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06/26/94
The Middle of the Fucking Desert (A Trip to Groom Lake)
Ok, here’s my story… After a fun-filled weekend of gambling, smoking cigars, and drinking many icy cold, alcoholic beverages, I dropped my friend off at McCarran airport. He was leaving on Sunday and had to be at work the next morning. I couldn’t get a flight out on Sunday and thus had to spend one more night in Las Vegas. After I dropped off my friend I ran down to the National Rent-A-Car and got my self a nice, pretty, white, Chevy compact car. (looked exactly like a giant Tylenol). Then hopped in the car, grabbed some food and hit the road. It took me about 2 and a half hours to get where I THOUGHT I wanted to be – Groom Lake/Area 51/Nellis Gunnery Range – the secret military base located right smack in the middle of the fucking desert.
Why go there when visiting southern Nevada? Well, this is been rumored to be the most highly secure place in the country. It is the birthplace of air force’s U-2 reconnaissance plane, the SR-71, and numerous other stealth aircraft. A close area south of Area 51 is rumored (from testimony from Robert Lazar, who is said to have worked at the area know as S-4) to be the parking lot for nine UFOs. In addition, everything, area 51, S-4, the buildings and people who work there are also completely unacknowledged by the government.
Basically, none of it exists.
So, anyway, on with my story. It wasn’t any hotter than it was in Vegas – the temperature still hovered around the 114 mark. After about 2.5 hours of driving through the desert I got to the valley right next to Nellis. Let me say that during those two hours I totally freaked myself out. I thought about EVERYTHING that was going through my life during the past several weeks. I also thought a lot about being arrested, thrown in some military shed, and ‘wrote off‘ as another one of those missing persons. Then, of course, I thought about UFOs, aliens, and if they’d do the same thing the military would do.
Hmmm.
At this point I was seriously thinking about turning around and just heading back to good ol’ (safe?) Las Vegas and hitting the craps tables again. However, after I gathered myself up that little old’ curiosity thing began eating at me again – ‘Is there really something over those mountains? What the fuck are they hiding?’ Who exactly are ‘they‘? Having these type of questions hovering over me, I decided to stick it out a little bit longer – after all it did take me over two hours just to get up here. So, I headed up the roadways, about 20 miles or so, to a little, town called Rachal – Home of the Little ALeInn cafe/bar/motel.
I stopped here, grabbed a beer, chatted with a few locals, and enjoyed the kinda alien museum-like atmosphere. This place had tons of UFO articles & local photographs covering the walls. They had tons of stuff for sale – your standard coffee mugs, bumper stickers etc..
They also had a miniature UFO/stealth craft/alien reference library that customers are welcomed to browse through. Well, I didn’t find out anything to exciting but nonetheless it fired up my curiosity again. I bought a little guide to help me find my way – it’s the ‘Area 51’s Viewers Guide’ written by Glenn Campbell, a former software engineer who now lives in Rachal and keeps track of what’s happening around Area51 and the Nellis Air Range. So, I read up about the area and decided to go check out what all the fuss was about.
After finishing the last couple drops of my beer, I hopped back into my Tylenol capsule and drove back (another 20 miles) to the valley right next to Groom Lake. It’s here where the things get a little more scary – at least I think so. Then again, it was my first trip up there and I do tend to freak myself out on occasion for no apparent reason. Anyway, it as at this point where if you decide to press further you have to head off the main highway onto a dirt road – ‘Groom Lake Road’.
That idea in itself seemed a bit sketchy at the time. I mean, here I am, in a shiny white rental car, in the middle of the fucking desert, alone by myself, with absolutely no idea of what the hell I was doing – well, o.k. maybe not quite that bad but nonetheless, the situation was more than a bit intimidating. So, off into the dirt I go. The road to the restricted area is around 13.8 miles long. It’s a straight shot, you can see the road all the way across the valley.
I started cruising about 40 mph (45 is the speed limit) leaving a nice ‘look-here-I-am‘ dust trail behind my rental car. The dust kicked up by the car must have been visible for about 15 miles – there is absolutely nothing out here to hide behind! – besides lots of 4 ft.
Joshua trees, far away hills, and dust clouds.