September 1996 (Part 1)

See the Area 51 Mailing List Archive for other documents and on-line discussions.

• 9/10, 10pm: New Master Catalog of all items for sale from the Research Center. This massive (100k+) document is generated automatically by our server and contains all available photos and descriptions of the products we offer. (Eventually, this single page will become our printed catalog.)

  As we overhaul our catalog we are also refining our philosophy. Although we will continue to carry a selection of the most credible UFO books - among other topics - the Research Center will soon be declared an "Alien Free Zone." The "E.T. Highway" has left us with a queasy feeling, and we want to be as far away from the circus as possible. As soon as our stock is depleted, we will no longer carry any form of non-book merchandise with an alien pictured on it. No alien t-shirts, yo-yos, bumper stickers, earrings, paperweights, keyrings, etc. Although we don't carry much of that stuff now - only a three or four tasteful items - we want to say that we have purged all hokum from our shelves and that we will no long truck in our space brothers. We will leave this profitable but superficial market to others and concentrate instead on useful information.

  • As expected, the E.T. Highway has attracted a whole new class of visitors to Rachel: the dumb-as-a-stick slot machine players from Las Vegas whose only information about Area 51 comes from ID4 and the Weekly World News. These retired hillbillies and brainless true believers have plenty of money to spend on something - anything - with an alien printed on it, but they don't read books, so our Rachel office has little to offer them. Dealing with morons is always drain. You have to start over at Square One with each of them, explaining what Area 51 is and how we, unlike the denizens of the Bar, have never seen any UFOs here. Then we have to listen to their moronic clichés, like: "Gosh, with all those million million stars and million million galaxies out there, it would be arrogant for us to believe we are all alone in the universe." By purging all alien merchandise, we can put a sign out front, "No Aliens Here," to keep the dim-wits at bay.

• 9/9, 5pm: Charter for Area 51 Mailing List updated.

• 9/9, 2pm: Updates to Las Vegas Buffets: "The struggling Stratosphere moves into the Top Ten, while Luxor drops off the list, dipping perilously close to Circus-Circus quality."

• 9/8, 9am: Bald Mountain Research Notes. (Technical interest only.)
  Negative data in records search: In response to the report that AFFTC controls the radar site on Bald Mountain overlooking Area 51 [What's New, 9/1/96, below] I reviewed the Federal Register for land withdrawals to this effect. Since the AFFTC was supposed to have had it since 1971, I checked the Federal Register indices for 1969, 1970, 1971 & 1972. Searching under "Land Management, Withdraws, Nevada" in the indexes, I didn't find any appropropriate match (although few other military withdraws were found). Another avenue would be to search BLM records for a right-of-way instead of a withdrawal. The land in question is within (Mount Diablo Meridian) T. 6 S, R. 56 E, Sec. 6, SW 1/4. This land was later absorbed into the 1988 Groom Range Withdrawal, P.L. 100-338. -- GC

• 9/8, 8am: Groom Lake Runway History? In Digest #3 from the Area 51 Mailing List we have published a message from a reader purporting to be Detailed Groom Lake Runway History, consisting of a timeline of years, from 1943 to 1995, and many latitude/longitude coordinates. We emailed the author with the obvious question, "Where did this come from?" and haven't yet received a reply. (The address is on AOL, where anyone can pretend to be anybody.) Among other things, the timeline offers: "1973 start, 1975 operational. Prison; mid-Papoose Range." It also indicates there was a flight test site on the southwest side of the lake as early as 1943, which is the first time we have heard that claim. (There was a cross-shaped runway northeast of the lake, however. Anyone know the dates?) In any case, someone seems to have put some effort into this document. We haven't had the time to plot the many coordinates provided. We encourage someone to give it a shot and get back to us with the results.

  Also in Digest #3, we have published a compact mailing list of Cammo Dudes, condensed from our new Cammo Dude page.

• 9/7, 11pm: New Automatic Referrals Page for the Guide to Knowledge yields a lot of interesting links.

• 9/7, 6pm: Artist Says "Roswell" Metal Fragment Came From His Studio. In a 9/6 news article in the Albuquerque (NM)Journal*, an artists claims an alleged UFO fragment came from his studio. Follow up to an 8/13 article* in which Los Alamos Laboratory analysed the fragment, supposedly from the crash at Roswell, and found that it could have been earthly.

• 9/5, 7pm: Cammo Dude Home Addresses. We've mulled this one over for a month and have decided to proceed. Here are the home addresses of the Cammo Dudes who were deputized by the Lincoln County Sheriff's Dept. Some explanation is required...

  In Desert Rat #35, we published the names of 24 Cammo Dudes (Groom Lake security guards), who had been deputized by the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department. All we had, at that point, was the names. How could we find more? We first looked in the Las Vegas phone book and indeed found several of them listed. However, most Cammo Dudes had either an unlisted numbers or an ambiguous listing in the phone book (with just one initial, for example). Is this the end of the investigation? Not exactly. There are other public records available in Las Vegas which are virtually inescapable. If you ever voted or owned property here, then your name and a lot of other information about you is on record. A couple of afternoons spent in the Clark County Government Center produced home addresses, social security numbers, date of birth, state of birth, name of spouse and home phone for nearly all of them. We even know how many bathrooms they have in their homes.

  The only question remaining now is what to do with this information. There are serious ethical concerns about publishing everything we have found. In simplest philosophical terms, we must ask ourselves, Would we want this to happen to us? Would we want our social security number, date of birth, etc. published on the internet, and if not, how can we justify publishing that information for the Cammo Dudes?

  Normally, we'd say we can't do it, but there is also another ethical issue involved. Innocent tourists are still being suckered at the border, resulting in $600 fines. The state's "E.T. Highway" campaign, combined with the poorly marked border creates an inevitable trap, and at least a half-dozen tourists have been cited since the E.T. Highway unveiling. There is no such thing as civil rights here. These Dudes can do whatever they want because they never have to identify themselves or appear in court (Lincoln County being the only place in the country that accepts prisoners in such circumstances). If these people cannot be held responsible for their actions, then civil rights will remain unlikely along the border.

  The citation on July 25 of two naive California tourists -- first timers who drove beyond the signs expecting to find a guard house just beyond -- pissed us off enough to do this research. Now we feel obligated to carry through. Because there is no legitimate organizational channel for complaint or accountability, the Dudes themselves must be clearly identified, and if this intrudes into their privacy, so be it. Remember that each of these men once took oath of office as a public officer of Lincoln County. Although this oath was hastily withdrawn for most of them in Aug. 1994, we don't believe this creates a retroactive right of anonymity. We will not publish social security numbers, but we are publishing home addresses, which ought to at leasy be sufficient to obtain their appearance in court if necessary.

  The publication of further information depends on the behavior of the Cammo Dudes themselves. If we hear of another innocent tourist cited, we will respond with appropriate action. An "innocent tourist" is someone who did not cross the border intentionally. (i.e. in legal terms, "in bad faith", "with malicious intent.") "Appropriate action" is something we will not define right now. It will probably not include publication of social security numbers, but here's another possibility: Social security numbers and dates and places of birth can be used as an entry point into a vast pool of fascinating public information, some of which could be quite relevant to our current inquiries.

• 9/5, 5pm: Rockerfeller and UFOs? Reader danemfg@binc.net alerted us to this year-old article, purportedly from New York Daily News: "Rockerfeller Tells Clinton To Tell All About UFOs"*. Huh? If true, it's a conspiracists dream: Rockerfellar and UFO in the same paragraph.
  President Clinton is being pressured to reopen supersecret government files on the world's most baffling UFO incident. The man who wants the secrecy ended is billionaire philanthropist Laurance S. Rockerfeller, a personal friend of the president.

  Apparently this has been circulating a while, but we missed it. Laurance Rockefeller is quite a UFO buff! What is the real Rockerfeller agenda? Does he know more than he is telling, or is he merely human like the rest of us? Here are Rockerfeller/UFO links* include this Micheal Lindemann article*.

• 9/5, 12pm: At least Lincoln County Has No Brothels. The nasty local politics of Lincoln County seems lily white compared to the rural Nevada counties where prostitution is legal. "Commissioner on Brothel Payroll"*, reports a 9/3 article in the Las Vegas Sun. Earlier article on Joe Conforte.*

  Also in the Sun: "Test Site experiments, contamination secret"*, a 9/3 article revealing some previously unknown blasts.

  A contamination cleanup plan for the Nevada Test Site has revealed high-explosive experiments mimicking nuclear blasts that were conducted in the late 1950s and early 1960s and are still officially top secret. The "hydronuclear" experiments occurred between 1958 and 1961, and officials are still not at liberty to discuss why they were conducted, what they proved or what type of contamination they caused.

  [Added to NTS]

  For more recent Nevada Test Site activities, search the Sun Archive*. Profile of Beatty, Nevada.*

  Note on Accessing Las Vegas Sun: Since Sun articles are available for free on their server*, we try to link directly to their copy. If our link to a Sun article does not work, you may need to register with them* to obtain a user name and password.

• 9/5, 11am: Little A'Le'Inn Cited for Health Code Violation. On Aug. 27, the Little A'Le'Inn was cited by the Nevada Bureau of Health Protection Services for having an inadequate septic system. State health inspector Rich Skivers, reached at the Ely office, said that the Inn has an inadequate sewage system for the size of the establishment. The citation gives the Inn 35 days to hire a professional engineer to redesign their septic system. No fine has been levied, and the motel has been allowed to continue operating, but rebuilding the septic system may eventually require the motel rooms to be shut down until the work is completed.

  For months, raw sewage was piped into an open pit behind the trailers/motel rooms at the Inn, resulting a stench that offending many guests [See What's New, 7/14/96 ]. When a local health inspector warned the proprietors about their open sewer, the pit was hastily covered over. However, no inspector was given access to the sewage system before it was buried, as required by code. The sewage system will now have to be professionally redesigned and re-laid at considerable expense.

  [Added to Rachel]

• 9/5, 10am: The second digest from the Area 51 Mailing List is now available. Topics:
  • Brave Newsgroup Muckers Needed!
  • Anti-gravity ??? An article from a London newpaper on a claimed anti-gravity breakthrough. Very interesting.
  • Rachel on German TV
  • Orange Orb Sighting Report
  • Mailing List "Non-Acceptance" Letter

• 9/4, 5pm: Rachel in London Times. Rachel, Nevada, Capital of the Intergalactic Federation, an article in the Times of London on 8/26, reports on the recent "Abduction" party.
  A dozen or so miles from the US Government's most secret military testing site in the bleak desert of central Nevada, the psychic and the merely paranoid gathered at the weekend to demand that the authorities own up about the flying saucers they have, apparently, been "reverse engineering" since the 1940s. "We are big boys, and we can handle this," said Don Suttle, the diehard "ufologist" who organised the meeting almost within binocular range of the base on Groom Dry Lake, known to enthusiasts as Area 51. "Our Government is treating us like children. We could be in danger of invasion and we ought to know about it," he said.
  • There were a few errors: "Miesha Johnstone" should be "Miesha Johnson." I don't recall calling Groom Lake "our own little pocket of communism." I might have called it "our own totalitarian regime" and compared the border to the old Berlin wall. (Those are my usual sound bites.) I don't dismiss all talk of UFOs, just the obviously rediculous stories. The release of Independence Day has not "turned a stream of visitors into a flood." It has turned a trickle of visitors into a steady dribble. Anyway, these things are of no great consequence to the story. --G.C.

• 9/4, 5pm (followup): An earlier London Times article from Aug. 8 is a mostly a fabrication of the same reporter. He claims that Paula Clayton is the proprietress of the Little A'Le'Inn. Mrs. Clayton is a cook and waitress who has lived in Rachel since long before the UFOs came. She works at the Inn but seems skeptical of the E.T. scene herself. The reporter apparently assumed that because Paula answered the phone, she was the "owner". Her "yawn" at the reporter's question probably reflects her real interest in the matter. (Pat wouldn't be so lost for words!) A reporter's stock-in-trade is getting his facts straight and this one, Giles Whittell, should be sent back to journalism school.

• 9/4, 11am: Mock Invasion Coming. In response to our Invasion of the Pod People article, reader JS writes that "You are not the only one who sees the ID4 manipulation."
  We're being set up for a fake invasion to serve as an excuse to clamp down even tighter in the gov't control dept. Yes, I see it, too, and I think a lot of us are as bewildered as you are at the utter stupidity of those who cannot see it. Rockefeller has his "debriefing" network in place and either Dole or Clinton will play the part assigned them. The Executive Orders are in place and the stage is set. That anyone could have not seen through ID4 is baffling to me. Hang in there, Glenn, you are not alone. Walt Andrus might have been sucked in by the hype, but many of us are clearer sighted.

• 9/4, 7am: CSETI Retreat. Dr. Steven Greer, the emergency room physician who communicates with UFOs using flashlights and various psychic methods, is returning to the California desert. He is sponsoring an Ambassadors to the Universe Training and Retreat in Desert Hot Springs, CA, Nov. 15-20, 1996.
  In an intimate workshop setting, we will explore techniques for enhanced awareness during our five-day retreat. We will participate in remote viewing exercises and Coherent Thought Sequencing, a CSETI protocol developed by CSETI's founder and director, Steven M. Greer, M.D., who will guide the training retreat. Each night we will do field research around the area, using CSETI's proven protocols and the tools we learn during the workshop sessions.

  This promo document suggests you bring a microcassette recorder, compass, binoculars, GPS or Tri-Field Meter and a 500,000 candle power halogen light, apparently for communication with approaching alien craft. The group regularly experiences Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind* by means of these lights.

  Dr. Greer, founder of CSETI* (Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence), was featured on the live Oct. 1994 Larry King Special from Rachel [DR#20] and a segment on 48 Hours [DR#18] where he was seen communicating with aerial lights in the vicinity of the Mexico City airport. (The group seemed unsatisfied with its 48 Hours coverage. Their response.*)

• 9/2, 9am: Mailing List Philosophy. In the Welcome Message in the first Area 51 Mailing List Digest, we discuss the list's philosophy.
  The success of this list depends on effective moderation. This list is designed for "high end" subscribers who already know the outline of the various Area 51 stories and who have something intelligent to contribute. This list is not intended to educate the masses or answer naive questions the rest of the group already knows the answers to. If we pass along too many low quality posts, our high-end users will unsubscribe, and the purpose of the list will be defeated.

• 9/1, 11pm: Area 51 Referrals List. With some basic Unix programming we have generated a dynamic referrals list for our Area 51 page. This page lists all the external pages that link to ours and that actually send web surfers here. Browsing through the list leads to a lot of interesting pages on related topics. Some of the more peculiar pages coming up on the list are: "I Think I Might Be A Lesbian" (no apparent links) and a numerology page studying "23", in addition to the usual UFO and conspiracy sites. We will also offer this feature on other popular pages, like Referrals to What's New.

• 9/1, 7pm: A rudimentary page on the Tonopah Test Range is now in place.
  Tonopah Test Range is a military range and air base in the Nellis AFB Range about 30 miles southeast of the town of Tonopah, NV. TTR was the principal secret testing ground for the F-117A stealth fighter during its development. It was also used by Sandia Laboratories under DOE contract for the development of delivery systems for atomic weapons. The "Red Flag" ranges in the northern part of the Nellis Range are administered out of TTR by Detachment 2 of the 99th Range Squadron. Although many secret projects have gone on there, the main base at TTR is easily visible from public land, and you can glimpse it from Highway US-6. Unlike the "nonexistant" facility at Groom Lake 65 miles to the south east, this secret base has a sign on the highway. [GC 9/96]

• 9/1, 7pm: A Nellis Radio Frequency List from Roger Cravens has been added to our Nellis Page. At the same time we removed the Nellis AFB Email list from our server, so the whole base doesn't get spammed!

• 9/1, 6pm: AFFTC controls Bald Mtn. The radar facility on the top of Bald Mountain is controlled by the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, according to their 1994 environmental statement. Info added to AFFTC.

• 9/1, 3pm: Area 51 Mailing List Created. The Research Center has created a public mailing list for discussions of Area 51 and related topics. You can think of it as alt.conspiracy.area51 without the flames and off-topic posts. It may take a while for the list to catch on, but we think it will be useful.
  The Area 51 Mailing List is a moderated public forum for the exchange of information relating to the secret Groom Lake base in Nevada. Appropriate subjects can include UFOs, secret aircraft, government secrecy, desert geography, local politics, local history, popular culture, paranormal claims and military operations -- so long as they are reasonably related to this part of Nevada or the claims made here. This list differs from other lists and newsgroups in that it is actively moderated. Only messages meeting the criteria of the list -- in content, courtesy and relevancy -- will be sent on to subscribers. The intent is to create an intelligent forum for the discussion of Area 51 without superfluous posts. [GC 9/28/96]

• 9/1, 2pm: This Site Reviewed by CNN. CNN Interactive has reviewed this website on its Sci-Tech page [local mirror, without graphics]
  Area 51 Research Center. As its name implies, the primary concern of this Web site is what is -- or isn't -- going on at Area 51, a classified military base north of Las Vegas. The Air Force reportedly tested a number of top secret military jets, including the Stealth fighter, at this facility. Some UFO followers, or self-proclaimed Ufologists, believe the military is studying extraterrestrial spacecraft there.

  You can enjoy this site even if you're skeptical of UFO sightings. The authors don't state as fact information that they can't back up and, in general, seem willing to label claims as either credible or not. They expect proof, and they expect fellow Ufologists to measure up to scientific standards.

  Which leads me to the value of this site. If you've ever heard passing remarks about Area 51 or Groom Lake -- especially through entertainment media such as television's "The X Files" or the movie "Independence Day" in which Area 51 was prominently featured -- and it piqued your curiosity, this is the place to be.

  Do me a favor, though. If you don't like the site and think UFO study is malarkey, don't flame its Web master and tell him I sent you.

What's New for September Part II

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