“Area 51” An Excellent Adventure!
The story you’re about to read was an actual occurrence which I was involved with back in the ’90s; Unless you’re a federal agent in which I will deny everything in this post including the existence of Carrot Top himself.
I was always quite fascinated with the concept of the Area 51 Military facility. For those of you reading this and are unfamiliar with this particular base, it’s more or less a (not so secret base) near Rachel Nevada. The name of the base was probably derived from the NTS mapping grid designation in an area where nuclear testing had occured. Also known as Groom Lake, Dreamland, Watertown and many more, this area is where top secret projects were tested. Oh did I mention? Where flying saucers were flown too! (ie) Read the Bob Lazar story.
Well as a Roswell “incident” investigator, one of the theories (and I stress one of the theories) behind the creation of Area 51 was that it was designed to house and test foreign technology. Foreign to this planet. Every day a “Janet” plane would take off (or still may) from Las Vegas, and land at the base 4:35am approximately. Dark windowed busses were seen driving onto the base from Extraterrestrial Highway 375 near Rachel. Oh and of course an occasional saucer or two would drop off occupants to visit, have Tea, then be on their way. Well this intrigued me, so I decided to see this for myself. (Unless you are a federal agent reading this in which case I will dis-allow the existence of Carrot Top)
After much research in to this location of Nevada, I was able to acquire a guide. Yes a guide! A guide to help me with my adventures. I’m not going to mention this guide’s name, but for those of you who are familiar with the UFO history of Area 51, Glen Campbell and all the rest, she was the resident who studied the concept of taking random pictures at night and capturing very unusual things on her images. Quite fascinating. Anyway, the idea was to get to Freedom
Ridge which had the best viewing location at that time. Well as luck would have it, those pesky Air Force guys at Nellis performed a “slight of hand” and maneuvered a “land grab” from the BLM. Now you see it, now you don’t, no Freedom Ridge. So my new viewing location on public ground was, “Tikaboo Peak.”
Tikaboo Peak is around 20 miles from the base give or take a couple of miles, and it includes a little driving, a little 4×4-ing, and a little hiking to get to. So I showed up in Rachel near a campground and met my guide. Low and behold two other guys were waiting there too with her. It seemed they wanted to join my little adventure on my dime. Well a lesser man would have refused, soooo… I told them to “Take a Hike!”. nah…. I let Bill and Ted go with me. Now I joke about Bill and Ted, but one of the guys was an exact replica of Bill S. Preston, Esquire from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989). Anyway the other guy, now this is the reason I didn’t hesitate and invited them, the other guy was indeed Keanu Reeves, but not from Bill and Ted’s, but from the Matrix. This guy was a cool individual. Short hair style, in good physical condition (not that I noticed) and was very cautious about his manorism. So being the “lesser man” I invited them.
Our adventure started with all four of us piled in my Chevy S10 4×4, cutting off the highway on an un-marked dirt road which lead 20 miles or so to the base of Tikaboo. Of course I had my trusty Glenn Campbell Area 51 Viewers Guide in hand, a 35mm camera with a 200mm zoom lens, and plenty of water and snacks. My guide (mine because the other two guys skated on paying her, not even a tip) led us up a new dirt trail in which some areas we were “cutting” ourselves. Two and half hours later we reached a viewing point in which Area 51 could be seen. (Once again to the Federal agents reading this, you know, the Carrot Top thing)
Now at the viewing area the base could be seen off in the distance. Not missing a beat, my camera shutter was clicking away from everyone of the best advantage points I could find. Looking to my left, Bill S. Preston was just standing in one location in awe, but to my right, Keanu was indiscreetly watching me. Hmmm I thought, could this guy be a plant? An agent? Someone interested in me? You know because I am a well known UFO Investigator “not”, but still why was I so suspicious of him? As I cautiously moved my camera around to shoot a picture near his location, he would slowly and politely move out of my field of view. Was he afraid I would capture his soul, or just his identity? Well this trip became even more exciting for me. I played cat and mouse… uh military mouse, until I was able to capture his soul, so to speak. Well the rest of the time spent there, we were basically looking at desert landscape until about 3:00pm or so, and I kid you not, there was some excitement on the desert grounds below us. Believe it or not, in between the base of Tikaboo and the desert landscape, we witnessed a security shift change. This was “way-cool!” Out of no where vehicles were popping out of the desert behind hidden security blinds, mesh netting, bunkers, what ever it was and they were revealing themselves to us. Well not revealing themselves, we could just see them. As if a proverbial game of security checkers were being played, pieces were being moved, then all went quiet. The desert floor was handed back over to Mother Nature and all who dwelled on it. Ah but now the best was not over.
After contemplatinging the meaning of life on Tikaboo for awhile, me the guide and Bill and Ted headed back down the mountain to the awaiting UFONUT mobile. (my license plates) Upon arriving back to the small RV campground near the “Little A’Le”Inn’, we bid our fare-thee-wells and departed. But being a UFO Investigator my day was not over. I still wanted to know more about Keanu. I back-tracked around my campsite and followed him to his site. Remember this was a small campground, so I didn’t have to back-track much, just hide until he entered his camper trailer. Guess what? For all you Area 51 history buffs, the camper trailer was being driven by a Blue Ford Explorer, one of the SUV choices of Area 51 security. So I waited about five minutes, took a deep breath and walked up to the door of the trailer. “Knock” “Knock” “knock” went my hand on the aluminum door. A surprised Keanu opened it up and saw me standing there. A quick glance inside the trailer, I noticed a green military duffel bag laying on an empty bed. The whole interior of the trailer was empty except for that one duffel bag! I guess he wasn’t much of a well prepared camper. You guessed it! Yep, I made him! Not knowing what to say to me, I started the conversation first by saying, “I’m no threat am I?” He slowly smiled and said, “Yeah you’re no threat, just some pesky UFO guy”. He invited me into his trailer in which we talked a little bit about UFO’s in general, all the while he kept his composure and mystery about him. I tried to “slip-him-up” from time to time causing him to show more of his hand, but he was clearly the better of the two when it came to keeping secrets. You wouldn’t want to play Poker with this guy. Well I bid my farewell and went back to my campsite, where I stayed awake all night watching his trailer. I guess I’ve seen too many spy movies.
The next morning bright and early his trailer was gone. I ventured my way to the Inn for some coffee and breakfast re-playing the previous days events in my head. Thinking back on this story, and reminiscing about the movie Bill and Ted, I realized, “This was one of my best “Excellent Adventures”.
Category: The Z-Files
