Captain Tinkle
Honorable
I have noted in recent years information and news coming out of Area 51 is somewhat lacking. Primarily the only source of "news" that regularly updates in Dreamland Resort.
Whether this be because the public interest in the secretive base is waning or there is nothing news worthy happening, I do not know...
Therefore in deciding to create this thread, I hope we can somewhat create a resource of sorts, with what we know in one place.
I would like to share my experience on visiting the site as my first contribution to the thread. I have been working and rewording this post for a while now to make it up to date at time of this new posting.
Previously I posted my trip report regarding Area 51 on AlienHub but it was a rather rushed report. However I did manage to save what I wrote before the site shut down. Some ex members may have already seen this but I have added more pictures and edited the report with more information since the original post.
This is a two part report, which I have split for ease of reading:
Grand Canyon flight with JANET Terminal flyover - 10/11/16
Arriving at our helicopter terminal at around 06:30AM, I went through the customary health and safety briefing about not getting your head cut off from the helicopter blades, being weighed to make sure I was not to fat to fly (luckily my fast food diet while in Vegas had not caused any weight gain) and suffering through the usual small talk with other people on the trip (although in regards to myself this was rather limited since being up at 4.00AM so instead chose to go outside and smoke).
Now I have done a little bit of research before I went on this trip meaning I am fairly familiar with the layout of Mccarran airport (I also played a lot of Fallout: New Vegas in preparation). There was two sights on this trip I want to see. Firstly the big hole in the ground being the Grand Canyon and the other was the JANET terminal (Just Another Non-Existent Terminal ).
(For those unfamiliar with the relevance of this Terminal, the JANET terminal serves Area 51, ferrying workers to and from the base instead of busing them in from Las Vegas and the surrounding areas. Little information is known about this organisation due to the secretive nature of their operations however Wikipedia have a little bit of information about them).
During my time in the helicopter waiting room and going back and forth outside for a smoke, I witnessed one the JANET aircrafts come in for landing just after we arrived, another taxi onto the runway as we were standing outside with the helicopter and then a further aircraft come back in for landing when we arrived back from to the terminal from the trip. I am guessing this must have been a very busy day for the guys in the base.
I won't publically reveal who we flew with nor who our pilot was (not that I can now remember his name being a year ago) as I do believe it is a bit "naughty" to take pictures at the airport (at least he hinted at this "fact") so if you wish to know in order to get your own pictures, please PM me and I will tell you the company whom went with.
What shocked me was the apparent lack of "secrecy" of this terminal. I am sure it is very well known in certain circles but the area of land outside the terminal is not at all built up mostly made up of scrap land. It would be very easy to watch who comes and goes from the terminal and certainly be very easy to follow home anyone who leaves said terminal. The Luxor and Mandlay Bay also give very good views (with a powerful enough camera) into the terminal but obviously being able to fly over that restricted airspace and see it close up was the way to go.
Without further to ado please see pictures below (extra pictures added since original thread):
Long range shot of the JANET terminal. Looks to be there is a fair few cars in the terminal carpark giving an idea of the shear amount of people that fly in from Vegas each day to Area 51. Also if you look closely you can see one of the planes making its way to the runway, which I never noticed until now. This picture was taken on the way back to our helicopter terminal so would have been about 10:00AM.
Shot of the JANET building and the service area. As you can see they are not exactly secretive.
This was the plane I believe I saw land. Unfortunately the passengers had long gone. Tail number is N869HH registered to the United States Airforce. Details of registration available from the Flight Aware website.
Another close up of the place from a different angle. Note the chap in the top right hand corner in blue shirt about to enter a building. One would presume this is where the Area 51 employees wait until their flight?
Both the Luxor and Mandalay Bay are in a perfect postion for a unrestricted view into the JANET terminal.
Nothing to do with the JANET terminal but here are some pictures of the Grand Canyon.
Area 51 Visit - 14/11/16
After my Grand Canyon adventure, I spent the next few days in the Casinos, fight off a couple of ladies of the night who wanted to "show me a good time" (being a innocent individual I don't know what they meant by this), chatted to a rather nice drug dealer and donated a few more hundreds of dollars into the Casino coffers not winning anything in return. (Just on a side note if you are wondering I turned down both the "ladies" and the dealer).
We left the Excalibur at around 08:30 AM with a full tank of petrol in our rather beautiful Mustang (a word to the wise Mustang's do not handle well off road) to make the long 156 mile trip out to Rachel NV and Area 51 using Nevada State Route 375.
It is a very long and lonely trip. If you were to breakdown on certain sections of the route with no mobile phone for help, I would presume you would be waiting for help for a very long time due to the lack of travelers on that stretch of road so being prepared with lots of water is a must (something I forgot to do).
Using this route it is of course compulsory to visit the Extraterrestrial Sign which is around 100 miles outside of Vegas and the Little Ale' Inn; a further 40 miles from the ET Sign.
The ET Sign is very difficult to miss considering it has now been turned into a "tourist spot" with a small picnic area in a otherwise vast open desert all around. It was a bit of a shame that those who had stopped here before over the years had decided to put stickers all over the sign somewhat "ruining" the photo opportunity. I did however notice that just outside of Rachel NV there is a rather shiny looking version of this sign that is more looked after, minus a couple of what I believe were bullet holes.
The Little Ale' Inn is actually 20 miles away from the Area 51 front gate. You actually have to drive past Groom Lake Road (main road into the base) to get to the Inn. The back gate I believe is 2 miles away from the Inn in the opposite direction which just goes to show the scope of the restricted area, if not the base itself.
The Inn is worth a visit and the guys who work there are very polite and willing to answer any questions you have. The locals I got the feeling are not so much "happy to talk" whether this be that they were busy (they were ranchers) or more likely fed up of tourists to the area.
I didn't have any food at the Inn (I hear the food is good) but purchased some tourist tat, such as menus from the Inn and some leaflets on the base, took a few panoramic pictures of the surrounding desert landscape and hightailed it over to Groom Lake Road using our ever reliable Sat Nav that took us off road far too early taking us along the most awkward route possible. On a side note, something I found amusing was that Groom Lake Road is actually on the Sat Nav as an "official road". For a "secret location" that was at a time removed from public maps, it was strange sight to see showing up on the Sat Nav.
Pulling onto Groom Lake Road we were welcomed straight away by the "Camo Dudes" (the private security firm( EG&G Technical Services, Inc) that maintains security of the Area 51 border). They were a good 12 miles away from the border so it was surprising to see them out this far. They stopped for around a minute or so and watched us, subsequently turning the truck around and heading back towards the border. I would presume a Mustang not suited for off road would have been an unusual sight for them and therefore probably drew their attention at this early stage.
It did feel like a lifetime driving up Groom Lake Road, although progress was made slow avoiding pot holes, wishing to avoid accidently driving past the warning signs we took our time. Needless to say as per the photos it is very difficult to miss the border crossing point. The dirt road becomes tarmac and the classic spectacle of the Camo Dudes sitting on top of their hill becomes quickly apparent when making the inclined corner on the approach to the border.
Security has certainly been improved when comparing my photos to some of the older ones on the Internet. New cameras have been installed including the heavy duty one as shown below, barbed wire added which I nearly stepped on when taking pictures and new warning signs, updated to include the forbidden use of drones in the area.
While taking my pictures what I presumed to be the truck from earlier nearly ran me down in the road also nearly ripping the driver's door off of our car (that my friend had stupidly left open). This Camo Dude was not stopping for anybody or anything. Have to say I was quite jealous that even though he nearly hit me, he was able to drive through the gate and I couldn't go any further!
Not wanting to hang around after this (which I am sure is the result they wanted), we made our way back up the dirt road to the highway and again the Camo Dudes decided to have another pop. Speeding up behind us, they cut us off, slammed on their breaks and left us for dust (quite literally). Obviously thanks to my friends driving, we managed to avoid slamming into the back of them. Once the dust had settled they were nowhere to be seen.
After this it was a rather thankfully uneventful trip back to Vegas to go and lose some more hard earned money!
As promised please find pictures of the trip below!
May look good in a Mustang but they are terrible off road.
Panoramic image of the desert surrounding the Little A'Le'Inn.
Groom Lake road in the distance.
This was the truck that nearly ran me over. As you can see he beyond the signs and not hanging around.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* All pictures were taken with the Canon EOS 1300D DSLR Camera with EF-S18-55 IS II F3.5-5.6 Lens and Samsung Galaxy S5
* Pictures and story not to be used outside of this thread without my permission.
Whether this be because the public interest in the secretive base is waning or there is nothing news worthy happening, I do not know...
Therefore in deciding to create this thread, I hope we can somewhat create a resource of sorts, with what we know in one place.
I would like to share my experience on visiting the site as my first contribution to the thread. I have been working and rewording this post for a while now to make it up to date at time of this new posting.
Previously I posted my trip report regarding Area 51 on AlienHub but it was a rather rushed report. However I did manage to save what I wrote before the site shut down. Some ex members may have already seen this but I have added more pictures and edited the report with more information since the original post.
This is a two part report, which I have split for ease of reading:
Grand Canyon flight with JANET Terminal flyover - 10/11/16
Arriving at our helicopter terminal at around 06:30AM, I went through the customary health and safety briefing about not getting your head cut off from the helicopter blades, being weighed to make sure I was not to fat to fly (luckily my fast food diet while in Vegas had not caused any weight gain) and suffering through the usual small talk with other people on the trip (although in regards to myself this was rather limited since being up at 4.00AM so instead chose to go outside and smoke).
Now I have done a little bit of research before I went on this trip meaning I am fairly familiar with the layout of Mccarran airport (I also played a lot of Fallout: New Vegas in preparation). There was two sights on this trip I want to see. Firstly the big hole in the ground being the Grand Canyon and the other was the JANET terminal (Just Another Non-Existent Terminal ).
(For those unfamiliar with the relevance of this Terminal, the JANET terminal serves Area 51, ferrying workers to and from the base instead of busing them in from Las Vegas and the surrounding areas. Little information is known about this organisation due to the secretive nature of their operations however Wikipedia have a little bit of information about them).
During my time in the helicopter waiting room and going back and forth outside for a smoke, I witnessed one the JANET aircrafts come in for landing just after we arrived, another taxi onto the runway as we were standing outside with the helicopter and then a further aircraft come back in for landing when we arrived back from to the terminal from the trip. I am guessing this must have been a very busy day for the guys in the base.
I won't publically reveal who we flew with nor who our pilot was (not that I can now remember his name being a year ago) as I do believe it is a bit "naughty" to take pictures at the airport (at least he hinted at this "fact") so if you wish to know in order to get your own pictures, please PM me and I will tell you the company whom went with.
What shocked me was the apparent lack of "secrecy" of this terminal. I am sure it is very well known in certain circles but the area of land outside the terminal is not at all built up mostly made up of scrap land. It would be very easy to watch who comes and goes from the terminal and certainly be very easy to follow home anyone who leaves said terminal. The Luxor and Mandlay Bay also give very good views (with a powerful enough camera) into the terminal but obviously being able to fly over that restricted airspace and see it close up was the way to go.
Without further to ado please see pictures below (extra pictures added since original thread):
Long range shot of the JANET terminal. Looks to be there is a fair few cars in the terminal carpark giving an idea of the shear amount of people that fly in from Vegas each day to Area 51. Also if you look closely you can see one of the planes making its way to the runway, which I never noticed until now. This picture was taken on the way back to our helicopter terminal so would have been about 10:00AM.
Shot of the JANET building and the service area. As you can see they are not exactly secretive.
This was the plane I believe I saw land. Unfortunately the passengers had long gone. Tail number is N869HH registered to the United States Airforce. Details of registration available from the Flight Aware website.
Another close up of the place from a different angle. Note the chap in the top right hand corner in blue shirt about to enter a building. One would presume this is where the Area 51 employees wait until their flight?
Both the Luxor and Mandalay Bay are in a perfect postion for a unrestricted view into the JANET terminal.
Nothing to do with the JANET terminal but here are some pictures of the Grand Canyon.
Area 51 Visit - 14/11/16
After my Grand Canyon adventure, I spent the next few days in the Casinos, fight off a couple of ladies of the night who wanted to "show me a good time" (being a innocent individual I don't know what they meant by this), chatted to a rather nice drug dealer and donated a few more hundreds of dollars into the Casino coffers not winning anything in return. (Just on a side note if you are wondering I turned down both the "ladies" and the dealer).
We left the Excalibur at around 08:30 AM with a full tank of petrol in our rather beautiful Mustang (a word to the wise Mustang's do not handle well off road) to make the long 156 mile trip out to Rachel NV and Area 51 using Nevada State Route 375.
It is a very long and lonely trip. If you were to breakdown on certain sections of the route with no mobile phone for help, I would presume you would be waiting for help for a very long time due to the lack of travelers on that stretch of road so being prepared with lots of water is a must (something I forgot to do).
Using this route it is of course compulsory to visit the Extraterrestrial Sign which is around 100 miles outside of Vegas and the Little Ale' Inn; a further 40 miles from the ET Sign.
The ET Sign is very difficult to miss considering it has now been turned into a "tourist spot" with a small picnic area in a otherwise vast open desert all around. It was a bit of a shame that those who had stopped here before over the years had decided to put stickers all over the sign somewhat "ruining" the photo opportunity. I did however notice that just outside of Rachel NV there is a rather shiny looking version of this sign that is more looked after, minus a couple of what I believe were bullet holes.
The Little Ale' Inn is actually 20 miles away from the Area 51 front gate. You actually have to drive past Groom Lake Road (main road into the base) to get to the Inn. The back gate I believe is 2 miles away from the Inn in the opposite direction which just goes to show the scope of the restricted area, if not the base itself.
The Inn is worth a visit and the guys who work there are very polite and willing to answer any questions you have. The locals I got the feeling are not so much "happy to talk" whether this be that they were busy (they were ranchers) or more likely fed up of tourists to the area.
I didn't have any food at the Inn (I hear the food is good) but purchased some tourist tat, such as menus from the Inn and some leaflets on the base, took a few panoramic pictures of the surrounding desert landscape and hightailed it over to Groom Lake Road using our ever reliable Sat Nav that took us off road far too early taking us along the most awkward route possible. On a side note, something I found amusing was that Groom Lake Road is actually on the Sat Nav as an "official road". For a "secret location" that was at a time removed from public maps, it was strange sight to see showing up on the Sat Nav.
Pulling onto Groom Lake Road we were welcomed straight away by the "Camo Dudes" (the private security firm( EG&G Technical Services, Inc) that maintains security of the Area 51 border). They were a good 12 miles away from the border so it was surprising to see them out this far. They stopped for around a minute or so and watched us, subsequently turning the truck around and heading back towards the border. I would presume a Mustang not suited for off road would have been an unusual sight for them and therefore probably drew their attention at this early stage.
It did feel like a lifetime driving up Groom Lake Road, although progress was made slow avoiding pot holes, wishing to avoid accidently driving past the warning signs we took our time. Needless to say as per the photos it is very difficult to miss the border crossing point. The dirt road becomes tarmac and the classic spectacle of the Camo Dudes sitting on top of their hill becomes quickly apparent when making the inclined corner on the approach to the border.
Security has certainly been improved when comparing my photos to some of the older ones on the Internet. New cameras have been installed including the heavy duty one as shown below, barbed wire added which I nearly stepped on when taking pictures and new warning signs, updated to include the forbidden use of drones in the area.
While taking my pictures what I presumed to be the truck from earlier nearly ran me down in the road also nearly ripping the driver's door off of our car (that my friend had stupidly left open). This Camo Dude was not stopping for anybody or anything. Have to say I was quite jealous that even though he nearly hit me, he was able to drive through the gate and I couldn't go any further!
Not wanting to hang around after this (which I am sure is the result they wanted), we made our way back up the dirt road to the highway and again the Camo Dudes decided to have another pop. Speeding up behind us, they cut us off, slammed on their breaks and left us for dust (quite literally). Obviously thanks to my friends driving, we managed to avoid slamming into the back of them. Once the dust had settled they were nowhere to be seen.
After this it was a rather thankfully uneventful trip back to Vegas to go and lose some more hard earned money!
As promised please find pictures of the trip below!
May look good in a Mustang but they are terrible off road.
Panoramic image of the desert surrounding the Little A'Le'Inn.
Groom Lake road in the distance.
This was the truck that nearly ran me over. As you can see he beyond the signs and not hanging around.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* All pictures were taken with the Canon EOS 1300D DSLR Camera with EF-S18-55 IS II F3.5-5.6 Lens and Samsung Galaxy S5
* Pictures and story not to be used outside of this thread without my permission.
