The Forbidden Zone

Writers' journey to Area 51

By DENNIS ANDERSON
Valley Press Editor

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Pat and Joe Travis are your hosts at the Little A-Le-Inn in Rachel, Nev., just off state Highway 375, designated by the governor of Nevada as "The Extraterrestrial Highway."

The governor made this designation in 1996, seeing a possible boost for state tourism from the notoriety the area gained as a haven for UFO seekers.

It's true that the Air Force probably hated this idea. Who needed more prying eyes? But it is also probably equally true that the Air Force has made peace with the idea.

My companions and I eyed our cool new "Area 51 Alien Driver's Licenses" purchased at a minimart in the Pahranagat Valley, which is a surprisingly lush, green valley replete with lakes that meander into wetlands just before the turnoff to the "Extraterrestrial Highway."

Now, sitting at the Inn a few hours drive north of Las Vegas, we had our Area 51 i.d.s. They were cute. One of those E.T. kind of aliens peeps out at you off the laminated surface of what looks like a driver's license.

We sat in the A-Le-Inn, munching on alien chili burgers that were out of this world.

"I think an Air Force public relations man came up with the idea for the driver's license," our guide, Daniel Carnahan, advised us, his tone dry as toast.

"They've learned how to manage the public relations aspect of this thing the past few years. Some smart young guy, an Air Force public affairs officer, probably, cooked it up."

If the journey to Area 51 is a kind of Hajj to Mecca for UFO enthusiasts and "black world" plane watchers, the Little A-Le-Inn is the restaurant at the end of the universe.

To call it a tourist trap would be unkind. The Little A-Le-Inn has achieved a butterfly transformation into a tourist destination, thanks to the governor and legions of UFO enthusiasts.

The Inn hosts a pretty good home style restaurant, attached to an amiable roadhouse bar and small unit motel. Once known simply as the Rachel Bar and Grill, owners Pat and Joe Travis rechristened the establishment as the Little A-Le-Inn, and they have generally prospered.

Through the decade of the 1990s, multitudes of UFO enthusiasts flocked to the environs of Area 51 after a guy named Bob Lazar claimed in a series of broadcast interviews that he conducted "reverse engineering" work on extraterrestrial spacecraft in an area he called "S-4" located at Papoose Lake, another dry lake in the restricted area near Groom dry lake.

More than a decade later, Lazar remains a figure of renown and controversy in UFO circles.

Tim Mahood is a conscientious researcher in the realms of truth, controversy, fun surrounding the subject of UFOs and Area 51. For one thing, he conducted extensive background research that refuted many of Lazar's claims about his education and scientific background.

For another thing, Hood - a trained physicist - loves finding facts, such as property records, and also conducting on-the-ground research, both near Area 51, and other restricted installations.

"To tell you the truth, I am really interested in UFOs because I think there's some hardware out there, somewhere," Mahood said in a phone interview.

"As far as Area 51 goes, I had no interest in breaking national security or finding out something that we're not supposed to know about black airplanes. But you know," he said, playfully, "If there were UFOs out there, all bets are off!"

Looky-loos and UFO true believers flocked to conferences hosted at the Little A-Le-Inn, in larger or smaller numbers depending on the year and level of interest. In 1996, the governor wishing on the hope of even more tourist dollars for Nevada dubbed state Route 375 "The Extraterrestrial Highway."

The Hollywood gang led by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, producers of "Independence Day," contributed to the festivities and left an "ID4" chunk of granite and brass the size of an alien obelisk outside the Inn.

The movie, also known as "ID4," was great cheesy fun. The flick proposed in over-the-top blockbuster movie fashion that scientists had been studying dead aliens and spacecraft at Area 51.

For some people it's a movie. For others, well?

Visitors continue to make the journey out on the "Extraterrestrial Highway." And the Little A-Le-Inn supplies those visitors with their needs, wishes and wants. You can buy your Area 51 tee-shirts, your inflatable aliens, your bug-eyed tee-shirts, and a lot of books about government cover-ups and conspiracies.

Walls at the Inn are packed densely with extraterrestrial brica-brac and military memorabilia from jet jock squadrons that train at Nellis or air defense crews that tour nearby Tonopah Test Range. There's even a scroll from the Spanish paratroopers.

"As far as I can tell from my studies, that's a group that's left no footprint on history whatsoever," author William F. Wu observed.

The afternoon we pulled in, a Jaguar car club also rolled up. The snappy classic lines of the XKEs and other Jaguars looked sleeker than a lot of the flying saucers depicted in the UFO magazines lining the shelves at the Little A-LeInn.

The Jaguar visitors took delight ordering cold beers and playing pool among bug-eyed alien effigies. This would probably be the closest any would get to Area 51. Which is OK with the Air Force and others who guard the installation.

"We're going to make this an annual rally event," one Jaguar clubber said.

"Make yourself at home," hostess Pat Travis beamed, as she bussed tables and delivered alien burgers. "You can go out and see the remnants of the barriers."

In some ways, the glory days of spoofing the Area 51 borderlands has a bygone flavor to it. A 20th century nostalgia pervades.

After the Air Force expanded the perimeter away beyond Freedom Ridge, denying the relatively nearby viewing perch, getting any sight of the secret base became much more difficult.

To get a peek requires a steep hike to the top of Tikaboo Peak, an 8,000 foot summit that is about 26 miles from the base proper.

So, the Little A-Le-Inn becomes the destination, rather than the dread Darth Vader presence of the area itself. Most tourists and casual visitors will be more than satisfied with wares purchased at the counter of Pat and Joe Travis.

"It's all changed," Carnahan noted. "So many souvenirs here now." We all purchased a few. Memories.

Carnahan was touched by the generosity of Pat Travis, who gifted him with a necktie with extraterrestrial creatures printed on it as a wedding present.

Carnahan is a prospector, bearded philosopher and poet, a former soldier of fortune with a linebacker's build. And like many Californians, he eventually found his way into the entertainment business. He also was one of the seekers after truth during the glory days of Area 51-watching during the past decade.

"The area itself is a thing worth seeing, because of the vastness of its space, the scale, the size, and the vastness of the power behind the enterprise," he said.

A skeptic who believes the government conceals most of what it knows about UFOs, Carnahan believes it is wrong that foreign governments can overfly Area 51 yet U.S. citizens can be shot for venturing past a warning sign.

To make complete our journey, we have scanners, CB radios, highpowered optics and bottled water. Lots of bottled water. The Nevada desert we are traveling in is at altitude in excess of 5,000 feet and surprisingly green compared to our own Mojave Desert homeland, but it is desert.

We finished our alien burgers, slapped road dust from our khakis and boarded our SUV, heading out toward Mail Box Road and the gravel hardpan that points like an arrow out toward the unfenced borderland of Area 51.

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A visit near the border of Area 51 requires a matador's sense of avoidance with the bull that is authority. All the more necessary because there is free roaming cattle all over the place, many of them the rip snorters like the one that greeted us at the entrance to Mail Box Road.

Our SUV rolled onto the gravel road used by Area 51 workers who commute into the restricted area daily aboard a Greyhound-style passenger bus.

For anyone who traveled along any of the Cold War borders, the unfenced buffer area outside Area 51 invites comparison. Even with the absence of guard towers and barbed wire, a sense of No Man's Land dominates the landscape nearly as soon as the state highway disappears in the rear-view mirror.

At the wheel, Wu drove with steady determination, at convoy speed.

It's an unmarked road, approaching an unmarked area. But there are still speed limit signs, that gradually decline from 35 mph to 25 mph. When our driver rolled past the 25 mph sign, Carnahan announced quietly, "We're very close now."

And then you could see it. Descent down a twisty corner of desert, and then, up among the strewn boulders and Joshua trees, they appeared. Wraith like on the ridge line, binoculars in hand. The "cammo dudes."

Some call them Wackenhuts. Others say they are employed by EG & G, another contractor that does security work for the government and NASA. The lore also says that the security who patrol the Area 51 picket line are former Delta operators Force and ex-Navy SEALs.

All of this is difficult to verify, but people who have experienced personal encounters with them attest that they are well armed, well equipped and several cuts above your usual private cop or even the Lincoln County deputies who will put you under arrest once you have been detained by the "cammo dudes."

"They can be quite shy unless your are in their territory," one veteran Area 51 watcher told me.

The nickname for the security force was popularized by Glenn Campbell, the researcher who compiled the "Area 51 Viewer's Guide." The group was so named because of the Desert Storm style chocolate chip camouflage pants they wear.

We spotted them up on the ridge, in a white, unmarked Jeep Cherokee with a light bar on the top.

They perched like state troopers in a speed trap, but they moved quickly once they spotted us, their vehicle rolling the instant they sighted our SUV heading toward the warning sign.

"This is where we have to stop," Carnahan announced quietly. "Otherwise we will have an unwanted interface." Then he looked at us, his blue eyes pure, bland, unblinking. "Unless you want to have an interface."

No. We didn't want an interface. We were close enough. We were there. The border.

About 200 feet ahead of us, we could make out the big red and white sign. The one that says "Restricted Military Installation ... Deadly Force Authorized."

The "cammo dudes" that spotted us from the ridge were already hunkered down by the sign by the time we got there, looking like a Desert Storm Humvee crew waiting for the jump-off command to run at the Iraqi border.

We watched them. They watched us. Blinking. Staring. Blinking. Staring.

The bull that is authority.

There's no winning in this kind of stare down. Not for Area 51 border visitors anyway. Cross the line to become an Area 51 intruder and you are in a whole different ball game.

In fact, it is no game at all. Real enough.

Up on the hill, an electronic surveillance monitor that looked like a Star Wars droid from "The Empire Strikes Back" took us under its baleful electronic eye. Another one about 50 yards up the ridge did the same.

For the record, it's not been reported that anyone ever has been shot trying to bust a move in the Forbidden Zone. But anyone who strays into the denied territory will be handed over to authorities by the patrolling "cammo dudes." A misdemeanor fine can go $600.

The "cammo dudes" will hand you over to the Lincoln County sheriff's deputies, and they may also impound your vehicle. A thousand bucks for the impound. Ouch. Curiosity may not kill the cat, but the cat that's caught will have to dig out a checkbook.

"We should leave now," Carnahan advised.

We clicked a few snapshots of each other and ran out of film, too hurried to reload as we stared across into the armed border of America's most secret military base.

"We can camp out on BLM land," Carnahan said as we were leaving. "You never know when you might get a sighting."

As it happened, we saw neither UFO or black aircraft. No, we didn't get a sighting.

Such is often the case, advises Campbell, who in addition to writing the Area 51 Viewer's Guide runs an authoritative website at www.ufomind.com.

In his guide, Campbell writes, "In my two years living in Rachel, I saw a lot of fascinating phenomena in the skies - often spectacular displays that at first glace I would swear was something out of this world." He continued, "But after additional investigation, I have always been able to find a reasonable explanation in military exercises, known celestial activity or optical effects."

Others attest they have seen UFOs or other inexplicable phenomena. Still others hope for glimpses of terrestrial but still Top Secret military aircraft.

Then, there are the stars.

We made a small camp fire and gazed up at the Milky Way. We wondered at the real secrets of the heavens, but never saw a mysterious orange light or heard a blast of black plane engines taking wing over White Side Mountain.

Once, thinking we might be sighting a "Star Wars" experiment, a firmament of mysterious blinking lights in the sky, Carnahan informed us gently that we were looking at Saturn, and further up in the heavens, Pleiades.

A couple of times during the evening we heard the Cammo Dudes roar by in their Cherokee. We were ensconced in our legal campsite, in a little arroyo, watching the universe unfold.

Once, in our alarm about being watched by the watchers, we saw a mysterious glinting object. At intervals, it would flash. We wondered if we had encountered one of the ground sensors depicted in the "Area 51 & S4 Handbook" compiled by local author Chuck Clark.

The next morning's daylight revealed it was a beer can that reflected moonlight, a silvery glint that added to the mysteries of the desert.

And that was our journey to Area 51. We were leaving the Box, the Ranch, Dreamland behind. The mysteries endure. The mix of the real, and unreal pervades.

The night sky over the desert revealed a diamond splash of starlight and the bright brush strokes of spinning planets, all the while keeping all the secrets that the stars intend to hold until our own journeys take us there.

Uploaded October 16, 2000