Area 51/Groom Lake Research Project, page 5

Having done some research into the topic, talked to our resident mining engineer (my dad) looked at mining projects both in literature and first hand (more on that later) I have come to a conclution about the possibility that a large underground base exists specificaly at the Area 51 Complex.

Putting on my best Don Corleone Voice "I must say no to you, and I will give you my reasons"

1) The biggest question is what to do about the "muck" and derbits that a huge underground complex would entail.

Yesterday I spent part of the day at the Niebaum-Coppola Winery. We have "Rubicon" level membership there (took 4 years on a wait list) to pick up a few bottles of wine. One of the recent projects has involved tunnling into the mountain side to create caves to age their flagship wine "Rubicon" (If you can find it, the 1997 and the 99 are pretty kick ass). The project did not take a huge amount of time but the resulting muck created alot of headaches. I was talking to one of the staff at the winery and came away with a few points. First, the costs of hauling away the muck was almost the same as carving the tunnell itself. Disposal was an issue, but for some reason the staff member did not want to discuss that. The hauling away of the muck did considerable damage to the roadbed. The point of this other than getting to sample some good wine is that the waste created is a huge problem for public disposal let alone covert. Furthermore, the base would need to be constructed and the muck disposed of in a manner that would not draw the attention of the public, people not cleared for the project, spy and commerical satelites etc. The other recent tunnling project is Bostons "Big Dig" which required huge amount of manpower and disposal of the muck also gnerated problems. They backfilled in an area to create an island. This option would not be avalible to someone building a covert base.

Now with that in light lets consider the circumstances of Groom lake:

1) Site, somewhat covert, however since the early 80' untill the AF annexed all of the surrounding mountains, one was able to directly obsever the base from a distance. None of the reports from area 51 observers ie. Glen Cambell, never talk about any signs of mining or digging activity at the base (at least not in large scale). In the mid 90's the advent of both declassified Soviet spy satelites and commerical satelites do not reveal any huge derbit fields anywere near the base. Nor does it show any signifigant construction of hardened dirt roads that would allow big trucks to move the muck soemwere else on the Nellis Range.
That leaves the period of the 50' and the 60' when the base had not attracted any attention. We do have the Soviet Satelite shot of Groom lake in the 60's that shows a much smaller base, but again no indication of large sacle mining or digging activity. GooseUK's suggestion of usuing old mines has alot of merit and the possibilities are there. This hypotisis is directly supported by Richard Sauder's book "Underwater and Underground Bases" However, even he indicates that the best area for this is under Stripmines both active and inactive. they are huge areas, usually have underlying solid rick, and covert tunneling can be acomplished with the muck blended into overall mining operations. These complexes are HUGE. Last november, we spent 2 weeks driving through the SW of the US. Came across a strip mine in Arizona and it went on for mines and miles. You could easily conceal a miliraty base under the strip mine itself with no problem. However, none of the shots of the base show a strip mine old or new. We know from the USGS maps that there are numerous mines and claims dotting the area. However, most of these are in the groom range. not on the lakebed itself. As I pointed out, there is no indication past or presence of a hardened dirt roadway that would allow transportation of the Muck to dump them in the mine. Part of my november trip involved alot of off roading in death valley and near Josua Tree. We cam across numerous abandoned mines. The entrances were really tight and would involve alot of work to get the muck down there. These guys want these project to involve the minimum amout of people possible.

One area I really want to see a shot of is the Groom Mountain Range that is north of the lake bed. A dirt road cuts through it and that is the loaction of most of the mines on the groom mine Quad (the map the base is on) In every shot of the area, it is impossible to see the range from overhead.

If there is an underground componet to the base, I will put money that there is an istallation located somewere in that range.

2) The giant hanger concealing an elevator. Hanger 18 at Groom was mention in a previous post as possible concealing an elevator. This idea also has merit, however, I submit that this was built for mating ships like the Brilliant Buzzard, or for servicing the Venture Star which may have had a black counterpart. If they are moving ships up from below, would they need such a huge structure?

3) Base Logistics. While I have never claimed to be an imagry analysis from the NRO, I have not seen anything that resembles powerlines or a huge generation plant that would supply the base with power. So were does the base get its power? Nuclear would be a sound option for an underground base. And it would have been easy to construct in the 60's. Also the base is not subject to any US environmental regulations and that gets renewed each year by the president. I have not been able to verify even by rumor of such a plant existing. Underground powerlines would also have given some indication from the overhead imagry. The other issue for deeply buried bases that I picked up from the Saunders book is that due to the amount of heat that deep in the ground, the surrounding rock has to be chilled over a period of a few years prior to habitiation otherwise the equipment and people wont be able to function. The plant also has to have an ongoing cooling operation to maintain working temperatures. Again all of this requires alot of power and infrastructure. Non of the pictures show this.

These are just some of the points I have considered when looking at an undergroud base. I would appreciate feedback on this. I am not married to my conclutions here, but I believe them to be sound

Fred