David Morton is simply a fraud — and a really, really bad psychic.

This article includes the full text of the lawsuit!

Wall Street Journal: SEC Charges Sean David Morton, 'America's Prophet', With Fraud

Also see Google News Search for "Sean Morton"

But let's not rush to judgment here. He has only been charged, not convicted. Here is Sean's response to the charges, as posted on the Coast-to-Coast website....

Sean David Morton Statement

The SEC filing is only a civil action at the moment, which can't send him to jail. All they can do is "enjoin" him from doing stuff and seize his assets, of which he claims none. Sean is nothing if not resilient, and I'm sure he will rise to the occasion and find a new scam to work. The important thing now is to play the victim, thereby tapping into the anti-government subculture. It's a whole new reservoir of suckers to milk!

You can't buy publicity like this, Sean. Run with it!

(Thanks to Ray McClure for the tip-off.)

Follow Sean Morton on Twitter!

2010-02-06T05:39:00.001-08:00

This is a blast! You gotta follow this guy on Twitter: Sean David Morton

http://twitter.com/SeanDavidMorton

He's still alive... and peddling snake oil.

BTW: Here's George Knapp on Twitter.

Campbell Kills Caminos on Freedom Ridge

2009-12-10T01:48:00.000-08:00

Someone has just drawn my attention from one of my old postings from 1997 about a radio intercept back when Freedom Ridge was open...

Campbell Kills Caminos on Freedom Ridge

[CAMINO 04, APPROACH APPROVAL STILL WITHHELD] DUE TO THE FACT THAT IT'S GLENN CAMPBELL AND HE HAS NOT DEPARTED THE AREA. HE IS JUST DOWN THE HILL. WATCHDOG IS STILL IN EFFECT.

[SECOND VOICE] UNDERSTAND YOU ARE BRINGING THE CAMINOS IN NOW?

I'M GOING TO TALK TO THE D.O. AND THE S.O.F. AND TRY AND GET APPROVAL FOR YOU TO DO PATTERN WORK AS LONG AS GLENN CAMPBELL IS DOWN THE HILL

I don't remember anything more about the incident than you read in the posting. I don't remember who the journalist was who made the recording. Although the incident happened on Oct. 31, 1994, I apparently didn't publish it until 1997 because I didn't want to reveal the fact that I had their frequencies.

I guess it's a tribute to the restraint of the US government that I'm not dead right now!

(It's also a tribute to my current disinterest in Area 51 that I have purged all this from memory.)

Area 51: Soft Porn Edition

2009-11-03T20:15:00.001-08:00

Agent Archangel has alerted us to further penetration of Area 51 into popular culture. Area 51 porn! It's only soft porn, shown on late night Cinemax, but it's a start!

Here's the only known review of "Areola 51". Apparently the aliens have a certain fascination for female nipples. (Who wouldn't travel the galaxy for some good titties?)

Don't expect this one at a Red Box near you, but you might catch it again on Cinemax.

Archangal notes that there is also an Austin-based band of the same name: Areola 51.

Area 51 on MysteryQuest on the History Channel, Oct. 14, 10pm

2009-10-08T15:45:00.001-07:00

Ratings for the Area 51 UFO Hunters show were so good that History Channel has come back for more! There will be a brand new Area 51 episode airing this Wednesday at 10pm on a new series called MysteryQuest. Not promising any revelations, mind you, but Yours Truly will be probably be getting a fair amount of gratuitous face time. (Above, he is trying to look serious for his "hero shot".)

That's Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009 at 10pm (Eastern and Pacific Time) or 9pm Central Time. If you miss it, no sweat: It will no doubt be repeated... and repeated.

The main new thing about this episode is the first-ever televised visit to the abandoned Green River Missile complex in Utah (named as the "New Area 51" by Popular Mechanics a few years back). We will be sneaking around in underground facilities there and discovering (as you might have guessed) no new Area 51 there.

The episode filmed back in June. To bring you up to speed, here is my photo album of the shoot. Also check out this blog regarding the previous UFO Hunters show and Green River.

Area 51 Presentation in Las Vegas October 7-8

2009-09-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

Here's your chance to meet former Area 51 workers in person!

Agent Shadowhawk sends us the following press release on a public event coming up in Las Vegas. (Unfortunately, I won't be in the city at the time.) This presentation "will separate the myths from the realities of Area 51" -- if, that is, you want the myths separated from reality! (Personally, I prefer them mixed together.) Looks like George Knapp will be moderating (so they won't be totally separating myth from reality). --GC

On Wednesday, October 7th, and Thursday, October 8th, the Atomic Testing Museum and Roadrunners Internationale will separate the myths from the realities of Area 51 through a special presentation: SPY PLANES OF GROOM LAKE (AREA 51).

The Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, is partnering with Roadrunners Internationale, an alumni organization for Groom Lake workers, to provide first-time public access to former U.S. Air Force, CIA, and contractor personnel who worked on some of the nation’s most closely guarded Cold War projects under a strict blanket of secrecy. This is an opportunity for the public to learn the history of the secret Groom Lake test site and the role it played during the Cold War, and to discuss newly declassified details about cutting edge technologies with the people who developed them. Lectures and moderated discussion panels will include former and current CIA staff, military commanders, historians, and other notable individuals.

There will be opportunities both days for the public to “meet and greet” former Area 51 test pilots, engineers, and technicians and ask them questions. A temporary exhibit will feature actual Area 51 artifacts, memorabilia, and photos. Events on Wednesday will include presentations on the history of Area 51 and Project OXCART by historian Peter Merlin, followed by a panel discussion with people who actually worked at the secret Groom Lake test site. Moderated by KLAS Channel 8 investigative reporter George Knapp, this panel will feature CIA Historian Dr. David Robarge and former pilots and engineers from Area 51. On Thursday, historian Paul Suhler will give an in-depth presentation on CIA projects Rainbow and Gusto and the design evolution of the triple-sonic A-12 spy plane, followed by a discussion panel of former Groom Lake pilots, staff, and technicians moderated by author Annie Jacobson.

Admission is $10 per person and FREE for Museum members. Museum admission is just an additional $5 for those attending this event. Books and souvenirs will be available for purchase at the Museum gift shop and from representatives of the CIA employee store.

Details:

Wednesday, October 7: Meet and Greet 10am-5pm. Area 51 historical overview by aerospace historian, Peter Merlin at 2pm. Project Oxcart history presentation by Peter Merlin at 4pm. Area 51 Panel Discussion, moderated by George Knapp at 6pm-8pm.

Thursday, October 8: Meet and Greet 10am-3pm. Archangel (A-1 through A-12) development history lecture by author, Paul Suhler at 11am. Area 51 Panel Discussion moderated by author, Annie Jacobson, 1pm-3pm.

The Atomic Testing Museum is open 7 days a week, Monday – Saturday 10 am to 5pm and Sunday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Last tickets are sold at 4:30p.m. to20allow time to tour the Museum.

The Atomic Testing Museum is located at 755 E. Flamingo Rd., between Paradise Rd. and Swenson St., on the south side of the street. There is ample parking and the museum is ADA accessible. For more information please call (702) 794-5151.

Bill Uhouse Passes Away

2009-08-03T13:43:00.000-07:00

Bill Uhouse (who I called "Jarod 2" in the Desert Rat) has gone to the other side. According to family members, he died this past May in Pennsylvania.

As you may recall (Desert Rat #24, #27, #28, #32, #33, #37 and maybe a few more), Uhouse claimed to have helped build flight simulators to train human pilots to fly alien craft. Like Lazar's story, Uhouse's claims had remarkable internal consistency, were limited in scope to what he actually "saw" and had no obvious personal motivation. I "believed" his story, at least inasmuch as I believe anything.

Were his claims true? I still don't know. All I do know is that Uhouse became difficult to deal with. I got uncomfortable with his racist invective and his abusive behavior toward other people I knew. When the invective turned against me personally, I simply withdrew. Someone can hold all the keys to the universe, but if they're going to be a jerk on this planet I'm not going to deal with them!

If the story was fake, did he make it up himself or was he put up to it by someone else, like a sinister government agency? It certainly doesn't make sense to me why he would concoct this tale in his later years, but stranger things have lurked in the hearts of men. My own personal conclusion was simply that I didn't care anymore. A story like that depends almost entirely on how much confidence you have in someone's personality, and after a year or so, I lost that confidence.

At his own request, Uhouse's death was virtually kept secret, with even some family members not learning of it until now. Perhaps now that he has passed, more about him will come out and the story will eventually resolve itself.

(We should all remember this ourselves: We may be able to control our own press releases while we are alive, but once we die, our privacy evaporates.)

Advanced Technology at Area 51 Gate

2009-06-15T04:26:00.000-07:00

On alt.conspiracy.area51, Desert Shadow reports finding the above mysterious black box at the Rachel Gate to Area 51. (Unlike the border in the Tikaboo Valley, behind Rachel you can drive to within sight of a guard house.) Desert Shadow writes:

I am sure somebody here would know what this box is. It is on the right side of the Rachel Area 51 gate. It is attached with plastic ties. I noticed it Sunday. It was not there a few weeks ago. It has no wires or any source of power that I could see. Any guesses?

Further description is posted on his Paradise Ranch blog.

The next day, an anonymous poster responded with this candidate....

It looks suspiciously like the Dakota WMA-3000 Wireless Motion Alert Driveway Alarm Alert Motion Sensor. The suggested retail price is $169.95, but if you act now it's only $159.95!

Could it be that Area 51 technology isn't as advanced as we think?

Or maybe that's just what they want us to think!

Two Personal Milestones

2009-05-31T18:36:00.001-07:00

On a visit to Area 51 with Agent Chameleon on May 27, I passed two personal milestones.

One is shown above. I saw my first rattlesnake in the Tikaboo Valley! I photographed this fellow just a few feet from Groom Lake Road about a mile before the border. Here's two more shots...

He was about 3-4 feet long and did us the honor of coiling and rattling when followed.

It's funny that for all the time I spent in this valley in the 1990s, I never saw a live rattler here. (I once saw a baby one at the north end of the Groom Range near Rachel and a dead one from the highway near Rachel. Also a huge one crossing the road near the HOLLYWOOD sign in Los Angeles.)

My other milestone may or may not be related to rattlesnakes: At Chameleon's urging, I stepped into the Little A'Le'Inn for the first time in 13 years. Here's the proof...
Those are the same anti-Clinton bumper stickers I remember during the 6 months I stayed at the inn in 1993.

Readers may recall that I got ejected from the inn by a drunken Joe Travis in the Summer of 1993, for reasons that were only in his mind. I then went to the other end of town and started my own Area 51 Research Center. Things could have been patched up between us years ago, but I decided that I liked the idea of being "Banned at the Little A'Le'Inn" and I passively kept the feud alive.

I was half expecting to be ejected from the Inn when I walked in this time, but Pat and Connie weren't around, so the opportunity never arose. I didn't recognize anyone there, and no one recognized me.

Walking into the Inn was a little like walking into a time capsule. I have been through many adventures in the past 13 years, but the Inn was almost unchanged. The bar had been moved, but most of the same displays were on the walls.

The most traumatic part of the experience was deciding what beer to order! In all of my life, I had hardly ever ordered a beer at a bar before. In consultation with Chameleon, I settled on a Bud Light. What I received for my order was a naked can stuck in front of me, after the bartender took it out of a cooler and pulled the tab for me. It took a while, but I drank the whole thing!

Talk about your alien experiences! I will never understand this "bar" concept.

It's the 20-Year Anniversary of Lazar Story!

2009-05-11T12:55:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, this month marks the 20-YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the Bob Lazar flying-saucers-at-Area 51 story. It was in May (or April?) of 1989, that George Knapp first reported the claims of Bob Lazar on a local Las Vegas newscast. It is remarkable how little most things have changed. Knapp, for example, is still doing exactly the same thing, for the same TV station. Here is his report yesterday on the 20-year anniversary....

Area 51: 20 Years of Intrigue (KLAS-TV, 5/10)

(Or perhaps better named: "Area 51: 20 Years of Ratings Sweeps".)

If you did a "where are they now" retrospective, you'd see a lot of guys getting older and grumpier but otherwise not changing much.

(I like to think Psychospy is the exception to the rule and has stayed dynamic, but for the record he wasn't actually around in 1989, arriving only in late 1992.)

George Knapp on Area 51

2009-05-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

It must be sweeps month, because George Knapp has a new Area 51 report out...

In Searth of the New Area 51 (KLAS-TV, 5/7)

I didn't actually watch it, since my bandwidth doesn't support video (thank God!), but the text offers nothing new.

Groom Lake Story Declassified?

2009-05-06T12:14:00.000-07:00

A correspondent has sent me this blurb from the website of Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO)...

Tuesday 2 June 2009, 6 p.m. - Nellis AFB, NV - The AFIO Las Vegas Chapter event features: The Development, Testing, and Operation of the U-2 and A-12 High Altitude Reconnaissance Programs at Nevada’s Groom Lake

AFIO BulletMembers of the Roadrunners Internationale will speak about the recently declassified CIA U-2 program at Taiwan; U-2 Project Aquatone at Groom Lake; the CIA A-12 Project Oxcart (which was the recently declassified CIA plane preceding the more commonly known Air Force SR-71) at Groom Lake and its operational phase; and Operation Black Shield at Kadena, Okinawa. Their presentation will include a short video of the first flights of the U-2 and A-12 at Groom Lake, a PowerPoint presentation about the aircraft, and a large photo display of the aircraft test, evaluation, and operations. They will also recount their CIA recruitment, cover stories, living and working at Groom Lake, and the excitement of foreign missions. Their story was declassified a little over a year ago at the CIA’s 60th Anniversary. Location: Nellis Air Force Base Officers’ Club.

That's kind of interesting. It suggests that some people who worked at Area 51 (at least in the 1950s and 60s) can actually talk about it.

New Interview With Glenn Campbell

2009-05-04T14:10:00.001-07:00

Here is a new podcast interview I did with Errol Bruce-Knapp two days ago (May 2, 2009) here in Toronto. I was visiting Errol's secret lair (shown above, wearing his "No. 6" jacket) when he sat me down to talk about my involvement with Area 51 in the 1990s. It was very impromptu. The original interview was about 45 minutes, edited down to 30 minutes in this .mp3 file...

Errol Bruce-Knapp Interviews Glenn Campbell on Area 51 (mp3, 30min)

I haven't actually listened to this recording myself because I was there! I recall talking about how I got involved with Area 51, the Bob Lazar story, the Bill Uhouse story and my general philosophy on UFOs.

Bob Lazar: True or False?

2009-05-03T15:44:00.000-07:00

Someone has sent me a link to yet another article I wrote about Bob Lazar. (In addition to the one in the previous post.) This is pretty freaky, because I don't even remember writing this one, but lexical analysis certainly indicates I'm the culprit. I have no idea where it was originally published, but it is dated in 2002, eight years after the previous one. Since it's apparently my own work, I guess I'm authorized to reproduce the whole article here...

Bob Lazar: True or False?

By Glenn Campbell

I am happily retired from the Area 51 field and am currently enjoying a blissfully UFO-free lifestyle, but one issue won't leave me alone: People keep asking me about Bob Lazar. True or False: Did he work with flying saucers at "Area S-4"?

I adore ambiguity, and I really hate being pinned down like this. I mean, what is truth anyway? My idle-handed colleagues and I have been researching Lazar's claims since 1992, but I wasn't there when Lazar first made those claims, and no one can visit the secure military areas where Lazar's experiences supposedly took place. Who am I to declare what is and is not reality?

Still the inquiries keep coming, especially after Lazar's recent reappearance on Art Bell (June 6, 2002), where he announced yet another movie deal. The only way to efficiently deal with my questioners is to come up with a crude one-word answer.

Unfortunately, that answer is False.

I don't mean this as an insult to Mr. Lazar. He's an incredibly creative and intelligent guy. I also don't mean to denigrate Lazar's many supporters. One thing I learned while studying Area 51 is that you don't mess with people's religion. Lazar, I believe, has a right to make his claims, and people have a right to believe him. Lazar's flying saucers have become part of Nevada's identity, and probably even my own. I mean "False" only in a rather mundane factual sense.

Lazar did not work with flying saucers in an underground hangar near Papoose Lake. He made the story up. Furthermore, he made it up by himself, without the help of any nefarious agency and probably without any deep motivation other than the pleasure of attracting attention and putting people on.

The story evolved out of a long heritage of pre-existing underground alien base claims, which eventually infected the pilot and conspiracy theorist John Lear. Lear announced, in electronic bulletin board posts in the 1980s, that gray aliens were eating humans in deep underground facilities at Area 51. Lazar met Lear, heard his ramblings, and decided to give Lear what he wanted. Lazar took Lear's paranoid delusions and repackaged them in a much more intelligent and internally consistent rendition. Initially, Lear was the only audience, but he tipped off a Las Vegas TV station, and the frenzy began. The story soon spun out of Lazar's control, and, at least until the recent Art Bell appearance, Lazar seemed to sincerely want it to go away.

Lazar's limited knowledge of Area 51 came from secondhand sources, which are plentiful in Las Vegas. Lazar has never been to Area 51. His "S-4" is a relocated and reconfigured version of "Site 4", a real Top Secret radar testing facility west of Area 51. Lazar's saucers and their propulsion system seem plausible to anyone without a physics degree. They were constructed, in Lazar's head, with the same fastidious care that he has lavished on his real-life fireworks, jet cars and other mechanical projects. "Element 115" and its peculiar periodic neighbors were discussed in an article in Scientific American just before Lazar used it to fuel his craft. Lazar has always displayed an exceptional respect for detail and consistency, and he has an extraordinary ability to focus his attention on whatever his current project is, to the exclusion of everything else. His only deficiencies are moral (that is, if you consider lies and the exploitation of others to be somehow 'wrong').

A good model for how Lazar operates is found in the forger Mark Hoffman, now in prison for murder.

While forging Mormon documents, Hoffman built a detailed web of lies that still leaves researchers in awe. Hoffman's forgeries were internally consistent and perfect in every detail, and they meshed seamlessly with the world of existing documents, many of which he also created. His trance-like ability to focus his attention was so highly developed that he easily fooled polygraph tests.

Lazar is in the same league, having convinced a hypnotherapist of his truthfulness and earned at least an "inconclusive" polygraph report. Lazar might be even more clever than Hoffman, because he hasn't significantly broken the law, and he strictly limits his claims to his original story.

You can ask me for proof for my Lazar position, but I'm not going to play the game anymore. The Lazar documentation on the internet is already massive, and the heated debates about one detail or another of Lazar's claims have been going on for over a decade. It is senseless to harp on his false educational credentials, enhanced employment claims or pandering conviction.

Those who believe in Lazar are going to continue believing, and those who don't will only say, "I told you so." The funny thing about oral traditions like this is that they continue to live and propagate regardless of the evidence and far beyond their original source. They spawn new stories, like the similar UFO claims of Bill Uhouse, aka "Jarod 2" (which is another fascinating personal journey). Lazar's story has grown much bigger than Lazar himself, and no one will ever be able to follow all of its threads.

Answering "False" still rubs me the wrong way. I distain finality, and I certainly don't want to attract the attention Lazar's rabid supporters. Instead, I would rather state things in relative terms: Lazar's claims _could_ be true, like the boy crying wolf who eventually encounters a real one, but given the known lies and lack of new information, the joy of exploring the story has dwindled. Life is full of more interesting mysteries.

Glenn Campbell
June 2002

Lazar as a Fictional Character

2009-04-29T19:45:00.000-07:00

Also in response to an inquiry, here is an article I wrote in 1994 for MUFON UFO Journal:

Lazar as a Fictional Character (MUFON Journal, Feb. 1994)

In my view, the Lazar question is like the riddle that Captain Kirk would pose to the evil robot to make the robot overload its memory banks and self-destruct. You can debate this one for hours and not get anywhere.

Also see my later article on Lazar.

Jerry Freeman: The Guy Who Visited Papoose Lake

2009-04-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

Someone recently emailed me to help them find a 1997 Las Vegas Sun article on Jerry Freeman. Freeman was an amateur archeologist from California who held the distinction of being the only person without a security clearance to have visited the Papoose Lake area since Bob Lazar made his claims about flying saucers there. In the mid-1990s, Freeman was determined to follow, on foot, the trail of the "Lost 49'ers" who nearly died when they took a "short cut" through Death Valley in 1849 (giving it its name), but he was thwarted by the government when they refused to let him pass through the Nellis Range and the Nevada Test Site.

But he did it anyway! After some research, he crossed 100 miles of Restricted Area on foot, without government permission, and lived.

Well, not exactly. He's dead now, but that happened four years after he completed the trek. The point is, it can be done, if you are determined or foolhardy enough: Just march into Papoose Lake and see for yourself whether Lazar's claims are true.

In July 1997, The Sun published a story on Freeman's trek. (Apparently because he himself contacted them.) The article had been available on the Sun's website until recently, when it mysteriously vanished. I was contacted because I had made reference to it in a 1997 mailing list posting. The correspondent wondered whether I had saved a copy.

I hadn't, but I still managed to find it. As I suspected, the article was still there on the Sun's website but was poorly indexed. Here it is...

Stealth Search for History (Las Vegas Sun, 7/19/97)

I recall there being photos of Freeman in the print version of the article, but they're not attached to the online one. (And I couldn't find any photos of him on the web.)

I met Freeman at least twice, both before and after he made his trek. My memory is hazy, but we may have discussed the logistics of make such a journey, and I certainly would have advised against it. When he actually completed it, I was surprised. I was halfway between admiring his balls and shaking my head at his stupidity. (He reminded me, both then and now, of Mathias Rust, the German teenager who landed a plane in Red Square in 1987.)

Of course, I debriefed him on what he saw when he passed by Papoose Lake, but nothing sticks in my mind as memorable. I recall he passed to the south of the lake, never actually touching the dry lake bed. I think he camped in that vicinity. He may have described to me some ambiguous lights or glints he saw on the ground, but there was nothing I could do anything with at the time, and I don't recall any of the details now.

What sort of security did he encounter? None whatsoever. This is exactly what one would expect if the land is what it claims to be: a mostly vacant testing and training ground. With a land area equivalent to Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, the Restricted Zone is virtually unpatrollable, except where there are specific assets to protect. (Papoose Lake is in the next valley over from Area 51.) If you come in by vehicle on a road, you are going to be detected, but maybe not on foot.

Freeman's obsession was following the 49ers route, not the UFO lore, but he was happy to share information with me. It's just that his information wasn't very interesting. It certainly wasn't worth putting ones life at risk as he did.

A 100-mile trek across the desert might have killed anyone else, but Freeman had the survival skills to pull it off. As I recall, his life depended on being able to access certain springs on the Nevada Test Site that maps said were there but that he couldn't verify until he actually arrived. Would the water still be there? Would it be radioactive? If he hadn't found water, he would have had to deliberately get himself arrested. This alone might have been a major feat: finding someone to turn himself in to.

Keep in mind, this was a family man. In my mind, if you have people depending on you, you don't put yourself at risk like that. I saw Freeman as another victim of "Male Data Collection Syndrome" (MDCS), a disease that I myself am in recovery from. (5 years sober.) If the MDCS sufferer needs certain data, he'll stop at nothing to collect it, even if isn't really meaningful in the bigger scheme of life.

Freeman died of cancer in 2001. Here is an obituary. For the record, the cancer started before he took his hike, since the obit says he was first diagnosed 5-1/2 years prior.

Just an odd little footnote to history.

Investigation: Secret Underground Facility in Washington, D.C.

2009-04-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

I had an opportunity to spend a few hours in Washington, D.C. last week, so I checked out a TOP SECRET NAVY TUNNELING PROJECT described in the Washington Post over four years ago. In spite of the Post article, which provided all the elements of a Great Conspiracy, the facility seems to have gotten no attention on the internet, and no one from the online secret base contingent seems to have accepted the open invitation to snoop around.

What's with you people? Psychospy vanishes for ten years and NOTHING GETS DONE! If those guys over at Dreamland Resort had been on the ball, they would have been all over this four years ago, but they're apparently more concerned with maintaining the purity of their organization.

My inquiry was based on this Nov. 26, 2004 article in the Washington Post…

Navy Keeps A Secret in Plain Sight: Hush-Hush Project Underway by Potomac
The article describes a mysterious construction project in East Potomac Park near the Jefferson Memorial that was started in secret without going through any of the usual approval channels for construction in the historic capital area. It just "appeared" on Park Service land, apparently without even the Park Service knowing about it. The purpose of the work site was obviously digging, but no one in the government would say what the digging was for. It would seem to be a project born out of the post 9-11 security hysteria, but even that wasn't clear. Underground bunker for Dick Cheney? Evacuation tunnel under the Potomac? The article raised plenty of questions, but nobody seems to have followed up on them.

Four and a half years later, I decided to drop by. I was interested in it in part because I knew the area: I had walked close to the facility following the Obama Inauguration (photos), although at that time I wasn't aware of it. After an internet buddy clued me in to the Post article, I studied the article, did my Google Earthing and was reasonably prepared.

My full photo tour is contained in an annotated Facebook album that I invite you to examine: http://www.roamingphotos.com/album?potomac

My tour started at the Jefferson Memorial, which seemed like a good reference point. The cherry blossoms happened to be out, which is a big fricking deal in Washington. (I gather cherry blossoms are the dividing line between the miserable cold/rainy and the beastly hot/humid in our Nation's Capital.) I climbed the steps to talk to Tom, and from directly behind him I could see the facility.

The construction site, surrounded by a stockade fence, occupies former parkland between the highway and a Park Service office complex (so someone there had to know about it). It is on a peninsula jutting into the Potomac, but the fenced-in area is land-locked, with no direct access to the water. I decided to walk the perimeter of the facility to see what I could find.

The facility consisted of several big warehouse-type buildings. Of course I couldn't see inside, but like any black box, I could always analyze how they connected to the outside world. There was only a single gate (shown above), and there were no obvious utilities coming into the complex. No power lines, water mains or gas lines, and no obvious evidence of excavation to bring in these services underground. The facility would have to been self-sufficient for these things. There was, however, a small amount of water flowing out of the facility and into a storm drain.

Although the entire facility was surrounded by a tall wooden fence, I had no difficulty using my X-Ray Vision to see through it. Actually, there were tiny gaps in the slats that I could peer though, and one side of the site was adjacent to some raised railroad tracks. There was no fence or warning signs on the railroad tracks, so I could easily walk up to track level and poke my nose over the fence.

There was plenty of data to analyze! The power needs of the project were met by four big truck-size diesel generators (with one of them running). I have no idea about mega-wattage or any that technobabble, but I do know they can produce a shitload of power. I have seen similar-size generators in back of casinos in Las Vegas. (For example, there's one outside Palace Station.) The casino generators are designed to keep the slot machines and flashing lights running in case of a power outage, so if ONE generator could keep a casino running, FOUR generators was enough for all sorts of nefarious things.

The facility looks pretty much the same as it was pictured and described in 2004. It appeared to still be active, but not wildly so. I saw one worker in street clothes leave and another one inside the compound in a hard hat and safety vest, but no vehicles entered or left in the 45 minutes I was scoping out the perimeter. I was there roughly between 4:15 and 5:00pm (on April 6, 2009), which could have meant that most work was completed for the day and workers had already left.

It is pretty clear that whatever is happening at the project, it is happening underground. Since the intention is to return the land to park condition (according to the article), "down" is the only direction they can go.

As I walked the perimeter, I looked for signs of tunneling. There were no tailings piles (just some sand and gravel caches), and no obvious elevator tower, but the main building looked like it was designed to allow full size trucks to enter. The trucks could be filled with debris from the tunnel and then driven off. Unfortunately, I have no handle on how many trucks full of dirt have left the place in the past five years, so it's hard to judge how much tunneling has been going on.

Any underground facility also needs ventilation. I found the intake for that on the north side of the main warehouse building. The intake pipe was some 3-5 feet in diameter, and I could hear the woosh of air being sucked into it.

The land in this area, at least the top layers of it, is mucky fill, more like Jello than concrete. (The foundations of the Jefferson Memorial had to be sunk down 75 feet before they came to reliable bedrock.) The water table is very high—like six inches below the surface—so if you are going to tunnel here, you'll probably need to line your tunnel with concrete and pump out a lot of water as you do. A finished tunnel is probably also going to require continuous pumping. What happens to this water?

I think I found a processing system for the pump water, which you see in the album. I theorize that what is pumped out of the hole goes into a settling tank, is filtered a bit and then is released into a storm drain, probably consistent with environmental regulations. (Have appropriate environmental reports been filed?) The really big pipes suggest a facility that can process a LOT of pump water, but there seemed to be only a relative trickle being processed at the moment. Clear-looking water was flowing into the settling tank through a small three-inch pipe, and a comparable amount of water seemed to be flowing into a storm drain near the entry gate. I don't know if this was pump water or perhaps flushing water from an interior tank.

I didn't see any signs of recent changes in the facilities. I previously obtained top secret satellite images from the Google spy agency, and everything I saw on the ground was consistent with them (i.e. no significant changes between the time the images were taken and today). What I saw was also consistent with the descriptions in the Post four years ago. The project is STILL THERE, although the article suggested that it would be done by now.

As I left the facility and headed back to the Jefferson Memorial, I did a survey of something else that might be associated with digging: subsidence. If land was collapsing around the facility, that might suggest action underground.

Subsidence? Is there ever! ALL the land between the facility and the Memorial seems to be sinking, probably much worse than Venice, Italy. (You'll see it clearly in my photos.) The trouble is I have no evidence that it's been sinking recently. Since the whole area was built on crappy fill, the walkways and seawalls are a mess. One section of seawall near the Jefferson Memorial, originally about 3 feet above water, had sunk virtually to water level.

I asked a Park Ranger in the Memorial about it, using the clever cover story that I was a civil engineering fan who was just fascinated by seawalls. He assured me that the land had been sinking for decades, and he didn't think it had been sinking any faster in the past five years. He showed me a map of where the Tidal Basin had been filled in during construction of the Memorial in the 1930s, and sure enough, the portions of the seawall that have sunk roughly correspond to the areas that were filled in.

Then I came out of the closet, and asked him about that secret facility over yon. What was it for? Of course, he's working for the government (the sinister Ministry of the Interior), so I didn't expect a straight answer, but I got one anyway. He said it was a project of Homeland Security to allow the scanning of freight cars entering the capital. That threw me for a minute.The location might seem perfect for it, since this is the entry point for a rail line into Washington, but I didn't buy it. There is no direct connection between the facility and the railroad tracks. If you wanted to scan rail cars, you'd do it from a structure immediately adjacent to the tracks. Further probing revealed that this was merely his own theory about what the facility is for. In fact, he didn't know.

So what is the Navy digging for? I haven't a clue. Based on my political leanings, I can speculate that it's a crackpot terrorist defense scheme cooked up in the days immediately following 9-11 when terrorists seemed capable of anything, but I really don't know.

I think I covered just about everything I could from the field in 45 minutes. I've done the groundwork, and now I encourage others to do that Googling thing you do where you don't actually leave your home. For example, tell me about those contractors mentioned in the Post article.

If someone has more questions about the facility on the ground, perhaps I can answer them or maybe even go back there for a second look.

—Glenn Campbell

L.A. Times: The Road to Area 51

2009-04-09T16:31:00.001-07:00

This article appears in the Los Angeles Times a few days ago (April 5)...

The Road to Area 51: After decades of denying the facility's existence, five former insiders speak out

Area 51. It's the most famous military institution in the world that doesn't officially exist. If it did, it would be found about 100 miles outside Las Vegas in Nevada's high desert, tucked between an Air Force base and an abandoned nuclear testing ground. Then again, maybe not— the U.S. government refuses to say. You can't drive anywhere close to it, and until recently, the airspace overhead was restricted—all the way to outer space. Any mention of Area 51 gets redacted from official documents, even those that have been declassified for decades.

It has become the holy grail for conspiracy theorists, with UFOlogists positing that the Pentagon reverse engineers flying saucers and keeps extraterrestrial beings stored in freezers. Urban legend has it that Area 51 is connected by underground tunnels and trains to other secret facilities around the country. In 2001, Katie Couric told Today Show audiences that 7 percent of Americans doubt the moon landing happened—that it was staged in the Nevada desert. Millions of X-Files fans believe the truth may be "out there," but more likely it's concealed inside Area 51's Strangelove-esque hangars—buildings that, though confirmed by Google Earth, the government refuses to acknowledge.

The problem is the myths of Area 51 are hard to dispute if no one can speak on the record about what actually happened there. Well, now, for the first time, someone is ready to talk—in fact, five men are, and their stories rival the most outrageous of rumors.

But alas, no UFOs! (Don't give up faith, guys!)

Fact Checking the UFO Hunters Episode

2009-03-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

The recent Area 51 episode of UFO Hunters was fine entertainment, but let's make it clear: This was not journalism. It was never intended as journalism, so don't get your knickers in a bunch about factual accuracy. It's only a TV show, designed to appeal to a certain market and sell advertising.

Sadly, the roughly 2 million people who saw it might not perceive it that way. They may be duped by the "History Channel" label and think this some kind of National Geographic documentary. That's part of the big disjoint between Hollywood and the rest of the world. The Hollywood people know they're producing a cheesy consumer product to win market share, but the rest of the public still takes it seriously.

This is not your father's History Channel. Stodgy Civil War documentaries have been replaced by anything that sells—just like all the other cable channels.

I was happy enough to have a new Area 51 show produced after all these years. I enjoyed participating in the process and am kinda pleased to be a public figure again, but the "Area 51 Revealed" episode might have taken a liberty or two... or three or four. I'm not one to get stuck on little things like "truth", but some of my readers might be sticklers in this regard. Therefore I feel it is necessary to chronicle just a few of the "factual deviations" in the show.

Here are things I noticed on my single complete viewing of the show (in no particular order)...

1) The mystery light in the sky seeming to travel toward Area 51 could have been an alien craft, but it looks like a meteor to me. Traveling at enormous speed? Winking out before reaching the ground? Yup, that's what meteors do as they burn up upon entering the atmosphere. You see them almost every night in the dark desert skies, and if you set up cameras all night like UFO Hunters did, there's a high probability you'll catch one. (They are more common even than military flares.)

Remember: The name of the show is "UFO Hunters". That means that they have to find UFOs or suggestive evidence of them in every show. When a mystery light has the good grace to appear on camera, the producers aren't going to look too deeply into what it might be. It's a "unidentified", isn't it? Case closed.

2) According to Peter Merlin, the "new" hanger highlighted graphically on the show was the wrong one. The graphics were impressive, but they showed the wrong building.

Again, this is only going to be a problem for people who care about factual accuracy. In no way does it diminish the ratings numbers or impede the network's ability to sell advertising (the only standard of truth in show biz). You got issues with this? Welcome to "infotainment".

3) The presence of a new hangar at Area 51 in no way implies some kind of giant "black triangle" inside. It could be true I suppose, but I prefer my own theory that this so-called "hangar" is actually a brand new, top-secret Costco Warehouse Store. What evidence do I have of this? None whatsoever—i.e. the same evidence that UFO Hunters has for their Black Triangle theory.

4) The whole show was highly scripted beforehand and filmed out of sequence, just like a movie. Apart from the actual words spoken, nothing was spontaneous. In reality, we climbed Tikaboo Peak first, then after we came down, we filmed the starting-the-hike scene and the driving to the peak scene. In case it isn't obvious, there is no opportunity for real "investigation" when everything is choreographed in advance and the "conclusion" is filmed before the supposed research.

5) The F-15 seen by Mark Farmer and Pat Uskert at Mark's viewpoint is the sort of thing seen every day in that area. It is probably connected to the war games completely unrelated to Area 51. It is highly unlikely that the F-15 pilot had any awareness of the presence of the UFO Hunters crew.

Personally, I liked the show—so much so that I giggled and guffawed through the whole thing—but it was infotainment, not to be confused with real news. What was really memorable to me was the process of filming. It was the most complex production I have been involved in, and the off-screen expedition was for more interesting and challenging than the manufactured story that appeared on TV. I'm interested only in the dozen people I interacted with in the process, not the millions of couch potatoes who watched the show.

What was the effect on me of those two million viewers? Virtually nil. On my own Area 51-related websites I expected a surge of traffic after the show, but there was only a minor blip in interest—perhaps a couple hundred new surfers hitting the websites but not staying for long. Apparently the demographic is TV addicts serially watching one show after another who don't have the initiative even to click a mouse. So far I have not sold any Viewer's Guides or Area 51 tours as a result of the show (and my only pay for the filming was my standard $250/day guide fee). Still, it was a great experience!

If you don't like UFO Hunters or believe is biased in a certain direction, there really isn't anyone to blame or complain to. This is a corporate production where nearly everyone involved is beholden to someone more powerful than he. Everyone is just a cog in the machine doing their little part on the assembly line. I am proud to have been one of those cogs. I did my own job to the best of my ability, and I didn't say or do anything I was uncomfortable with. Beyond that, the finished product was out of my hands.

BTW: Here are some screen shots from the UFO Hunters episode.

(If you've found any other inaccuracies in the show that you would like me to add to this list, let me know, or add them as comments below.)

Also see my report on the UFO Hunters Tikaboo Death March.

Green River Tunnel?

2009-03-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

Reader R.S. draws our attention to my mailing list posting of 11.5 years ago...

I just saw your blog that you went out and visited the Green River Complex. I also visited the area and was determined to find the supposed large open tunnel system [that you alluded to on your mailing list in 1997]...

http://www.ufomind.com/area51/list/1997/aug/a01-005.shtml

The River Complex has a real intriguing ghost town atmosphere. You almost feel the ghosts of the past in each building. For me the trip out there was well worth it; however I felt that I never really had a chance to explore the entire complex (lack of time, sunlight, and directions). Given your recent photos and trip to the complex do you have anything further to add regarding the rumor of a large open tunnel system somewhere on the base?

I don't recall anything about the 1997 posting, but apparently someone sent it to me as an email and asked that their name not be used. Their actual name and email address is long lost (since I've been through many computer crashes since then).

While I spent only two hours superficially exploring the area near the freeway, the chance of anything especially secret near Green River is remote.

This is essentially public land now. There are still a few fenced-in compounds where no one has broken the lock yet, but the public has had the run of this place for three decades. There are no end of idle males with 4WDs who have explored every road-accessible corner of the American desert. (I was one of them once!) Any "open tunnel" would have been found and publicized long ago. There are no secrets on public land. That's not to say there aren't hidden gems out there, like these abandoned buildings of the missile complex, but nothing "big."

Heck, there could be secret tunnels anywhere, right below your feet even, but where the tunnels come to the surface, there have to be signs. If there's dirt, you have to haul it away and put it someplace, and if there are human workers, you have to have some reliable way to keep them quiet. That pretty much limits the prospects to actively guarded military installations, and at Green River there aren't any.

The West, in fact, is riddled with tunnels. They are called "mines" and there are abandoned ones everywhere. If you search hard enough, you can usually find some old timer who remembers working at any specific mine. There is never any significant secrecy attached to these facilities, so news of anything interesting would certainly spread to the wider community.

The community of Green River is miles from anywhere with NOTHING TO DO. What people in towns like this do for amusement is explore every corner of the desert around them. If there were anything remotely interesting in the hills, I am sure that someone from Green River itself would have found it and posted it on the internet.

Photos from Green River (The "New Area 51")

2009-03-04T05:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I visited the Green River Missile Complex in Utah (identified by Popular Mechanics a decade ago as the "new Area 51"). Here is my photo album (in 2 parts)...

Green River Missile Complex (80+ photos)

I may write a field trip report later.

UFO Hunters Area 51 Show on YouTube

2009-02-28T17:56:00.000-08:00

A reader just alerted us to the presence of Wednesday's UFO Hunters "Area 51 Revealed" show on YouTube. Who knows how long it will be there, so watch it if you must.

Update, Sept. 2011: Here is a link to the whole episode on YouTube. If you find this link doesn't work, try Searching YouTube for "UFO Hunters Area 51".

My appearance, along with Agent X's, is mainly in the second half of the show.

Don't miss my earlier two-part account of the filming of this episode five months ago: UFO Hunters on Tikaboo Peak.

And here is my photo album of the same expedition.

UFO Hunters was a Ratings Buster!

2009-02-26T17:50:00.000-08:00

I have just learned from the producer that last nights UFO Hunters Area 51 show was the 2nd most watched show on the History Channel so far this year! (Not just the most-watched show of the series but nearly most popular on the whole network.)

So bunny fluff works!

However, there has been only a modest rise in hits on this blog and my other Area 51 related websites. Apparently, most viewers are just viewers and don't have the initiative for even a few mouse clicks.

(BTW: See "UFO Hunters" link below for all my previous articles about this episode, including my own photos and account of the film shoot.)

UFO Hunters Area 51 Episode - Instant Review

2009-02-25T20:59:00.000-08:00

UFO Hunters was a hoot! Fluffy like a bunny. Pure sizzle and suggestion. But in HIGH DEFINITION!

After viewing the show, my mother pretty much summed it up: "You know, it must be an enormous challenge to fill in all this television programming."

Great production values! Great High Definition! Lots of visual excitement: camera jumping around, rapid cuts, crystal clear telephoto, spooky night vision.

Data? Facts? Evidence? There you go again, obsessing over truth. What do you think this is, The History Channel?

It's in High Definition!

Las Vegas Sun on UFO Hunters Episode

2009-02-25T17:25:00.000-08:00

In advance of the new UFO Hunters episode on Area 51 later this evening (10pm ET/PT), the Las Vegas Sun ran this short blurb on the show...

UFO hunters visit secret Area 51

Apparently, all the information for this mini-article came from my earlier blog entry on the show. The only trouble is, I didn't actually say most of the things the article says I said. For example, I have never said that the base "is growing." The History Channel said that, not me. (It always pumps up the ratings to say something is growing, vs. staying static.) It's just a minor journalistic issue: who said what.

Sigh! Is there no journalistic dignity left for Area 51? (If there ever was, tonight's episode should lay it to rest.)

But, hell, what am I complaining about? This is still a gas! (And "there's no such thing as bad publicity.")

Red Flag IMAX Video

2009-02-17T07:05:00.000-08:00

Above is a YouTube video of the Imax show "Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag" (Courtesy of Michael F.). Pretty cool visually!

The video is obviously pirated, so if you want to watch it, better do it now.

Below is Michael's screen-grab from the above video, showing a schematic briefing board for Red Flag. Note the "No Fly" zone in the middle, apparently the Dreamland airspace over Area 51.

UFO Hunters Area 51 Episode Coming Feb. 25

2009-02-16T10:45:00.000-08:00

I am PUTTING MY LIFE AT RISK by providing 50% of the soundbites for this breathless 20-second promo for our episode on UFO Hunters next week.

The 1-hour episode, the first substantial new Area 51 show in nearly a decade, is scheduled to air Weds., Feb. 25, 2009 at 10pm. (Don't worry if you miss it, since it is sure to be repeated ad nauseum.)

WARNING: Expect show-biz sizzle, not factual accuracy. We're all just along for the ride on this one.

Here is the History Channel's own description of the show (from their UFO Hunters section)...

The world's most infamous secret base is growing...
On October 26th, 1994, the U.S. government made their first official acknowlegement of Area 51. Six months later, nearly 4,000 acres of previously public land surrounding the base were closed. Now, over a decade later, satellite photos reveal new buildings, towers, and runways finishing construction. Secret flights with blacked-out windows bring passengers from Las Vegas. And security surrounding the perimeter of the base is tighter than ever. The team heads to the epicenter of UFO and military conspiracy theories to visit new vantage points, speak with former base employees, and search the skies above America's most top-secret facility.

Don't miss my earlier account of the filming of this episode five months ago: UFO Hunters on Tikaboo Peak.

And here is my photo album of the same expedition.

Banned from Canada!

2009-02-09T12:15:00.000-08:00

I was banned from Canada for ten years and didn't even know it!

It was a result of that Obstruction of a Public Officer charge outside Area 51 in the mid-1990s. You remember: I was arrested for pushing down the door locks of the vehicle I was riding in when the county Sheriff tried to seize the video tape we were carrying. It was an act of civil disobedience, because all film and video seized previously was never returned or accounted for. I fought the law, and the law won, but the stakes were pretty low. In America, it was a misdemeanor charge, which doesn't seriously count against you when applying for work or even for a security clearance.

In Canada, however, it gets you the Death Penalty.

Turns out, Canada's border regulations are so strict that any American convicted of ANY crime beyond a speeding ticket is automatically banned from entering the country. I found out about this about a month ago when I happened to pass through a corner of Ontario while driving across the continent. (It was a "short cut" I thought.) Canadian Customs called my aside for the Third Degree. They let me pass but only because more than ten years had passed since my conviction.

I am retroactively outraged! Who does Canada think it is? It's swaggering around like it was a real country that people wanted to go to.

Now don't get me wrong: Canada is a very nice "country," but an optional one. It's one of the indistinct Belgiums of the world, not like a France or Germany or anything (which I have never had any trouble getting into). If Canada fell off the face of the Earth, it would be tragic for all the Canadians, BUT WOULD ANYBODY ELSE REALLY NOTICE?

Turns out even George Bush might have been technically banned from Canada due to his previous DUI conviction, so I'm in good company (sort of). Peace activists have been barred because they were arrested for some minor act of civil disobedience in the States.

Apparently, this has always been true, but now Canadian Customs has computer systems linked to the FBI, so they can actually check for convictions. If you've been convicted for littering within the past ten years, you might not get in.

To be fair, it also works the other way. Via email, I heard a sad story from a Canadian who was foolish enough to cross the Area 51 border in the 1990s (or the Nellis Range border in the Tikaboo Valley). He didn't get far, was caught and paid a fine in Lincoln County Kangaroo Court, but the next time he tried to enter the U.S., he couldn't. That's a lot more of a burden, because the United States, to a Canadian, is not an optional country.

I still say "Screw It!"—Canada, that is. I'll visit Europe instead and spend my (very limited) money there.

Give me a call when you have a grown-up country, eh?

BTW: I am so (retroactively) angry with Canada that I joined the I Hate Canada Group on Facebook.

Book Review: Blank Spots on the Map

2009-02-03T09:34:00.000-08:00

I got an honorable mention in the review of a book about secret places (although not in the book itself)...

Viewing Secrecy Through “Blank Spots on the Map"
(review by Steven Aftergood, Federation of American Scientists, 1/30)

Excerpt...

There are also some surprising “blank spots” in Paglen’s own narrative. In the 1990s, an independent researcher named Glenn Campbell spent years mapping the Groom Lake facility in Nevada, testing its perimeters and security procedures, scouting out the best public domain vantage points, and tracking the “Janet” airplanes in their daily flights to and from Groom Lake, fifteen years before Paglen did something similar. Without a credential or a book contract, he produced an astounding volume of genuine “black world” geography called the “Area 51 Viewer’s Guide.” But except for a misspelling of his name in an incidental footnote (p. 286), Campbell’s pioneering effort goes completely unacknowledged. Campbell himself would probably find his erasure from the record sublime, but to me it is dispiriting.

An Account of the ET Highway/ID4 Event

2009-01-29T18:48:00.000-08:00

Here is Don Ecker's new account of the ET Highway/ID4 event back around 1997, on his blog, Dark Matters. (At the time, he and his wife ran UFO Magazine.)

Area 51 & ID4 and Me! 1/29/09

Like any endeavor created by man, there were the “kill-joys” with this bunch. One guy we knew, Glenn Campbell, had been very involved in the whole Area 51 thing, and for awhile he published a paper called The Groom Lake Desert Rat, all about what was going on with Area 51 (the secret base) while also running a newsgroup called UFO Mind. For some unknown reason Campbell took umbrage at the State of Nevada and 20th Century Fox renaming Highway 375 to ET Highway. He went on a rampage and his “victory” was managing to detour one bus full of tourista’s down some damn side road instead of to the site where all the festivities were taking place!

But I gave 'em back!

Old News: Popular Mechanics on the "New" A-51

2009-01-25T11:40:00.000-08:00

The old Popular Mechanics article on the "new" Area 51 is still online at their website....

We Find The Air Force's New Area 51: The Air Force has abandoned top-secret testing at its once most secret test site. We know why and we know where they moved it to.
(By Jim Wilson, Popular Mechanics, June 1997)

You remember: This was the article where Popular Mechanics (trying to upstage the better Popular Science), claimed that Area 51 had shut down and that sensitive projects had moved to Green River, Utah. The reporter didn't actually bother to visit Green River, however. If he had, he would have found an abandoned military compound that he could have walked around in.

The magazine has no shame. (If we were them, we would have buried this article long ago.) We understand that the report since lost his job at PM due to other fabrications not related to this story, but that doesn't stop PM from continuing to support the article.

It's a shame that "Jim Wilson" is such a common name. Otherwise, this crap would haunt him more effectively when people Googled him.

Old News: Area 51 workers eligible for aid

2009-01-23T11:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a 7-month-old article on the Area 51 environmental case [courtesy of reader Archangel]:

Former Area 51 workers eligible for aid: Downwinder designation OK'd
(Las Vegas Review-Journal, 6/26/08)

WASHINGTON -- Former Department of Energy and contractor employees who worked at the top secret Area 51 base now are eligible to seek health payments available to nuclear weapons workers who got sick from their jobs, a top federal official said Wednesday.

The announcement by Shelby Hallmark, director of the Office of Worker Compensation in the Labor Department, cleared an obstacle that has prevented some former Nevada workers from getting help to battle job-related cancers and other serious illnesses that showed up years after they completed careers at weapons sites.

Hallmark said the Labor Department has designated Area 51, the 60-square mile guarded installation on the northeast border of the Nevada Test Site, as part of the test site for purposes of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation program.

Also, here is a 1996 article on the Helen Frost case in the Wall Street Journal...

A Secret Air Base [Violated] Hazardous Waste Act, Workers' Suit Alleges
(Wall Street Journal, 2/8/1996)

The Obama Area 51 Connection

2009-01-21T22:52:00.000-08:00

If you have been looking for an Area 51 connection to Barack Obama, here's one: Every year he is going to have to sign an Executive Order exempting Area 51 from environmental reporting regulations. Clinton did it, and of course Bush II did. Will Obama?

The annual exemption is the result of a lawsuit by the widow of a former Area 51 worker who died after alleged exposure to toxic substances at Groom Lake. (Keywords: Helen Frost, Jonathan Turley.) The lawsuit was unsuccessful in obtaining any compensation, but it did result in the annual Presidential order.

The Executive Order is a publicly-published document that should be found in the Federal Register. I believe it is signed every January. [A reader says September.] I'm not sure whether Bush already did it this year or Obama has yet to do it. It is the sort of thing that is bound to get buried in the avalanche of orders the new President will release.

I expect he will sign it without much internal debate. New leaders don't usually break with precedent on routine matters like that, but you never know.

—Glenn Campbell

BTW: Here are my photos from the Inauguration.
[Be sure to see the reader comments linked below.]

KLAS-TV: UFO Mystery on the River

2009-01-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

Hey, I'm three months late from this one, but here's a TV news report from George Knapp on a UFO sighting near the Colorado right last May. [Courtesy of Agent Zero]

Witness: Mystery on the River
(KLAS-TV - Las Vegas, 10/31/08)

According to eyewitnesses, the mystery object blazed out of the sky in the early morning hours of May 14, 2008. In Bullhead City, former police chief Frank Costigan noticed the turquoise light overhead.

"Bright in the yard, so naturally I looked up and right about here, heading in that direction, and it went like this, about that speed, fell behind that hill right there," he said. "I expected to hear the boom or siren or something. ...

The witness, who prefers to be known as Bob on the River, says the object slammed into the riverbank, 50 or more yards west of his houseboat, "It didn't crash, it didn't explode, it went poof -- a thump."

This story continues in Part II on the following night.

Area 51 Conference, Aug 22

2009-01-12T17:51:00.000-08:00

Not sure what's going to be said there that hasn't been said before, but here's the link...

Area 51 - Dreamland Conference, Las Vegas, Aug 22, 2009

Our own Shadowhawk is on the list, as well as George Knapp, but notably missing from the agenda is John Lear, Sean Morton, Gary Shultz, Anthony Hilder, Bill Uhouse, Ambassador Merlyn Merlin II, Pat Travis, Gene Huff and Bob Lazar. What kind of Area 51 conference is this?

(Psychospy, BTW, has joined Amb. Merlin on another astral plane and is no longer available for these events.)

No Prison for Rachel

2009-01-08T07:51:00.000-08:00

A while back, some Rachel residents and UFO watchers were all worked up about Jim Toreson's proposal to build a private prison near Rachel. "Don't get your knickers in a bunch," we said. "It ain't gonna happen." Torson appeared to have the land and nothing more. Of course, nothing seems to have happened on the project since then.

Here is an example of how a REAL prison developer operates:

Storey County eyed for private prison
(AP via Las Vegas Sun, 1/8)

This company is taking the same sort of approach as Toreson: seeking a local permit first, then seeking a contract. This company, however, has done it before and knows what it is doing. To build a real prison, you need a contract, a labor pool and a decently accessible location, all of which Toreson doesn't have and never will.

Message from Борис in Russia

2009-01-03T10:43:00.000-08:00

I just received this email message from from "Boris" (Борис) in Russia. I cleaned up the formatting; otherwise it is how I received it. Nicely illustrates the compounded confusion of incoherent thoughts run through a Russian-to-English translation program.

If you study this in the right frame of mind (or under the influence of the right hallucinogens), you might get something out of it. —G.C.

from: Борис К------- <-------@mail.ru>
date: Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 9:58 PM
subject: (no subject)

I wont to pay your attention to the material got by the contactor was Tsvethova T. The part of this information was learnt by the scientists from NINO (Las Vegas, USA); we corresponded with Colm Kelleher; the other part of that material was learnt by Dr.Eric W. Davis, he is an astrophysicist. The sent material (themes) is very different, here are some of them:

1. The crossing tunnels between the worlds

2. The valley of unheeded men - Canada- the disappearing of expedition

3. Bermuda triangle - disappearing - who did that.

4. People self burning.

Unfortunately just one interest didn't arrange me. I need an interaction which I'm still looking for. People who are united with the common aims, ideas, literate and spiritual developed persons.

The information about us is transformed through the contractor in the material, dialogues with the minds of different worlds, where is told about future catastrophe in geography of our planet.

The predict the future changes of our continents and new position of equatorial part. And because of that the golf stream are changed, and how the outer space minds can help us.

There was an information about man's soul its creating, its programmer into the man's body and outer space laws existing for all minds.

The answers are given to all questions of outer space character what happened with people

There is an answer why the 3d World War didn't happen, who did that.

Were is a plane TU-134 from the moon crater and is a plane there. What the united of outer space civilizations is and who the space pirates are.

What the meaning of the expressions "information field of our planet is"

What the world is and where it goes into.

During the dialogues we arrange friendly attitudes with different representatives of outer space civilization. Also we had dialogues with thee minds of our solar system.

You can, of course,

The dialogue were with:

The world of Darkness 1st, 2nd and 3d sectors.

The 4th World - creatures and essences

Mind - the centre of Solar chain, the representatives from different worlds.

The representative from the 8th parallel world of our planet.

The mind from Saturn the 6th ring of artificial planed Keer number 16.

The Cooperation of Solar micro galaxy. Mind from the constellation of Cassiopeia the 20th micro galaxy the 17 planet of Okeremus and other micro galaxies Minds from Small Bear the 16 th micro galaxy the 11th planer Arable - the crew (lot the space ship)

The mountain spirit "Jastirnack"

Material is on hard disc (250 sheets) in Russian . You'll translate yourselves if you need that. It is concerned your country too.

To know your future is to get ready for the future changes.

My best regards to you
Boris K.

Photo Source

Shadowhawk has New Book

2008-12-25T13:05:00.000-08:00

Agent Shadowhawk, perhaps the only original Interceptor who has conducted real research over the past ten years, has a new book out: X-Plane Crashes: Exploring Experimental, Rocket Plane & Spycraft Incidents, Accidents & Crash Sites (Amazon).

The book is discussed in an article in the Dec. 11 Antelope Valley Press. (The article is no longer available on their website, but here is a cache of it.)

History hunters search for plane crash debris

Excerpt from the article...

Some aviation buffs collect pilot autographs; others gather photos or aircraft models.

Peter Merlin and Tony Moore collect crash sites.

The self-described aerospace archeologists so far have meticulously researched, located and visited more than 100 sites across the southwestern United States. Some have held but a few small pieces of debris, while others have yielded huge chunks of airframe.

They focus their energies primarily on historic crashes related to the "Golden Age" of flight test from the 1940s through the 1970s, the era of the exotic, experimental "X-planes" in which Edwards Air Force Base played a key role.

"There's just hundreds and hundreds of stories" surrounding these crashes, Merlin said. "Many contain heroism or great tragedy."

After much prodding from friends and colleagues to share the stories of their work, the two collaborated on a book, "X-Plane Crashes," available from Specialty Press.

The book is packed with research and photos about the pilots and aircraft as well as the circumstances of each crash and the archeologists' efforts to seek out and document the sites.

New Area 51 Contractor?: CSC Applied Technologies

2008-12-08T17:08:00.000-08:00

I have heard from a grape in the vine that EG&G Special Projects is no longer the general contractor at the Groom Lake base. As of 2000, it is now CSC Applied Technologies.

EG&G supposedly still has the transportation contract (running the Janet flights), but CSC handles the operation of the base. (Although the Air Force "owns" the base, the general contractor handles everything from food to maintenance.)

There's a jobs listing at the CSC website. It may provide some corroboration (but my connection is too slow to load it).

The Sad State of the Area 51 Research Center

2008-11-26T15:16:00.000-08:00

On November 6, I visited the actual town of Rachel for the first time in years. As others have told me, the trailer that once housed the Area 51 Research Center is now gone. Only the fence posts and a few trinkets in the front yard remain.

More photos from the Nov. 6 visit can be found in this album.

In the photo above, I note with pride that the bush in the middle of the photo is mine. It is a Big Sage plant (Artemisia tridentata) not native to this valley and that I transported as a sprout from about 50 miles away.

I sold the trailer long ago, but it remained in place for a while. I was told by Freqmeister that someone purchased the trailer park, then evicted everyone, intending to renovate it and reopen it. In the process however, the park lost its grandfather clause on code issues and couldn't be reopened without costly improvements. The same thing happened to the derelict gas station nearby. So now there is only one business left in town: the Little A'Le'Inn.

Here was the Research Center in its heyday....

YouTube: Campbell Tampers with Sensor

2008-11-26T14:59:00.000-08:00

Glenn Campbell is caught tampering with a sensor in an ancient YouTube video posted on alt.conspiracy.area51...

Area 51 - Rare Footage (on YouTube Australia, 5:20)

It apparently comes from a TV show, but I can't identify it.

Also provided in the same posting, was a YouTube excerpt from the Bruce Burgess show, discussing the Janet flights...

Janet Flights (2:04)

I don't actually have the patience to watch these videos (The 7 minutes is more than I can spare.) but I did FF through them. They both seem rather quaint at this point. I hardly recognize the guy in the first video. He must be the previous occupant of my "container."

Whether Campbell engaged in "tampering" is academic. He is shown unplugging one of the wires, but he seems to plug it back in again. He vehemently denies "tampering" in his 11/26 response to the posting above (before watching the video).

For the record, I have never tampered with any road sensor, just noted them, published their locations, pointed them out to TV crews, etc. Part of my mantra was never to break the law so the authorities would never have anything to get me on. I was informally studying the law at the time. I'd go right up to the line (whatever that legal line was) but never cross it.

It was always much more amusing to me to know where the sensors were (and complain to the BLM about them) than to steal them....

Bob Lazar's Secret Michigan Lair

2008-11-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

A reader of this blog, Roy Watson, just happened to pass through Laingsburg, Michigan last month and checked out Bob Lazar's new lair (for his one-man company United Nuclear). It's a storefront in the tiny town's main street. We wonder how much foot traffic he gets from farmers passing by. Here is our informant's report....

I live in Burlington, VT but have had a business trip to Lansing, MI scheduled for a while. I had spent 15 months in Lansing on an extended business trip a couple of years ago. When I saw your post about Bob Lazar moving United Nuclear to Laingsburg, Michigan, I recognized that town as being just a few miles from Lansing. So I started watching the progress of the move on the United Nuclear website. Luckily they just completed the move before I arrived in Lansing.

So, this afternoon I drove up to Laingsburg with my wife with the hopes of meeting Bob. Alas, they were locked up and no one was to be seen. Though I could see bench lighting on at a work table in the back. so he may have been there but was working on secret government research and could not answer the door without violating numerous MAJ security protocols. Or he could have been in the bar down the street … or on the toilet. Above is a fresh photo (2:30 pm, Friday, 10/31/08) of United Nuclear's retail space. It's actually much more than I expected.

Once again I found myself wondering how someone decides to move his "facilities" from the Sandia Mountains outside Albuquerque to Laingsburg, Michigan. Then, exactly 6.9 highway miles from United Nuclear's front door, I found the answer. At first, looking at the smallish diameter, I thought this was on of Bob's famous "sport models". Further examination revealed it was the much rarer "Cub Cadet" model.

Mystery solved!

I have been fascinated with Bob Lazar ever since I first heard him verbalize his story in the 1980's. Like you, I am drawn to his skill in telling an otherwise "out of this world" tale in a way that captivates people. He weaves in just the right amount of ignorance of details, modesty and reluctant participation to make it all seem so real and believable. I find myself oddly attracted to his personality and his story, though I really don't believe in it, at least most of it. I was very disappointed I didn't get to meet him.

On-Line Book Reformatted

2008-10-29T20:54:00.000-07:00

I have just completed the reformatting of my unfinished book, with an eye to picking it up again.

I was Abducted by Aliens at Area 51, by Glenn Campbell

Only eight chapters have been completeThe project has lay fallow for a couple of years now, but an adviser is pressuring me to get it done. At least it looks better now, and it will be easier for me to edit and expand.

Bob Lazar on MySpace?

2008-10-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

"The Bob" has turned up on MySpace, and he has lots of friends.

"Bob Lazar" on MySpace

Is it the "real" Bob? You decide.

A deeper question is: Was there EVER a real Bob?

Does Bob really own Bob, or is he part of the public domain? Why can't we ALL contribute to The Bob and make him what we want him to be?

Let's all support an "open source" Bob!

(Link courtesy of Agent Zero.)

Isreali-Alien Connection?

2008-10-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

A reader (Harry W.) has alerted us to an ominous conspiracy connection on the Nellis Range. The symbol above was sighted near Dogbone Lake in the Nellis Range southeast of Area 51. The location is 36.926°N, 115.426°W.

Does this mean the Israelis and Grey are in collusion? You decide.

On a more prosaic note, this appears to be an active bombing range, judging by all the bomb craters. If visiting Israeli pilots participate in exercises here, might they be required to bomb the Star of David? Do pilots from Muslim countries delight in it?

Applying Occam's Razor dully, anything is possible.
Click on the image above for a full screenshot.

Triangle Hoax Exposed!!!

2008-10-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

It was a rock!

My bad. I didn't exactly lie in my previous post, but I didn't tell the whole truth either. I don't know how anyone is ever going to trust me again. I'm ashamed. I apologize profusely.

And yet, what is that tingly feeling? Could it be... fun?

Here's what happened: I was editing a series of routine photos from Tikaboo Peak. I got to a sequence of shots of a father and son throwing rocks off the cliff on the west side. (It's a boy thing: Every male at the top of a cliff feels the need to do it.) I got to the image in question, and it occurred to me: "Wow, what a great UFO shot!"

That's when I set up the puzzle. It took me all of five minutes. How could I lead people to think this thing was something unusual without actually lying? I was like a magician setting up a trick. The secret is: create a diversion. I did this by releasing a quantity of irrelevant data -- exact time of day, camera f-stop, shutter speed and ASA -- while quietly withholding relevant data, like what the two witnesses and I were doing at the time.

I said, "I can't say what the triangle is." The reason I couldn't say, of course, was because it would spoil the trick!

The triangle itself was ambiguous in isolation, but when you pulled back and looked at the whole scene, I thought it was pretty obvious: The man's arm is recoiling as though he had just thrown something. Why else would his arm be across his face like that? So the solution to the mystery lay not in the object itself but in understanding human beings and how they move. As usual, no matter how good the "evidence" may be, it always comes back to an evaluation of human perception, motion and motivation.

I posted the photos only to my own blog, and I made no attempt to promote it elsewhere. When the photo made the jump to Dreamland Resort, it was none of my doing, although I didn't actively object. When the person who re-posted it asked me for permission to do so, I wrote back "You can do whatever you want with the photos, as long as you refer readers back to my blog entry as the source."

My bad again. But the poster didn't ask me any questions about the object, like its trajectory, sound, etc., so there was nothing else for me to answer. In fact, no one posting at the DLR forum asked me anything about the sighting. If anyone had asked, I would have replied coyly and evasively, which would have been a dead giveaway that something was up.

I sent the same photo to the Original Dreamland Interceptors (ODI), and they immediately shot back annoying and un-fun questions about the craft's trajectory and sound and what I meant by "can't say."

Within 24 hours, things had gotten out of hand and I was getting feedback suggesting this thing was going worldwide. I decided then to bring the experiment to a close. I could have let it gone on for a week or so, but that wouldn't have been healthy. So I "fessed up" on the DLR forum by posting the "before" picture in the rock-throwing sequence. Now you clearly see the man's arm in motion and the rock following along the same trajectory.

One DLR member then wrote to me: "You of all people should not create a hoax. If this is a fake, post your mea culpa."

I thought I just did! There's the man throwing the rock!

This was the first time I ever posted anything on DLR -- and probably the last. This is the place for postings about hardware and facilities, period, with little toleration for anything human. And one gets the distinct impression they really don't like Glenn Campbell there. In fact, it seems to be the official Glenn Campbell anti-fan club (which is flattering in a way), and anything I say or do just riles up the hornets even more. One wrote: "12 years a fan of yours and no more.... grow up." Others had less nice things to say.

I had inadvertently trampled a sacred icon: the triangle. That's what the black world watchers are looking for and can never quite find. If you mess with the triangle, it's like you've desecrated the Koran or something. The believers are not going to like you.

UFO watchers are looking for discs, while military watchers are looking for triangles. It's a little like dogs chasing cars: It isn't clear what either group will do once they actually catch what they're after. In the case of the military watchers, the object is supposed to be super-secret military aircraft, for a purpose that isn't quite clear, built by humans but not acknowledged by the government. In their universe, the government is hyper-efficient and has unlimited funds to build and deploy aircraft of extraordinary ability while keeping them totally secret. If you lurk outside Area 51 for long enough, you are bound to see them.

I have a different take: Having dealt with government at many levels, I see it as hyper-inefficient, wasting vast sums of money with little to show for it and unable to do anything without leaving huge tracks in the sand. Setting aside any aliens (who by definition are capable of anything) what's out there at Area 51 is probably minor variations on what we've seen already. I lived for 2-1/2 years in the shadow of the base and never saw anything I couldn't explain -- but of course I wasn't everywhere, so there's always room to believe.

And thanks to the publicity Campbell helped generate, the black triangles have probably been moved elsewhere -- to the next base, or the next. That's what keeps hope alive. I've been away for ten years, but remarkably little has changed. The celebrated "Aurora", which was supposed to be ripping the sky open 15 years ago still hasn't emerged, but that hasn't killed the dream. The sacred triangle is out there, waiting to be photographed; you just need a long enough lens at the right opportunity and nirvana will be yours.

Every religious group wants something yet paradoxically doesn't want to find it. (Wouldn't it put pastors out of business if Jesus actually returned?) If there was a new triangle out there, and you photographed it and nailed it down to a specific program, it was instantly become routine and uninteresting (like the clunky F117A), and your raison d'etre would go away. The military skywatchers are sustained only as long as they believe there are new triangles yet to be discovered, and the best kind are those that don't exist, because they can never be nailed down to reality.

The function of religion is to continually place barriers between you and your goals. That's what keeps the religion alive and the believers occupied. Likewise, the black world watchers want the truth while at the same time not really wanting it. They've got the notion that their life will be fulfilled if they can capture that sacred triangle, which of course is a delusion. They avoid facing reality by placing more and more barriers between themselves and the triangle. When someone provides the triangle, as I briefly did, it short-circuits the system and destabilizes the religion. The priests are going to get restless!

So now I've slipped into my old role as government disinformation agent. I'm the guy the government sent out to "muddy the waters" so the real black triangles can slip in and out of the base unnoticed. Actually, I'm pretty comfortable with this. Only wish I had the government salary: You know, the hundred dollar bills slipped under the table from time to time. (Hint, hint!)

If I had a few hundred more, I could buy a bigger lens -- a wide angle one.
Drawing source.

Triangular Craft Sighted Near Area 51

2008-10-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

I took this photo myself on Tikaboo Peak a week ago. I cannot say what the triangular object is, but I guarantee that the photo itself is authentic and unretouched. The image above shows the object in it's maximum resolution (one pixel on your screen for every pixel on my camera). Here is the entire scene, cropped slightly from the raw image...

This photo was taken at 11:56am on Monday, Oct. 6, 2008. According to information coded on the JPG, the camera aperture was f14; the shutter speed was 1/500 sec., and the ASA was 400. The entire raw image is 2592 x 3888 pixels and over 4mg in size (too big to post here). The mountain just to the left of the man's head is Bald Mountain, so we a looking roughly northwest. Here is a medium view...

You can click on the image above to see it in maximum detail.

Other than cropping the above image, I DID NOT ALTER IT IN ANY WAY.

The witnesses to the sighting were myself and the two people shown above: a visitor from Utah, Kevin, and his 8-year-old son, John Charles.

Alien craft? Advanced military test vehicle? You decide.

Update, 10/14

Here are some discussions concerning this photo on the Dreamland Resort discussion forum: Thread #1, Thread #2, Thread #3

Also see my follow-up posting the next day.

"UFO Hunters": The Tikaboo Death March

2008-10-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

More Photos

Up at the head of the column, the director went into crisis mode and began radioing instructions on how to distribute Ken's equipment so the shoot could go on. Everyone halted and waited for orders. As the rest of us at the front caught our breath, we began to ask a simple question.

"Who's Ken?"

Continued from Part I (but read this one first)

The production company for UFO Hunters first contacted me about a month before their Area 51 shoot. I said I was willing to guide them around, and I recommended a hike to Tikaboo Peak, the last vantage point where you can see the secret Groom Lake base. We discussed camping on the mountaintop, but I recommended the Tikaboo basecamp instead, so we didn't have to haul camping equipment on foot. I said the best time to view the distant base is first thing in the morning when the sun is behind you, and I recommended making two hikes from basecamp: one in the daytime to haul the equipment, then a second hike at night without equipment, after everyone knew the trail and had gotten some sleep.

They finally decided to climb the mountain in a single trip at night, at about 2am, with all their equipment and without camping. I advised against it, since the trail was difficult enough for most people in the day; doing it for the first time at night with full gear would add another layer of risk. They proceeded with the nighttime plan anyway, so I shifted gears and tried to think through all the contingencies and do what I could to make their plan work. I would be assisted by Agent X, who was also experienced on Tikaboo, and together we would try to keep these naïve L.A. greenies from killing themselves.

I meet the crew a day and a half before the hike when we filmed scenes near the Janet terminal in Las Vegas. (This sequence would appear after the Tikaboo hike in the finished product.) The crew looked young and healthy, which relieved some of my anxiety, but I still felt trepidation as I headed north to Alamo the following night (Wednesday) for the 11pm muster.

The crew had taken over the Windmill Ridge Motel in Alamo, and when I arrived at 10:00pm, things were already in motion. Big cases of equipment and supplies were being loaded into three 4WDs, an equipment van and an RV. This was a complex production, and it was moving smoothly. I learned then that the director and three other crew members had already taken the hike the night before. I was impressed! None of the four had been to the peak before, and they had hiked after midnight without a moon, based on my published instructions and GPS coordinates from the internet. This is exactly what I would have done in their shoes: a dry run. It showed me they had taken control of their fate and were not going to be swept along by it.

The expedition headed out promptly at 11pm, getting to the Tikaboo basecamp at about midnight. At my suggestion, they were going to film an interview around a campfire. I had wanted a number of people to chat around the campfire, including at least Agent X, but the script didn't call for others to be on the mountain, so it was just me and the host supposedly camping and hiking alone (pretending not to see the other 13 people). Earlier in the day, I had prepared an unlit fire at our actual basecamp, but this was too far from the generator, so we built another fire 200 yards below. The generator was unloaded and a big overhead light was set up above the fire -- a rather bizarre addition to any wilderness campsite (photo). The host and I, both professionals, knocked off an interview fairly quickly, and the team of 15 prepared for the main assault on the peak at about 2am.

The hike would be only about a mile, but it was a strenuous mile, climbing about 1000 feet on a sometimes dicey trail. This is tough enough for most people, but we were also hiking at a high elevation, starting at 7000 feet, which can be twice as hard for those who are used to sea level.

The producers had thought of everything. They calculated the equipment they would need and the number of bodies required to haul it. To help with the operation, two extra "Sherpas" were brought in from Las Vegas. One was a certified EMT in case there were any medical emergencies. I had initially dismissed the idea of an EMT as prudish. Do you take a paramedic with you every time you hike in the woods? But as the size and complexity of the operation became apparent, an EMT seemed increasingly prudent. Both he and the other Sherpa were members of a hiking club in Las Vegas, so a least there would be two more sturdy hikers in the group.

Agent X was part of the show but not part of the script for Tikaboo, so he went ahead of the rest of us and marked the trail with glow sticks hung from trees. We figured this would be a wise measure to keep everyone on the trail and provide an escape route in case anyone needed to go down at night. Now, it was just a matter of coaxing everyone up the steep trail.

The hike began on a relatively gentle slope that didn't bother anyone, but then the trail got steeper and steeper and a few hikers started falling behind. I was leading the column, followed by those who had been there the night before. It was easier for them this time because now we were following an established trail instead of GPS coordinates. Like similar communal hikes, our expedition began to split into two groups: the gazelles up ahead and the wheezers in the rear. We in the front monitored the rear by radio.

About a third into the hike, when we had hit the steepest stretch, we had our first casualty. Word came over the radio that Ken was down. He was hyperventilating and dizzy and couldn't continue. This was barely twenty minutes into the hike, so it did not bode well.

Up at the head of the column, the director went into crisis mode and began radioing instructions on how to distribute Ken's equipment so the shoot could go on. Everyone halted and waited for orders. As the rest of us at the front caught our breath, we began to ask a simple question.

"Who's Ken?"

Turns out, he was the EMT.

As the crisis unfolded, we began to learn an important lesson: If you arrange to hire an EMT through a local hiking club for a rigorous high-elevation hike, MAKE SURE HE IS NOT A SMOKER. In fairness to the producers, these are things you don't normally put together: certified paramedic, member of hiking club, chain smoker. Crew members who had seen him light up multiple times before the hike had figured he must be made of strong stuff to both smoke and be able to swing this difficult hike with a heavy pack. Turns out, he wasn't.

So the equipment in Ken's pack was redistributed, and he headed back to basecamp. The column started moving again, and almost immediately a second man went down. He was Stu, the story editor, who twisted his ankle and couldn't go on.

I was thinking to myself: "Dear God, what are we going to do on the peak without a story editor?"

So now Stu's equipment had to be redistributed, and some non-essential equipment had to be left behind. The director was showing has mettle now, making the essential triage decisions to keep the production on track.

Stu headed back to basecamp; the hike resumed, and then a third member went down. She was Penny, the sound technician. This was serious, because the production would be crippled without sound. Penny was the smallest crew member, and early in the hike I had taken her heavy pack and given her my nearly empty one, but after Ken's and Stu's equipment was redistributed, she again had a heavy pack. She had fallen in the loose rocks, but it took a few minutes to assess her condition. (Where's an EMT when you need one?)

Penny finally decided that she could continue, but only without a pack, so now all of the equipment she was carrying had to be redistributed or left behind.

We were hardly halfway up the trail at this point, but the steepest sections were over. I wondered who was going down next, and my suspicions centered on the other supposedly experienced Sherpa, who was breathing a little too hard. (What are the entry requirements for a hiking club nowadays?) With a little prayer and duck tape, the expedition soldiered on.

Fortunately, the rest of the hike proceeded uneventfully. I asked the lead cameraman (an endearing wise ass) where his fun meter stood. He answered: "I can't lie, it's gone way up!" As we crossed a saddle, I looked back from the front of the column and counted a string of 12 red headlamps in the darkness. I knew then that it would all work out.

We arrived at the peak in darkness, but with just enough time to get our work done. We had to film the base at night in spooky night vision. Then we filmed night-vision hiking scenes and getting-to-the-summit scenes (which, remarkably enough, were actually filmed at the summit). Then the sky in the east began to glow, and we shot various early-morning scenes as the sun flooded onto the secret base.

We had a massive high-definition camera with a big telephoto lens that was the equivalent of a 1100mm camera lens, all perched on a solid tripod that the director himself had carried. (I really admired the director through all of this. He kept everything on track while still retaining his humor.)

On the peak, everyone did their job efficiently, but something else happened, too. On Tikaboo, nearly everyone on the crew broke out their own digital cameras and started taking photos of themselves on the mountaintop. This was an indication to me of how significant the journey was to all of them. Fuck the History Channel, I say! This was a great experience regardless of the product.

It was full daylight by the time we headed down. There was some grumbling, but thanks to the laws of physics, down was way easier than up. We got back to basecamp and filmed some fake scenes of arriving and setting up camp. (We had our story editor back who could keep this all straight for us.)

For me, the most harrowing part of the whole expedition was shooting "B roll" of the host and I supposedly driving to Tikaboo as we were actually leaving. The host was in the driver's seat of a 4WD, and I was on the passenger side. The director had told us to drive "like Baja 500" on a dirt road past the camera, and the host obliged. I was hanging on for dear life and trying to think of a god to pray to.

We got back to the motel and all had breakfast. Since we had stayed up all night, things were getting surreal at that point. My role in the production was over, and I got to head home to Vegas (stopping to sleep in the car along the way), but the crew had to stay in Alamo. They would have the rest of the day to recover but had to shoot again the next day. Their shooting wrapped up only yesterday (Saturday), and I understand they had a party last night celebrating the end of their second season. (Jack Daniels and cranberry juice was the official libation.)

It won't be clear for several months whether UFO Hunters will be renewed for a third season. In any case, Area 51 is expected to be the last show broadcast in the current season (probably early 2009), and it is expected to be the season's high point.

I am still debating whether I should watch the finished show. It seems so superfluous.

Don't miss my expedition photos. (Tikaboo starts halfway through the album.) Also see "UFO Hunters" on Tikaboo: Part I.
Article & Photos © Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173

"UFO Hunters" on Tikaboo Peak: Part I

2008-10-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, I was up on Tikaboo Peak with a film crew from UFO Hunters, a History Channel series. (Here is a photo album of the expedition.) Apart from Larry King broadcasting live from Rachel in 1994, this was the biggest media production ever assembled on the doorstep of Area 51. Unlike the Larry King production, which set up a stage next to the highway, this crew had to haul their heavy equipment up a steep and rugged trail to a mountaintop shooting location—at night! In all, 13 people made it to the peak, along with sound equipment, three video cameras, a sturdy tripod and a big-ass telephoto lens.

Personally, I had a blast, and so did most of the crew (or they will have had a blast once they physically recover). That, to me, is what matters most. For me, the production was an excuse to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. The hike at night was almost foolhardy, which I tried to impress on the production company beforehand, but we managed to pull it off without any major problems. The crew was much more proactive than I anticipated, and they were highly resilient in the face of adversity. I came to like and respect all of them. Against the odds, the mission was accomplished, and everyone came back in one piece.

I felt invigorated by the whole enterprise. After almost ten years of refusing video interviews, I was "back in the game" as though I had never left. Even before we started the hike, I was being labeled as the "go-to guy" for information on Area 51 (an insult to the real go-to guys, since I've done no real research in a decade and don't care to do any more). I freely admit that my interest in what goes on inside the secret base has now fallen to less than zero, but I am still amused by the circus outside it, and after a decade-long sabbatical in the trenches of "real life" I don't mind performing again in that circus.

The only potential downside of the production was the little matter of, um, truth. I don't have a TV, so I have never seen UFO Hunters. Even some members of the crew told me that's probably a good thing. Friends who have seen the show have filled me in. Some love it; some hate it, but I recognize by triangulation that I am dealing more with an entertainment product than a journalistic one. The name itself tells us its focus. The existence of the show can only be justified by finding UFOs—or at least tantalizing suggestions of them. If UFO Hunters comes to your neighborhood, they're probably going to find UFOs there; otherwise, there would be no show.

The show doesn't employ skeptics, who are seen as too negative. Instead, it has a "science guy" (who I didn't meet). He typically sets up various new-fangled electronic equipment provided by companies seeking publicity (aka "product placement") hoping to catch some UFO traces. On top of this, saucer-watch scenes are usually filmed with fancy night-vision lenses that can give even lawn sprinklers an otherworldly glow. A good rule of thumb in ufology is the more high-tech equipment you deploy that you don't understand, the more "anomalous phenomena" you are going to discover. It's a simple formula for success: more money equals more high-tech equipment equals more "UFOs".

What is a show like this doing on the History Channel? That's the real alien phenomenon. SciFi Channel, sure. Discovery Channel, maybe. But where is the "history" in hunting for UFOs in the present day? The apparent answer is that all UFO sightings took place in the past; therefore they are history. I am comfortable with this general concept if it stayed in the past. The UFO movement has a very rich social history, regardless of whether you believe, and it certainly deserves to be documented. (Think of the Woodstock-like gatherings at Giant Rock in the 1950s.) Area 51, too, has an extensive military history which merits more attention. What is dubious "history" is the investigation of UFOs in the present. Do you remember when MTV was "Music Television" and was only about music? Well, History Channel may have now crossed the line where it is no longer about history, only about ratings. Maybe it should rebrand itself as "HC."

Furthermore, I can't say that my own motivations in taking this gig were entirely pure. Since I learned that I would be laid off from my airline job, I have tried to assemble several small business ventures to make ends me. One of these is an "Area 51 guide service," which I publicize with a page on the web. For $250 a day, I will lead you and your party to Tikaboo Peak or wherever else you want to go around Area 51. UFO Hunters took me up on the offer, which will help me meet my subsistence budget for next month. The real payoff, however, is the business that will presumably come my way after the show airs. I'm not interested in getting rich, and I see the tour guide thing as a temporary adventure for only as long as I enjoy it, but it would be nice to have the business coming in if I need it. It is to my benefit, therefore, that the UFO Hunters episode be successful.

How does one deal with all this moral ambiguity? It's simple: compartmentalization. Over the years, I've gotten good at it, especially during my decade of "real life." Compartmentalization is when you stop worrying about the big picture and just concern yourself with the part you have been asked to do. It's something we all have to resort to when dealing with the outside world. For example, when we buy a product at Wal-Mart, we don't necessarily worry about the working conditions of the Chinese slave labor that made it. If we tried to run down all those connections, we'd go mad, so we simply buy the product if the offer is good.

On the web, I made a public offer, and UFO Hunters accepted it. I told them from the outset that I couldn't give them UFOs, and they respected that. For the purposes of the show, I was just the Tikaboo guy. I would lead the host to the peak and to the Janet terminal in Las Vegas. In interviews, I would talk about Tikaboo, the Janet flights and my own experiences with security, that's all.

This was a heavily scripted production. What the viewer will see is a seemingly spontaneous "investigation" where the UFO Hunters team goes out to Area 51 with an open mind and sees what they can find. However, any real investigation implies the ability to change course. Your path on each step of the inquiry is determined by what you just discovered in the previous step. You can't "script" a true investigation. You can only script a movie or other entertainment product.

The script in this case was rigid and demanding, and it was written before anyone from the production company had set foot in the area. In fairness, the participants weren't given exact lines to recite, and no one was asked to lie or say anything they were uncomfortable with, but the "story" was determined entirely in L.A. before shooting began. Where the crew would be in every hour of the week-long shoot was strictly scheduled, with little margin for deviation. The director and producer also knew the subjects that they wanted each participant to talk about so the resulting sound bites would fit into the story. They couldn't afford to go into any other areas no matter what turned up in course of filming.

From the production company's standpoint, there was no other way. The History Channel keeps tight reins on the show, and it has to review and approve each story before shooting begins. Any significant changes also have to be approved by them, which is a huge bureaucratic burden. The production company is also trying to turn out a complex full-hour show on a grueling schedule, and it has to be exciting -- a real ratings grabber -- or the show will eventually be cancelled. These pressures tip the scales from reality to fiction, because fiction is so much easier to control.

True news shows are relatively lean. A local TV news crew consists of only two people: the cameraman and the reporter. A network news crew (including magazine shows like 20/20) consists of four people: the cameraman, the sound technician, the producer (who does all the real research), and the pretty-boy reporter (who usually flies in at the last minute and asks questions fed to him by the producer). The Tikaboo shoot, however, consisted of an on-site crew of a dozen people, including a director, producer, two cameramen, sound technician, gaffer, camera assistant, production assistant and—get this—a "story editor". His job was to assure that everything that happened on camera was consistent with the predetermined script. Especially with so many people and so much expensive equipment involved, the script becomes God, and no deviations can be accepted. This means that if UFOs flew out of somebody's ass at a time when the script didn't call for them, the crew could not respond.

Like movies and TV dramas, UFO Hunters is filmed "out of sequence". That means the order of events you see on the screen is not the same as the order it was filmed. All news shows dabble in a little bit of this, usually for fill-in footage where nothing significant is happening, but legitimate news organizations would never do it for the main action, like climbing a mountain: The preparation, the climb and the follow-up all appear on TV in the same sequence they really happened. Entertainment shows know no such boundaries. In this case, we filmed the follow-up first, then the main hike, then the preparation for the hike. This was all done for economy of production, just like for movies. In Las Vegas, about 40 hours before the actual hike, the UFO Hunters host was filmed talking about how "amazing" the Tikaboo hike had been. (I was wondering at the time whether everyone was going to survive the hike, let alone it being "amazing.")

The whole thing was reminiscent of my experiences with the paranormal show Encounters back in 1994 (Desert Rat #10). In that case, the crew filmed the secret base from Freedom Ridge the first night, then the second night when all the "cast" was assembled (including myself), they filmed a fake climb to Freedom Ridge on a hillside nowhere near it. At the top, we were asked to look at a blank hillside and pretend we were looking at the base. From the production company's standpoint, why not? If money is saved by "cheating" a scene and the results on the screen are virtually the same, what's the loss? CNN or ABC News would be mightily shamed if they were found to be faking scenes like this, but there is no real penalty for shows under the "entertainment" umbrella (including all those ugly "reality" shows). The problem, of course, is that when you cross the line into cheating, it is hard to know where to stop. Would UFO Hunters promote dubious UFO video or fail to exercise prudent skepticism simply because it served the needs of production? I prefer not to ask.

Compartmentalization is my friend. The fact is, I really liked everyone I worked with, and I think most of them would agree with my concerns above. This is a cutthroat business and everyone is being squeezed in one way or another. Every member of the crew knows what they need to do to get the show on the air, and there can be some beauty in that. It is remarkable to watch such a big operation unfold and to see everybody work together seamlessly when they need to. "I'm just a cog in the machine," said one of them, and this can bring both pain and pleasure.

I, too, saw myself as part of the machine. I was, first of all, a native guide, doing my best to make sure the crew was prepared for the environment. When I heard they would be hiking at night, I voiced my concerns, but when they were overruled I was still on board, doing my best to make sure things went as well as possible. My second role was as an actor, trying my best to be on-mark when I needed to be and delivering my lines as required. I wasn't going to lie, but I was prepared to take direction and respond to the needs of my team.

My main interview was conducted around a campfire at the base of Tikaboo. I myself suggested the venue in my long email correspondence with the production staff prior to the event. According to the story line, it was just me and the host sitting beside the campfire. We were supposed to ignore the dozen crew members, the two cameras pointed at us, the boom microphone hovering just above our heads and the giant fill light hanging overhead. It was just me and my buddy, out in the wilderness, talking casually about the hike coming up. After a few minutes of adjustment, it all came back to me. As far as I was concerned, it really was just me and the host and a couple other people listening in. I didn't know where the cameras were, and I didn't care what they were seeing, because that wasn't my job. I just wanted to say my lines well and make my friends happy.

I didn't deviate too far from the truth, but I did stretch it a little. At the request of the director, I played up the difficulty of the hike, turning it into something more dangerous and risky than I believed it was (at least in the daytime). The director wanted to ramp up the excitement factor by emphasizing the risk, but I had a different agenda. A show like this, broadcast to millions of couch potatoes, was essentially an open invitation for idiots to come up here and get themselves killed. As I saw it, making the hike seem more dangerous was a form of public service. At the suggestion of the director, I even played up the threat of mountain lions. Now, I've never seen a mountain lion, and I think the chance of being attacked by one is about the same as seeing a BLM ranger—that is, next to nil—but I had no problem playing up the hypothetical dangers of mountain lion attack as a surrogate for much more likely threats, like falling on loose rocks and cracking your head open. If mountain lions can scare off at least some of the ill-prepared dimwits, I have no problem inventing a few.

I truly didn't give a shit about how many millions will be watching the show or how they will perceive me. Perhaps it is a sign you are approaching nirvana (or death) if you genuinely don't care about fame. As I see it, fame has only one substantial benefit: When you meet someone new, they already know what to expect from you, and you don't have to spend as much time explaining yourself. Fame doesn't give you any gratification in itself. It doesn't solve your daily problems; it doesn't make you feel more worthy, and unless you have a clever mechanism to exploit it, it doesn't make you rich. No matter how much of it you have, fame is never going to heal the wounds and humiliations of your past. Even when you are known to millions, your life is still going to revolve around those few real people who you interact with on a daily basis.

That's how I felt on Tikaboo. I liked the people I was with, and I wanted this to be a memorable experience for them. I wanted to give the producer and director the material they needed—preferably even better than they had planned on. I didn't just pretend to bond with the host; I really did, and now I understand some of the stresses he is under. Since we're all just cogs in the machine, what really matters to me, personally, is meshing with my fellow cogs. Dealing with those other millions is mainly a matter of not doing something that is going to screw up their lives, like inviting them to the isolated desert when they are not prepared.

I might not even see the show when it comes out, because in my mind the adventure is already over. I was there and I took some pictures, and they are what I will remember it by. Whatever story the show comes out with is going to pale in comparison to the real hike I remember. Most meaningful to me were the stretches when the cameras weren't rolling, because there was actually some drama afoot. I almost wished there was a film crew recording the film crew climbing the mountain, because that was real fun!

I'll fill you in on the hike tomorrow in Part II: "The Tikaboo Death March."

Article & Photos © Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173

Interview with Bill Uhouse

2008-10-02T05:49:00.000-07:00

Here's an old interview with Bill Uhouse — aka "Jarod 2" in my Desert Rat newsletters. It looks like the interview was done around 2005.

For a summary of Uhouse's claims, see my Desert Rat: Issue #24 and Issue #27.

Where is he now? I don't know. He would be about 83 now.

Visiting the Minister of Words

2008-09-28T19:12:00.000-07:00

For the past two days, I have been visiting the Minister of Words, an Original Dreamland Interceptor (ODI), at his East Coast Ministry outside New York City. As you can see above, the Minister's condition has deteriorated considerably. More photos are available in this album...

Touring the Hudson with the Minister (60 photos)

BTW: Here's a facility in Hastings-on-Hudson that the Minister is associated with...

Photos from Tikaboo Peak and the E.T. Highway

2008-09-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a album of photos I took on Saturday on an Area 51 visit with a couple of Brits...

Area 51: Tikaboo Peak & Highway 375 (60 photos)

This alien dude is new. It's a store near the start of the highway that calls itself "The Alien Research Center, Area 51." There appears to be no research going on there. The facility also claims to be a "museum" but there were no displays apart from the original E.T. Highway sign. It's just a gift shop, open only Fri-Sat-Sun. The sales clerk said it had been open for about 9 months and was owned by a George Harris in Las Vegas.

I was there for a while before I realized, "Hey, this is a total rip-off of my Area 51 Research Center!" I'm not particularly upset, though. I don't expect this place to last for long.

Prison for Rachel: Bring it On!

2008-09-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

An article in the 9/18 Las Vegas Sun reiterates Rachel residents' opposition to a proposed prison in their valley.

What price desolation? Rachel residents consider raising $900 to continue fight against development

The Lincoln County Planning Commission has approved a permit for a prison near the town that has earned pop culture cachet for claims of alien sightings and its proximity to Area 51, the government testing facility long shrouded in secrecy.

The county limited the private prison to 1,500 beds, although developer Jim Toreson had asked for 2,000. Toreson will have to pay for infrastructure improvements including roads, and water and electric lines to the 100-acre site four miles from Rachel.

After lurking on the sidelines and carefully considering the pros and cons, this blog has finally decided to take a stand on the proposed prison. Now what do you suppose our stand should be?

Let's do the math. The Little A'Le'Inn opposes the prison. All of the Rachel residents who talked to the newspaper oppose the prison. The entire on-line community of Area 51 watchers seems to oppose the prison.

Add it all up, and it's a no-brainer: This blog SUPPORTS the building of a prison near Rachel, Nevada!

Alas, this is little more than empty jabbering on both sides, since the prison doesn't have an ice cube's chance in Hell of actually being built.

Quoting from the article...

Toreson plans to build the prison and find a company to operate it. He expects the state to house overflow inmates there.

In other words, Toreson's got nothing solid behind him. This is like you saying, "I'm going to make a major motion picture," so you approach your local Town Council to ask permission to film your movie there. The Town Council says, "Sure, why not?" but that doesn't mean you have the FUNDING to make the movie or the MARKET for the movie once it is made. Without funding or a market, no commercial project is going anywhere.

Right now, Old Man Toreson doesn't appear to have anything more than a worthless hunk of land, some big talk and maybe a little bit of naive seed money. Where, specifically, is Toreson going to get (a) the company to run the prison, and (b) the prisoners?

A little known factoid about Lincoln County is that it already had a for-profit prison. The facility was actually built in the early 1990s on the outskirts of Pioche -- and it failed. The idea was for the Lincoln County Sheriff to run the prison, while a for-profit company would fund it and supply the prisoners, supposedly based on overflow from Las Vegas and elsewhere. The derelict building is probably still there if anyone cares to open a new private prison on the cheap.

What's so special about Toreson's project that it's going to succeed where the previous one failed? If a bona fide private prison operator decided they absolutely needed to open a facility in Lincoln County, wouldn't they look at the existing building in Pioche first?

The mantra of real estate is "location, location, location," and in Rachel the location truly sucks -- even for a prison. There's no existing pool of labor, no local services and huge transportation costs. The only thing Toreson has in his favor is cheap land, nothing more.

Yes, Nevada's prisons are severely overcrowded, but that's a function of funding, not facilities. The state already has an underutilized prison in Jean, 30 minutes south of Las Vegas. Why would the cash-strapped state turn over some of its prisoners to Toreson at a presumably higher price than housing them itself?

Real private prison operators are different than Toreson. They look for governmental opportunities around the county, bid for a contract, then build a facility to suit. They are going to judiciously choose a location that best meets their needs. Toreson is working from the other direction. He's got this empty land he's desperate to do something with -- this white elephant he is already chained to -- so he's dreaming up fantasy options with no grounding in the marketplace.

But let's say the prison turned out to be a viable option and actually got built, what's the damage to Rachel? Sure, there may be more light pollution in a distant part of the Sand Spring Valley, but its a BIG valley and if you want more darkness, you can always go to the next valley -- or the next or the next. From an economic standpoint, the choice is between upsetting a handful of UFO and aviation watchers who contribute next to nothing to the local economy and having some real jobs and real economic stability in town. The A'Le'Inn could probably increase its business many fold if a prison (and the construction crews building it) actually came to town.

If you think of prisons as being a "dirty" industry, compare them to the alternatives. Why does Rachel and nearly every other town in the Nevada outback exist? Mining. Now there's a dirty industry, devastating the landscaping and usually contributing only briefly to the economy. There was never any opposition in Rachel to the potential reopening of the nearby Tempiute Mine. How is that better than a prison? Prisons don't pollute, and once one is established it is usually sustainable, since the supply of prisoners is never going to run out. Isn't this better than the boom-and-bust cycle that made and broke Rachel?

This knee-jerk opposition to a hypothetical business proposal just reinforces Lincoln County's reputation for opposing and disabling economic development wherever it threatens to emerge. It seems county residents WANT to be impoverished. They want to preserve their open desert and their "rural way of life," but they can't fathom that there's plenty of emptiness and ruralness out there and it's never going to be used up.

Back in the mid-1990s, a small film production company approached the Lincoln County Commission about using the old Lincoln County Courthouse to shoot a small-budget TV movie. The commission hemmed and hawed, demanded more information and more assurances and delayed approval for months. One commissioner even wanted approval authority over the script. Eventually, the production company gave up and withdrew its request.

It would have been easy money for the county and its businesses, but that's not what local residents seem to want.

They prefer hard money.

Posted from Las Vegas

Interceptor Nominee: Chameleon

2008-09-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

A new member seems to have mysteriously appeared in the ranks of the Groom Lake Interceptors. She is Chameleon, a shape-shifter.

Chameleon's special Interceptor superpower is that she can turn into almost anyone at will. This is accomplished through a combination of method acting, voice control and secret holographic technology that changes her facial features. Chameleon's unique skills are best illustrated by her very, um, interesting day job, show in the posters below.

That's right: She's a professional Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera impersonator! She makes good money at it touring the U.K., Europe and the Middle East. She also does a killer Marilyn Monroe and can even sing up a storm in her own voice.

You may also notice that she has another unique superpower: When she's in character, SHE CAN COMPLETELY FRY THE BRAIN OF ANY MALE WHO LOOKS AT HER! The body you see above has not been retouched in Photoshop. It is the product of 1000 sit-ups a day and an intense on-stage work-out whenever she puts on a show.

Imagine the use we can put her to at Area 51! She could paralyze the Cammo Dudes by singing a Britney Spears number while we sneak in the other way.

You may ask: How do we, the male Interceptors, look at her and not get our brains fried? This is accomplished with a set of special sunglasses available from me for $20. She's also not lethal when she's not in character. Off stage she has a fantastic mind and an ageless wisdom that seems quite inconsistent with her various bimbo personas. Hopefully, she will add some much needed balance (or better yet, imbalance) to our group.

One thing you need to know about Chameleon: No one knows what she really looks like. "White chick" is about all that any of us can nail down. Her real identity is a closely held secret, and the rest of us are only beginning to fathom it. The whole shape-shifting thing apparently started as the result of an accident in a government lab, but we haven't learned all the details yet.

Ms. Chameleon fits into my own nefarious plans to revive the Interceptor franchise. No longer are we going to be held down by OLD PEOPLE who hardly do anything, as though their TV series has been cancelled. We're going to build a whole new "Next Generation" of Interceptors who go boldly where no Interceptors have gone before.

(Cue music and warp-drive whooshing sound!)

Icon source

YouTube: Louis Theroux

2008-09-19T05:41:00.000-07:00

While on the subject of YouTube and its uselessness, someone in the UK forwarded me some YouTube links for a documentary that I appeared in. Now, this PROVES how useless YouTube is!

"Glenn Campbell, you get the fuck out of here!"

The documentary is at least 10 years old (filmed when my hair was naturally brown) and I have only a vague recollection of filming. There were so many documentaries back then, without much variation, and I probably only saw half of them when they were completed. Nothing would bore me more than wasting 20 minutes of my life watching this one (I viewed only a few seconds of each part.), but I provide it here for my gullible readers.

Part 1...

Part 2...

The last one contains the famous line, "Glenn Campbell, you get the fuck out of here!" which just proves that you can say "fuck" on British TV.

BTW: The Area 51 Viewer's Guide that the host is seen reading is still available from me via Amazon.

YouTube: What's It Good For?

2008-09-13T01:19:00.000-07:00

Young folks these days seem to be addicted to something called "YouTube." I can't say I understand it. It seems to be like "America's Funniest Home Videos," except that instead of getting a half hour of stupid videos you get HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF HOURS of stupid videos.

Why when I was a kid we read books, and when we wanted to see something, we went there and saw it. (We also walked five miles to school in the snow and didn't complain about it.) Kids these days don't need to go anywhere or do anything; they just call it up on YouTube and get a low quality rip-off of the experience.

When I typed "Area 51" in the YouTube search box, I was amazed! Does anyone on the North American continent have a life? They all seem to have made the same repetitive video of driving down Groom Lake Road to see the restricted area signs.

Now I'll admit that YouTube might have the potential for some sort of productive use. I just haven't figured out what it is. The image quality is very low, hardly comparing to even pre-HD television. For conveying visual data, a still photograph seems far better. If you want to show how visual elements relate to each other, you take several photographs, or you draw a map.

The only personal use I have ever found for YouTube is playing purely audio information. For example, if there's a song I want to hear, there's a good chance YouTube has it, perhaps as a music video. In no case, however, have I ever cared about what was happening on the screen as I listen to the audio. The video portion is just a distraction. A lot of videos, in fact, just show a static picture while the audio is playing. They appear on YouTube only because that's the universal place where people exchange media files.

I challenge my readers to show me ANYTHING meaningful or useful on YouTube -- on Area 51 or anything else -- apart from purely audio information. I'm open-minded. I'm willing to embrace newfangled conveniences like washing machines and pop-up toasters as long as you can show me that their value exceeds their cost.

So where is it? Show me that one useful YouTube video -- something truly meaningful that can't be accomplished with words, a photograph or an audio file -- and I'll shut up.

Rachel Nevada News Article

2008-09-09T03:57:00.000-07:00

An article in Sept. 7 Las Vegas Sun profiles the current residents of Rachel, Nevada, which appear to number about 65 actual living souls.

The home they love, for now: Jobs be damned, say residents who prize freedom, stars and sunsets

On Thursday many of the residents of Rachel will meet at the A’Le’Inn to caravan 110 miles to Pioche, the Lincoln County seat, to try to stare down the proposal to put a prison four miles from their community center.

The prison lights alone will ruin the gorgeous sunsets and stargazing available where there isn’t a man-made light taller than a front porch within 100 miles.

The man who wants to build the prison on 1,000 acres here also wants to build a housing tract next to it called Lincoln County Estates. Over the years there’s been talk about building a solar plant and an old folks’ home on the land, but those turned out to be just rumors.

But the prison talk is real and the Lincoln County Planning Commission is being asked by the developer to grant a special use permit allowing a medium-security prison. ...

Toreson’s plan is to build the prison, find a company to operate it, and then for the state, whose prisons are crowded, to pay to house overflow inmates in Rachel. California has private prisons; Nevada does not.

Naw, not real. We think it's still a figment of Toreson's imagination. Totally Looney Tunes.

Nevada's prison's are overcrowded not because of lack of prison's per se but lack of money. There's still a state facility at Jean that is underutilized.

Like in the movie business, people in the desert with big ideas are a dime a dozen. People with funding, however, are rare, and Toreson obviously doesn't have any. All he's got is the land.

The most imporant thing missing from the proposal is labor. Where are the prison guards and staff going to come from? The commute time from Las Vegas or even Alamo is huge, and you'd have to pay a huge premium for force people to live in the middle of nowhere.

It's a fantasy proposal that will go nowhere.

Own a Piece of Paradise near Rachel, Nevada!

2008-08-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't you like to get away from it all? Enjoy all the benefits of clean air and country living? Experience the freedom of wide open spaces? Well, Toreson Industries (official website) is giving you the chance. For $16,500 you can own a 1.2 acre lot at Lincoln Estates, a hypothetical housing development 6 miles west of Rachel, Nevada.

Of course, it's been hypothetical for at least 15 years now. We met Toreson himself back when we first arrived in Rachel in 1993, and he had the same plan. He had just bought this huge hunk of barren land west of Rachel for what he thought was a bargain price and planned to turn it into a residential community. Nothing much seems to have changed since then, except Toreson now has a new website.

Wouldn't you like to be the first on your block to... well, be first on your block, period?

The sadness of the proposition is clear when you read Toreson's list of local services. The site acknowledges that there's no Wal-Mart, no Home Depot, but there are "farm-fresh eggs." In other words, people who move to Lincoln Estates will be eating a LOT of eggs. There's also a bar and restaurant (the Little A'Le'Inn) and a convenience store/gas station.

Oops, Toreson failed to note that the convenience store has now closed, so there's no gas within 50 miles.

There are, however, "gourmet restaurants" in Alamo, some 60 miles away. (It all depends on how you define "gourmet.") Schools are located in Alamo, a mere two hour bus round-trip journey every day. (Helps instill character in children.) "These schools are in a safe, crime free, wholesome, environment and have caring teachers." (Again, it depends on how you define "wholesome" and "caring".) You can always take the bus to Las Vegas -- as long as you can get to the bus stop in "nearby" Alamo.

Lincoln Estates is at least 2-1/2 hours from the Wal-Marts and Home Depots of Las Vegas. (Toreson says 2 hours, but that assumes illegal velocity and no traffic in Las Vegas itself.) At current gas prices, that's about $50 round trip in the average car.

Toreson fails to mention that you can save a little gas and a lot of money by purchasing a similar lot in "downtown" Rachel for less than half the price of his.

A better funded version of a similar land scam is Coyote Springs (official website), a hypothetical development you may pass through without noticing on the way to Rachel. It is "only" 60 miles from Las Vegas, and at least it has a partly built golf course (our field report). There are some deep-pocketed investors behind Coyote Springs, but even they haven't been powerful enough to etch a community out of the raw desert.
Remember the old saw about real estate: "Location, location, location." In both Lincoln Estates and Coyote Springs, the location sucks. Starry eyed city slickers don't seem to understand: Out here, you don't own the desert; the desert owns you. You can stake out a tract of land and call it yours, but the desert doesn't recognize your claim and is going to win in the end.

Old man Toreson has been imprisoned by his own land for over 15 years -- which may be the inspiration for his latest scheme. According to local reports (which we haven't verified), Torson now hopes to build a 2000-bed prison on the land. We hear that Rachel residents plan to hold a town meeting about the proposal on Sept. 6.

It's pretty much the same thing: Whether you sell people the land or force them to live there under court order, they are still imprisoned.

8/25/08: Here are some message threads at Dreamland Resort regarding the proposed prison: Disaster in Rachel, Prison in Lincoln County. No worries mate! There ain't gonna be no prison. No public or private prison operator could possibly consider it viable.

EG&G Security Manual

2008-08-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

We can't legitimately say we are "back" without publishing some sort of security manual. Fortunately, one such document turned up on our doorstep a few days ago. It is a security manual for EG&G, the private contractor that (last we heard) runs Area 51 for the Air Force. It is dated 31 March 2000 and is 92 pages long. We haven't done more that skim though it, but we offer it to our readers to analyze as they wish...

Security Standard Operating Procedures (pdf, 600k)

If you find anything interesting in it, give us a report.

And here's another document that arrived on our doorstep in the same wicker basket. It's an internal newsletter (11 pages) of the private range operator...

Beneath the Wings, August 2008 (pdf, 5.5 mg-big!)

We are still a bit rusty on this, but "JT3" is the company name that appears on the Las Vegas office building that we previously associated with EG&G Special Projects at Area 51. (Our 1996 visit there was recorded in Desert Rat #35.) Here is their company website, and a screenshot is below.

Does any of this excite us? Not terribly. This is more the realm of the black world data collectors. We are happy to pass along the information, but it's not primarily what we do.

Give us more aliens! More freaks!

Alien Autopsy: The Third Generation

2008-08-20T19:07:00.000-07:00

Remember the Alien Autopsy film of 1995? (wikipedia) Doesn't it bring back warm memories? It was a worldwide phenomenon at the time. The Fox television network made a boatload of money with that one, purporting to show the secret government autopsy of an alien body recovered from the Roswell UFO crash. Of course, the network never took a stand as to whether the film was real. Instead the prime time TV special was phrased as a question: "Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?"

It was fiction, of course, and any competent journalist could find that out pretty quickly. What was interesting to us is how the event illustrated how media really works. The media doesn't make any money by exposing the "truth." It makes money by generating drama. The drama takes time and fills programming space, which can then be used to sell advertising to commercial sponsors.

And drama is what the people want, too! They don't want the truth any more than the media does. They want the drama of seeing conflicts hashed out, and as long as it is offered to them, they are going to tune in. It's just like a football game: No fan just wants to hear the final score; they have to see the drama of the game played out -- as inane and useless as it may be.

The purported autopsy film fit the bill. It couldn't be definitively disproven, at least immediately, so it was ripe for the question: Is it real? Then the marketing wheels could be set in motion.

Three years later, Fox milked the autopsy yet again with "World's Greatest Hoaxes: Secrets Revealed," which devoted a program to exposing the Alien Autopsy (report). So Fox made money from the original hoax then made money again by exposing the hoax. We don't see anything particularly outrageous in this: It was just the network and its viewers doing what they are programmed to do. The Alien Autopsy was no more phony then the thousands of useless products advertised on TV everyday.

Two years ago, the promoter of the film and mastermind of the hoax, Ray Santilli, sought to garner more money and attention by finally admitting that he staged the hoax. This time, however, the whole phenomenon seems to have "jumped the shark" and it seems doubtful anyone made much profit.

Santilli's vehicle this time was the 2006 movie, "Alien Autopsy" (wikipedia, BBC review) which he produced. Supposedly "based on a true story," the movie tells the story of how Santilli and his crew faked the film. The release of this new film coincided with Santilli public admission that that MOST of the film was faked. But -- get this -- Santilli now claims that he faked the fake parts only because the original footage he purchased had disintegrated. Santilli says that he saw the film just before buying it but that the film stock decayed as soon as it was exposed to air. Then he had NO CHOICE but to "reconstruct" most of it based on the memory of what he saw. Although he continues to maintain that parts of his show were real, declines to specify them.

Hmmm, okay. Even when someone admits they lied, there's always a way to justify it. Good con men can always shift gears to adapt to any contingency; that's the nature of their trade. Alas, the whole thing fell flat this time. It seems nobody cares anymore! The film went straight to DVD and was sold only in Europe. (Europeans can buy a used copy on Amazon.co.uk for £0.01 ($0.02), but you won't find it on Amazon.com.)

An associate in the UK slipped us a copy, and we TRIED to watch it but didn't get far. It was a technically competent product but pathetic below the surface. The character of Santilli, even presented as Santilli himself must have wanted it, had no personal appeal and was ultimately unwatchable.

We suspect that it wasn't really money that motivated Santilli this time: He got plenty of it from the first hoax. This one seemed more an attempt to set the record straight -- to somehow show that he was a worthy human being in spite of manipulating the world. Unfortunately, he still hasn't come clean: He has just covered one lie with another. It is like a kid admitting he stole the cookies but continuing to blame someone else for his actions.

We have no problem with hoaxes or hoaxsters. There world is filled with them, and the ultimate responsibility lies with the consumer to sort them out. But you don't pull off a hoax without Karma to pay. Every fraud and phony finds this out eventually: Either you return to the truth or you lose your soul.

For some, like Santilli, it is already too late. Millions of dollars don't help much when your time on Earth draws to a close and you have no one left to confide in.

It is the fate of all con men to die alone.

Interceptor Cast: The Council of Elders

2008-08-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

In the course of defending our honor at Dreamland Resort (see "Burning History"), SHADOWHAWK put together a pretty good summary of the original Interceptor core group. There were many others, but these nine compose the "Council of Elders" who the rest of you are expected to bow down to. At present the Council is 78% not dead, but this number could change at any time. Shadowhawk's summary, as posted:

For those who don't remember their history, there were nine of us.

Jim Goodall is considered to be the first. He was known by several code names (Yes, we all had silly code names. We never took ourselves too seriously). Jim was variously known as "The Great One," "Agent Orange," and "Spy Two." He was an aviation author who documented the Blackbirds and stealth aircraft from before the time many of them were delcassified. He spent agreat deal of time lurking around Tonopah and Area 51. For whatever reason, he was also intrigued by the testimony of Bob Lazar, who claimed to have worked with alien spacecraft in an underground government facility. Jim remains, fundamentally, an airplane nut, not a UFO nut and works in aircraft resoration at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

John Andrews, "Spy One," of Testors Corporation - the company that brought us platic models of the "F-19" and "SR-75" - was a gentleman in all respects, with more manners and grace than all the other Interceptors combined. He worked for years designing plastic model kits of both real and hypothetical military craft. His greatest quest was to release models of secret aircraft before the government acknowledged their existence. He passed away some years ago.

Mark Farmer, "Agent X," was a freelance journalist and photographer from Juneau, Alaska. He was always one to push the limits of the envelope, be it in military watching, in extreme sports or in matters of taste. He had all the latest hardware: night-vision goggles, telescope, camera with a mammoth telephoto lens, scanner radio, survival rations for a week. And of course he was stylishly attired in camouflage fatigues that were exactly appropriate for this particular desert background.

Tom Mahood, "Hand," was a traffic engineer from Irvine, California, with a secret passion physics. After slinking around with us along the border of Area 51, he went on to earn a physics Master's degree in the subject of gravity, motivated by the desire to prove or debunk certain UFO claims. He then worked for a short time at a government laboratory in Washington State that was conducting serious research into the nature of gravity. He eventually returned to traffic engineering. He was an excellent investigator, completely focused on solving the current mystery, whatever it it happened to be. Once a mystery was solved, he cast it aside like a completed crossword puzzle and moved on. That was how he treated Area 51. Tom was the second person known to have climbed Tikaboo Peak for the express purpose of viewing Area 51 and the firs t to create a trail up to the peak. He also located the crash site of an A-12 (Article 125).

Mike Dornheim, "The Ayatollah," was a Los Angeles-based aviation journalist and arch-skeptic. As West Coast Editor for Aviation Week and Space technology Magazine, he fought unsucessfully against publishing unsubstantiated stories about myhical aerospace planes. He believed in data, not speculation, but his was a lone voice crying in the wilderness. He died in a tragic car accident a few years ago.

Jim Bakos, "Agent Zero," was a machinist from Hemet, California, known for his good-natured enthusiasm, whose proudest accomplishment was the design and manufacture of the official Interceptor decoder ring. Agent Zero owned his own machine shop, stamping out various metal connectors and other parts, and some of his biggest clients were military contractors. Not wanting to bite the hand that feeds, Zero kept a low profile regarding the news media.

Stuart Brown, "The Minister of Words," was a staff writer for Popular Science magazine, living in Hollywood, California. He documented some of the Interceptors' antics in print and in television interviews. He currently lives in New York.

Glenn Campbell, "Psychospy," was the only Interceptor who actually lived near Area 51. He was a computer programmer who developed an intense interest in all things related to Area 51 and moved to Nevada(Does this sound like anyone else we know?). In January 1993, he drove his camper from Boston to Rachel and moved in behind the Little A'Le'Inn. Over the next several years, he explored every detail of the area, published the "Area 51 Viewer's Guide" and organized the initial events that brought the Interceptors together. He appointed himself public relations officer for the secret base and entertained every form of visiting news media. He tread a narrow path between beliver and debunker, and was more interested in the psychlogican and cultural aspects of Area 51 than in secret aircraft. His greatest contribution was the ability to network people. By introducing a disparate collection of researchers to each other, he created something that was truly greater than the sum of its parts. He also introduced the first comprehensive Area 51 web site and unearthed key information that helped remove the shroud of mystery that surrounded the Groom Lake base.

I (Peter Merlin), a.k.a. "Shadowhawk," billed myself as an aerospace archaeologist and historian. I specialized in collecting data, documents, and artifacts realted to flight-testing and Area 51. I was also the first person known to have climbed Tikaboo Peak to look at Groom Lake. Of all the original Dreamland Interceptors (ODI's), I'm the only one who has continuously researched the subject of Area 51 without interruption in the years since the Interceptors faded from the scene. I'm proud of my contributions to Dreamland Resort (the best Area 51 web site ever!) and Roadrunners Internationale that help preseve the legacy of Area 51. I wouldn't have gotten as far as I have in this endeavor without Glenn's help and that of the other ODI's. Let's not throw all that they have done on the fire.

"ODI" is okay, but we prefer "Council of Elders." They're the useless old guys who don't have much power left, but everyone pretends to honor them. They also get the best parking spots at the Black Mailbox on account of their seniority.

photo source

Not Banned After All!

2008-08-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

Darn! It's fun to be banned (see last post), but our latest suppression has evaporated.

SHADOWHAWK has come to our defense on the Dreamland Resort discussion board ("Burning History"). In an email today, he writes...

I thought the reaction on Dreamland Resort was a little out of whack so I spoke up about it. Apparently there was a misunderstanding. Here is Joerg's response, edited for clarity.

"Thank you for bringing this up, Pete. It seems that there has been some confusion, and I hope that with this post I can straighten things out. I have an agreement with Hank (forum moderator) that we will not allow advertisement in the forum. In the case of Glenn's new site, I see now that our initial reaction was unfounded. I was under the wrong impression that it was mainly advertising his tours. I have no problem with other Area 51 research sites being discussed here, and I am glad to see that Glenn is back. As far as his tours are concerned, I hope he won't run into the same problems as I did when I tried this years ago. There is a certain tour company here in town that keeps the old Mafia tradition in Vegas very much alive... Anyway, I hope that with this, we can put this unfortunate misunderstanding to rest and move on to more fun things. I respect the Interceptors, and I am glad to see that "Psychospy" is back. Having another critical set of eyes on our favorite secret base can only be a good thing."

So Glenn is not banned after all. Let's quench this small blaze before it burns out of control.

Awww, do we have to? (Whining.) We hate it when grown-ups intervene and tell us to play fair, but they're always right, of course.

Joerg has done a great job of holding down the fort in our absence, and, frankly, most of the original Interceptors have been out of the game for so long that they are only lightweights now (apart from SHADOWHAWK, who is the only active researcher in our group). We have no desire to compete with Dreamland Resort. It is the best source on the net for current Area 51 data. All we can offer is just a different form of analysis.

Psychospy has always been more concerned with the bigger social picture of Area 51 than with specific black projects. The AURORA itself could fly out of THE GREAT ONE's ass and it wouldn't interest us much, but an alien freak like AMBASSADOR MERLIN fascinates us to no end. Face it, all of us are freaks in one way or another, so tolerance and inclusivity are important. Jeorg and the DLR people will do what they do best, and we'll do what we do best, and hopefully no one steps on each other's toes.

Then it's agreed? From now on, we're all going to try to love one another and just get along.

photo source

Glenn Campbell Suppressed on Dreamland Resort

2008-08-16T21:56:00.000-07:00

Ah, it's just like the old days! We've been back in operation for less than a week, and already we've been suppressed!

Since we went to sleep a decade ago, the premiere website for Area 51 information has been DreamlandResort.com -- a highly credible site with lots of good information. It even includes a discussion board where authorized members can post their own comments and discuss current affairs.

But now all discussion of Glenn Campbell has been banned by the moderator.

Oooo, this is TOO good! We started our blog on Aug. 11, and on Aug. 12 someone posted a message to that effect on the discussion board: "Glenn Campbell is Back!"

There were several messages in reply, seemingly innocuous enough, but by the end of the following day, the moderator "Hank" decided that enough was enough. "I would appreciate no further posts to the Glen Campbell thread." This was seconded by the webmaster "Joerg" who wrote: "And I am sure he does not mind some free advertisement in this forum. We generally try to avoid this. Thanks!"

When someone asked why Glenn Campbell had been banned, Joerg wrote back: "Because Hank is the moderator and he said so. End of discussion."

So now Glenn Campbell can't be mentioned on what purports to be the premiere Area 51 forum. Apparently, he is seen as a commercial opportunist just out to make money. (It should be noted that the Dreamland Resort website itself is chock-a-bloc full of advertizing for cars, hotels, dating services, etc.)

The original Interceptors always TRIED to be all-inclusive. There were no real admission criteria; you just had to give yourself a code name and show up at our events. Now the new guys on the block are saying that the old guys (call us the "Grays") don't deserve to be mentioned or included in any discussion of Area 51.

Not that we mind having opponents! Why should we fight the government when internecine warfare is so much more fun? GUFON hasn't shown up so far, and no one knows what happened to CHUCKIE or SEAN DAVID MORTON, so we were worried for a while that no one would care enough to put us down. Now we see that our fears were unfounded.

Suppression is good for the soul -- just the sort of thing to breath life back into Psychospy! (Looking we're even lapsing back into the second person.)

We love the smell of napalm in the morning!

(BTW: ANYONE is free to post comments on this blog. You just have to have a free Google account -- which almost everyone has anyway. As long as your comments are relevant to the discussion and not obscene, we won't suppress them.)

Bob Lazar Moving to Laingsburg, Michigan

2008-08-14T19:14:00.000-07:00

It's good to know our friend "The Bob" is still making big plans. Hand just alerted us to this article in the local Argus-Press in Shiawassee County, Michigan. It seems the forward-looking government in the small town of Laingsburg (population 1223, wikipedia) is welcoming Lazar's United Nuclear Scientific with open arms.

New business coming to Laingsburg, June 6, 2008

An excerpt...

LAINGSBURG - A boom of economic growth is heading to Laingsburg as United Nuclear Scientific, LCC, a distributor and manufacturer based in Sandia Park, New Mexico, will be relocating to downtown Laingsburg later this year.

“We are excited about establishing our business in the local community,” company owners Bob Lazar and Joy White said.

Lazar added he and his wife chose Laingsburg for the comfortable rural setting and family ties to the area.

White's son, Chris Hopwood, will be working at Michigan State University and lives in Shiawassee County.

UNS's purpose is to put the “fun” back into science as a hobby. They manufacture a wide range of scientific products of their own design, such as Nuclear Cloud Chambers - which allow you to “see” radiation.

The company started a decade ago doing government contract work in New Mexico.

“We wound down our (government work) because we will be out of the area,” Lazar said. “We will be primarily on the retail end now.”

The retail sales division of UNS Supplies is expected to employ a minimum of five people from the start. Lazar expects the number to be “significantly more than that.”

The company will also focus on a hydrogen fuel system division which is expected to come online starting in 2009-10, and will manufacture hydrogen fuel conversion kits for most U.S. and foreign cars. This could create more than 50 jobs when fully operational, Lazar said. “We needed to tap into the job market of talented people, like out of work auto workers, that are here,” he said.

Lazar is a scientist who has previously worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory and was involved in various classified government projects. His wife, Joy, is a licensed aesthetician (skin care specialist) with her own business.

“We are grateful to Bob and Joy - this means some really terrific benefits to the city and its residents,” Laingsburg Mayor Michael Culpepper said.

Of course, we all know Lazar is a "scientist" because he's wearing a white lab coat in the famous photo at top. But wonder why Bob would want any publicity at this point. Why can't he move into Laingsburg in his usual stealth manner?

We understood "United Nuclear" as Lazar's shell company when selling items on eBay (motto: "We specialize in small orders." website), but apparently it's growing fast. (Here's his own announcement of the move.) He now plans to employ five people, but as many as 50 eventually. In a TV news report ("Supply Company Relocates to Mid-Michigan") that number has since expanded to 80 hypothetical workers. (And here's a similar report from another TV station.)

If he managed to employ just the five, that would seem news enough. Laingsburg probably needs the business. Unfortunately, Lazar has a long history of big plans that never quite materialize. One wonders what volume of "government work" Lazar was giving up in New Mexico when he "left the area."

Whatever happened to the "Terraforming" project in a missile silo near Roswell? (clui field report) Wasn't William Shatner (i.e. "Captain Kirk") involved in that one? Some investors sunk some money into it. Did they earn it back? Must not have worked out of Lazar is leaving the state.

And then there's the corporation the Robert Bigelow funded in Nevada -- something to do with researching "Element 115." What ever happened with that? (See Psychospy's 1997 article: "Lazar Theory #1: Fraud for Bigelow Funding.")

Our friend The Bob has a way of starting big things but never quite finishing them (like certain UFO claims in the desert). We wonder if the people of Laingsburg fully understand, and we hope no municipal money has gone into this.

But wait, there was another line in the article above:

UNS has been working with the city, LBA, Baker College of Owosso and the Shiawassee Economic Development Partnership (SEDP) to facilitate the relocation process.

Ah, so that's it! VERY interesting.

alt.conspiracy.area51

2008-08-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

I've just been alerted to the fact that alt.conspiracy.area51 still exists! I thought newsgroups were a relic of the 1990s! There aren't a lot of postings, but one of them said something about my possible reemergence, so I was seduced into generating a posting of my own. Here it is:

Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.area51
From: Psychospy
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:06:45 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Wed, Aug 13 2008 11:06 am
Subject: Psychospy's Back!

That's right, Psychospy is back after a ten-year Rip van Winkle snooze and BOY IS HE PISSED!

Look at how this whole field has degenerated! We got to whip you lame-ass couch potatoes back into shape! Who's monitoring the border? What's in the sky. What's been happening with the radio traffic? Answers, I want answers!

Actually, I'm perfectly happy without any answers. It was always the PROCESS that I found most interesting. F*ck the aliens I say! They're not bothering us, so why should we bother them?

You may notice one thing that's changed in the past 10 years: I've shifted from the second-person ("we" and "us") to the first person ("me" and "I"), with some occasional lapses into the third person for literary effect ("Psychospy is back"). It's just easier that way. This is going to be a LOW ENERGY insurrection from now on. One of the reasons I got out of Area 51 is that is just became too much. I burned out on all the tasks I created for myself. Now, I'm not going to get obligated to anything. I'll pursue what amuses me and blow off what doesn't. There will be no big battles or major projects this time, only idle bemusement at the wonder of it all.

I've created a new "blog", which I gather is all the rage these days.

http://area51interceptors.blogspot.com

This will be my primary organ for communication. You can "RSS" it or cross-post it or whatever you young people do with blogs these days. It doesn't matter to me. (Please note, however, that I may fine-tune my postings for a few days after they are first published, so you should always try to refer people back to the original blog source.)

I'm not sure what I will do with this new medium. Mostly dwell on the past, I imagine. My financial resources are very thin (i.e. I'm now "poor" like the rest of you.), so I can't physically scope out the border anymore. The most I can do is type, type, type, from my secure undisclosed location. I'll try to pull things together as best I can, perhaps with the help of some of you who do have resources to poke around.

So link yourself up with the blog, send me some email, and we'll see what develops.

Psychospy (aka Kilroy)

Interceptor Patch

2008-08-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

Here is Agent X's design for the Interceptor patch.

He writes: "The latin means 'To always look up.' I had a pal who was a Catholic priest help me with the saying. Otherwise, the motif and lettering I based on military squadron patches."

Freedom Ridge Blackworld Picnic

2008-08-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

Agent X just sent this photo of some Interceptors and associates on Freedom Ridge. The occasion was the formal inauguration of Freedom Ridge at the "Blackworld Picnic" on January 15, 1994. This was a seminal event in Interceptor history. It is where we first connected with Hand and a lot of others. Most of the Council of Elders were present, including the Minister, the Ayatollah, The Great One, Hand and Psychospy (who else?). It was also the inspiration for the first Desert Rat issue.

Here is a larger version of the photo, and these are the parties I can identify, left-to-right:

#1: Unidentified
#2: Unidentified
#3: Unidentified
#4: (at telescope) Michael DiGregorio of Far Out Magazine.
#5: (in cammo) The Great One (aka Spy 2/Agent Orange)
#6: Unidentified
#7: (in cammo) Psychospy (yours truly)
#8: (with binoculars) Bill Sweetman (does he have a code name?)
#9: Warren James, authentic Rocket Scientist and friend of the Minister.

Can you help with identification?

BTW: Agent X has a great photo website, TopCover.com, and this looks like a photo of X himself in action...
Handsome dude! (In a "Come with me, Luke, I am your father" sort of way.)

Ambassador Merlyn Merlin II: A Memorial

2008-08-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

In memory of Ambassador Merlyn Merlin II of Draconis, a "being of light" who I had the good fortune to meet, I wrote a short screenplay in his honor (8 pages)...

The Ambassador is Recalled (pdf)

Ambassador Merlyn Merlin II was an apparently sentient and corporeal being who I met in Rachel (shown above). Here is a news article on his demise. (Obviously, I took some creative liberties.)

I have a few other short screenplays, several concerning Area 51. They are found here.

You might find a little about the Ambassador with a Google search. He was mentioned in the New York Times article and in the Dreamland Chronicles. Does anyone have any recollections of the Ambassador they care to share?

Nice Restricted Area Map

2008-08-11T22:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice map of the entire military Restricted Area in Southern Nevada, showing the Groom Airstrip, Rachel and Tikaboo Peak. It was found on Wikipedia at:

Federal Lands in Southern Nevada

It appears to be made by a private citizen with a good software program (Finlay McWalter).

Popular Mechanics reveals the NEW new Area 51

2008-08-11T21:40:00.000-07:00

Reminiscent of the past, Popular Mechanics (the low-class rip-off of Popular Science) has announced the location of the "new" Area 51. It's the Mojave (California) airport, shown above, and the "commander" of the base is aircraft designer Burt Rutan. Here is their article in this month's issue:

New Area 51: Mojave's Desert Outpost Holds Space Flight's Future

Some of you may recalled that back in June 1997, Popular Mechanics made waves (and sold a lot of copies) by announcing that Area 51 had moved to an abandoned missile site near Green River, Utah (summary). The dimwitted PM reporter had confirmed this by visiting the Groom Lake border and finding a locked get there. (The gate, which was pictured in the article, was on a remote rancher's road not connected with Area 51.)

There is no evidence in the article that he actually visited Green River, but one of our operatives did, shortly after the article was published. The facility was surrounded by a fence, but the gate was open, and our operative walked right in! No signs of security, no Little Green Man, only a few concrete bunkers (report).

So they must have moved Area 51 yet again as soon as PM caught up with them. And now, at last, PM has revealed where they moved it all to: Mojave, California.

The Minister of Words writes: "BTW I ran into a buddy who works at PM and asked him about Jim Wilson, the guy who turned getting lost into the scoop that A51 had moved to Utah. He said Wilson made up so much stuff during his time there that even PM felt obliged to fire him."

Area 51 Book

2008-08-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I started writing a book about my adventures at Area 51. I got about 7 chapters into it before running out of steam. Those chapters are here...

I Was Abducted by Aliens at Area 51

The project petered out because there didn't seem to be any market for the book at the time. I had a literary agent who submitted the book to some real publishers, but there wasn't any interest.

I assume that the topic just has to "age" a while before it becomes a Golden Oldie. Unfortunately, I'm aging, too. I'm definitely not dead at the moment -- feeling quite fit, in fact -- but one cannot expect this condition to persist forever.

Now, I'm considering picking it up again. The real problem now is deciding where the story should go. How do you tell such a huge story in the short space of a book? Part of the reason for this blog is to help me figure this out.

Of course, there was already a book about the Interceptors: Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles, by Ranger (an associate Interceptor), now selling for $0.98 on Amazon. My book would have to be significantly different from his.

Groom Lake Interceptors: Not Dead Yet!

2008-08-11T19:29:00.000-07:00

The legendary "Groom Lake Interceptors" (or "Area 51 Interceptors"), who haunted the border of the secret Nevada base in the 1990s, aren't dead yet (at least mostly). This blog will try to prove it.

I'm Kilroy, formerly known a "Psychospy." I was the de facto leader because I was the only one who was actually living near the base at the time. In January 1993, I moved from the Boston area to the tiny town of Rachel, Nevada, to explore the "base that wasn't there." At the time, Groom Lake was known to aircraft watchers and UFO buffs but was virtually unknown to the general public. I set about to change all that and succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. You've probably heard of Area 51 now!

Along the way, I met up with a motley crew of aviation watchers, journalists, engineers, freelance assassins and n'er-do-wells, and we teamed up to use our own special superpowers to attack the Area 51 problem. I can't say for sure that we accomplished anything, but we sure learned a lot along the way.

The Interceptors got a lot of publicity back in the day, but where are they now? We'll jump right in with some posts, and eventually we might find out.