Well, I’ve actually spent many days just a few ridges away, at Frenchman Flat in the Nevada Test Site, and I can tell you with certainty some of the things that are “REALLY in” Area 51:
Sand
Dust
More sand and dust
Jackrabbits
Sidewinders
Kangaroo rats (swarms!)
Foxes
Painted Tortoises [sup]1[/sup]
Scrub grass and chapparal, except on the lake beds, where there is NOTHING
Even more sand and dust
[sup]1[/sup] Well, actually… I’ve never seen any tortoises, but there are signs all over the NTS saying, in effect, “don’t drive over the tortoises.” And the one picture I did see of a tortoise, it had a number painted on its back
My former father-in-law is a retired colonel in the USAF. His wife is an engineer for a defense contractor that specializes in making guidance systems. Lynn (the wife) won’t confirm or deny that she’s ever been there (I stopped asking), and John told me “I’ve piloted a plane near it and the only thing I know for sure about the place is to stay away from it - when they say “Don’t come near here or we’ll shoot you out of the sky,” they mean it.”
Not all of the Soviet equipment the US had was handed to us by defectors. Some that were purchased were purchased secretly from other governments that equipped their forces with Soviet equipment, but still maintained friendly relations with us. That’s still a “secret” acquisition - after all, if the Soviets had known about it, they’d have stopped selling to those countries.
Some of it also came from Germany or the former Czechoslovakia. After the Berlin Wall fell, for instance, the new, re-unified German military had a bunch of Soviet-supplied stuff they really didn’t want, so we purchased Hinds, Hips, MiG’s, etc. A former East German missle corvette was even a commissioned unit in the US Navy for a time.
There are a few places where you can get a view of the base about like this. Rugged terrain up rocky slopes that can be done on a motorcycle if you have any rock-riding skills and time to waste. Not much to see really, but I can say I saw it.
There are far more interesting places in Nevada to see, believe me.
My old man flew out of Nellis and told me there were “blacked-out” spaces on maps and was told that if he ever had to bail out/crash land in these areas, to not move from the spot and would be picked up. He also, as a passenger on a transport, flew into an unmarked base and was held on the plane by armed guards till it left the ground again. He figures it was Groom or possibly Tonopah.
