Planning another Area 51 trip

I've been to the "do-not-proceed" signs on Groom Lake Road on three different occasions/trips now - 2003, 2005, spring 2007.

This last trip we took the "loop" around the range (Indian Springs, Scotts Junction, Tonopah, Warm Springs, Rachel). I have some pics of black helicopters and UAV's flying around Indian Springs, as well as the usual sign pics.

I might be going again in late September, and am considering bringing a quad/ATV to do some exploring. What I am concerned about - are the boundaries of the base clearly marked? Is it possible to inadvertantly cross into the base by accident?

No the boudaries are not clearly marked and yes you run the risk of crossing over without even knowing it. There is no "fence" that runs the entire perimeter. Good luck and be safe

[edit on 12-8-2007 by hiii_98]

i think once you start seeing the signs you're technically already past the boundry

Originally posted by hiii_98
No the boudaries are not clearly marked and yes you run the risk of crossing over without even knowing it. There is no "fence" that runs the entire perimeter. Good luck and be safe

Thanks for the reply. Somewhere I had read that the boundary was marked by some kind of post with a marker every 50 or 100 yards (can't remember)

If the GPS coordinates of the boundaries are known, I could use a GPS unit to be sure.

Cool!! I have no idea what Area 51 facility look like so good luck to you and remember to post some pictures around.

you can google earth the whole shebang ( photoshopped, of course) but will give you lat/long for any point, and show roads,passable canyons etc.

Gate 700, theoretically inside the NTS, is in fact about a mile inside Area 51. If you drive up to the gate without an Area 51 badge, you're busted.

When I took the NTS tour, a guy on the bus delivered liquid oxygen or nitrogen (I forget). Anyway, he would enter via Mercury and drive to gate 700. At that point, he would sit in the guard shack and a another driver would take his truck to the base.

Note that while some supplies enter via gate 700, the construction equipment uses the Groom Lake back gate. I saw a large "cat yellow" dozer leaving the back gate on a trailer.

Im more than positive they have sensors embedded into the soil plus multiple cameras or even motion/heat detectors.

Theyll shoot if theyre having a bad night and see you past the signs of course, the best thing is, is to be un noticed.

The orange posts are all you have to indicate the border. Still, on a quad, you would probably be safe if you don't drive it like you stole it. The problem with the orange post markers is when you reach a corner. If you don't notice the border did a 90 degree bend, you have crossed it. The trick is to eyeball three orange posts at a time. This way you can spot the corners. Note some border points have metal balls. These are still markers. The balls are radar reflectors, but the base uses them so the chopper can see the border.

Poking around Bald Mountain is a good idea. The camo dudes don't patrol there, so your presence trips a seismo alarm and they have to leave the shack and drive out there to meet you. This means you are getting your tax dollars worth from the visit.

They used to routinely send the chopper out when you visited Bald Mountain, but I haven't see it there in years. [I did see it doing patrol near the front gate and range 61 whe I was there in June.]

Bald Mountain has 4 border points. [Only 3 show up on topo maps.] The southern border point [N37.49171 W115.67344] is where the camo dudes arrive. There is a remote camera there that might pan to track your movement if you get out of the car.

Hopefully you have a GPS. Pick up Bald Mountain Road at N37.52244 W115.58178 . You will head west until you reach a junction around N37.49496 W115.68887. Turn left and you will reach the border point with the remote camera.

By Tonopah, I assume you mean the Tonopah Test Range, not just the town. I have waypoints to reach the TTR if you haven't been there before. I photographed the Mi-24 hind and CV-22 flying out there.

Another spot to visit is Roadblock Canyon. It is a bit tricky to get there. From Groom Lake Road, you pick up the road to Roadblock Canyon at N37.35355 W115.59422. The road isn't on the topo maps. The road does a turn at N37.34736 W115.59638. I don't recall exactly what happens there, but I marked it on my GPS with a word not suitable for the forum. Continue to N37.34493 W115.59762. This spot meets up with another road that you could have taken from GLR, but it means more offroad driving on a poor road. When you reach N37.33833 W115.5999, keep going forward. The topo map shows the road dividing ahead, and I just don't recall the details. Eventually you reach N37.32528 W115.6342, which I believe is the limit of sane driving. The border signs are at N37.3262 W115.63772. Freedom Ridge is towards the right, but over the border due to the land grab. Towards the left, you should be able to spot where the camo dudes dynamited the hill to create the roadblock. You should time this around noon if you expect decent photos. I did it in the afternoon and much of the area was in shadow.
www.lazygranch.com...

What you really need is Glenn Campbell's Visitor's Guide. It is unfortunately out of print.

I assume you have been to the north gate (back gate) where they have the Soviet era radar. If not, I'll dig up the waypoints, though all you really need to do is take the road just south of Rachel and drive west. Eventually you end up at the guard shack. It has a camera on a tower to follow you around.

Just an FYI, google earth coordinates are off near Area 51.

Take this spot on GE:
N37.301252 W115.813820
On a more accurate mapping program (expertgps), that location is
N37.30192 W115.81006

That's around 1000ft.

Originally posted by gariac
The orange posts are all you have to indicate the border. Still, on a quad, you would probably be safe if you don't drive it like you stole it. The problem with the orange post markers is when you reach a corner. If you don't notice the border did a 90 degree bend, you have crossed it. The trick is to eyeball three orange posts at a time. This way you can spot the corners. Note some border points have metal balls. These are still markers. The balls are radar reflectors, but the base uses them so the chopper can see the border.

Thanks for the excellent info!!!

"orange posts"
So there are in fact visual indicators of the border areas of the base? Are they consistently placed around the entire base at regular intervals?

By Tonopah, I assume you mean the Tonopah Test Range, not just the town. I have waypoints to reach the TTR if you haven't been there before. I photographed the Mi-24 hind and CV-22 flying out there.

I stopped and took pictures of the "rocket" at the road into the TTR, but didn't drive the road. Wasn't sure how far in the guardpost was, or if there was any point in driving in.

I assume you have been to the north gate (back gate) where they have the Soviet era radar. If not, I'll dig up the waypoints, though all you really need to do is take the road just south of Rachel and drive west. Eventually you end up at the guard shack. It has a camera on a tower to follow you around.

I didn't get a chance to go into the north/back gate last trip. There was a flash-flood at the time, road was underwater.

Here is a map to the TTR:
www.lazygranch.com...
from
www.lazygranch.com...

Note this does not take the "rocket" road. You can take the ricket road and make a very hard left turn just before the gate. There is a very small "TTR border" sign. It is rather low and occasionally run over. After a very short drive (maybe a tenth of a mile) there is a hill to your right. This hill is called Mount Diablo, and while very undistinguished in my opinion, it is the reference point for the DoD and USGS. There is a marker on the hill. Anyway, you can see the base from that hill, but you are within spitting distance of the guard shack.

The route to "Brainwash Butte", labeled SPY2 on the map, is not as much of an "in your face" route. The road to brainwash is now pretty good. They graded it earlier in the year. If you look at the panoramas on my TTR page, tmost are not from Brainwash, but a hill to the south that is a bit lower but closer to Site-4. However, the road is crap so I don't give out the location.

The first 4 photos on this page
www.lazygranch.com...
were shot near the TTR. The chopper headed towards our trucks, and didn't notice we were on a nearby hill. That is how I am higher than the MI-24. The Colt (4th photo) flew mostly at night. Damn loud. We had no idea what it was since it flew blacked out. No one expected to see a bi-plane. The Colt is used by the PDRK.

I don't know the spacing of the orange posts, but they are at least 100ft apart. You really need to look for them.

One other thing to look out for are Wilderness Study Areas" (WSA). You should not drive anything motorized in the WSA. In theory, this applies to the hunters. ;-)

Thanks again for the info. I had hoped to see some F-117's in the Tonopah area, however I just found this info:
During the program's early years, from 1984 to mid-1992, the F-117A fleet was based at Tonopah Test Range, Nevada where it served under the 4450th Tactical Group. The 4450th was absorbed by the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing in 1989. In 1992, the entire fleet was transferred to Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, where it was placed under the command of the 49th Fighter Wing. The move eliminated the need for Key Air flights, which flew 22,000 passenger trips on 300 flights from Nellis to Tonopah per month.

This is interesting however:
Unlike most other Air Force aircraft which are retired to Davis-Monthan AFB, the F-117s are being retired to the Tonopah Test Range. There, their wings will be removed and the aircraft will be stored in their original hangars.

Is a 4WD required for the trip in to Brainwash Butte? Considering I would have to drive my gashog 4WD 2000 miles to get there, as opposed to my far more economical econocar.

[edit on 14-8-2007 by FosterVS]

I haven't seen any F-117as at the TTR. If you checked the links in the other post, I have seen the insides of some of the hangars. I only spotted scud launchers. However, with the retirement of the F117a, you might see one fly in.

I hate getting stuck in the desert. [I have some stories, trust me.] I would take the SUV especially if it has off-road tires. If you have street tires on the SUV, take the econobox. It has been my experience that for most of the roads around the range, a car could do the job if you drive carefully. Tires are another story. Passenger tires are just too crappy for those dirt roads. The power line overlook absolutely requires 4WD. [I don't use that spot anymore, but that's another story.]

Getting back to Brainwash Butte, there is a road up the hill. [The double tracks were there when Tom Mahood first went to the butte. If you read the old UFOmind website, most of the places they visit already had existing roads, so the snooping has been going on a long time.] That road is full of big rocks. It could be cleaned up in say an hour if you brought a crow bar. They you could park on the butte itself. Of course, the base would see you. Right before reaching the top of the butte, there is a somewhat flat area where you can park and not be seen. Again, this requires grooming the road a bit. As I said, I have a different spot, but it requires more off-road driving on trails that are just barely there.

Originally posted by FosterVS
What I am concerned about - are the boundaries of the base clearly marked? Is it possible to inadvertantly cross into the base by accident?

I think they will let you know if you get too close for comfort. They are pretty good about that I hear. If this is your attempt at trying to find someone on here who knows a less gaurded entrance to get closer without being detected, then I'd say too late.

I wonder...If we get a whole mob of people and tried to rush into the facility what would they try to do ?

Edit - What if we had a whole mob sneak around ?

[edit on 15-8-2007 by Eliza è Angelo]

Originally posted by kleverone
I think they will let you know if you get too close for comfort. They are pretty good about that I hear. If this is your attempt at trying to find someone on here who knows a less gaurded entrance to get closer without being detected, then I'd say too late.

No, I don't plan on crossing the "border" into the base at all. I'm not that foolish. However, I would like to do some exploring in the area, see what I can see, on strictly PUBLIC land.

Most of the time, they don't do anything until you cross the border. Then life becomes a little bit different. Thus far, all that has happened is people get fined about $600. There is no escape from the fine. I don't know of any repeat offenders, but I suspect they would really come down like a ton of bricks on your second offense.

I crossed the border accidentally while on Hawkeye Hill. That is the hill where the camo dudes like to perch, unless of course you are climbing it. I didn't cross on the way up, but did at a corner. Just a step or two, then I quickly got back on free territory.

Not only are the camo dudes armed, but so are the security choppers.

Some hunters crossed the border a year or two ago around the Cedar Pipeline Ranch area. Getting caught with a gun on the range is double trouble.

The only time I got a warning from the camo dudes was once when I drove to the front gate area at night. The dude turned on the red and blue lights that are behind the grill to notify me of their presence.

Incidentally, many people have played flashlight wars with the dudes. They shine a light on you, you shine a light on them. Kind of dumb, but amusing for a little while. The dudes really don't like visitors at night. Nevada never got their laser law passed, but I would not point one at them. Flashlights, even HID, are ok.

I don't believe the dudes have night vision, though I haven't checked in a while. I have a serious infrared spotlight I made from an ordinary spotlight and an infrared filter from a tank. Shining it at the dudes got no reaction.

If you park by the ET highway at night long enough, you will eventually get a drive-by from the camo dudes. I assume their remote cameras are not so hot at night.

The "whole bunch of people thread" shows up from time to time. The answer is you have a long walk to get to the base, and they have guns.

The only thing you could do that would give the base a hard time would be to simultaneously visit different border points at the same time, especially points that are not normally guarded, such as Bald Mountain and a few other no name spots near the road to the back gate. At that point, they would probably have to suppliment the dudes with real military guards, and probably bring out the choppers. To my knowledge, this has never been done.