From: charlefr@qm.wv.tek.com (Steve Frost)
Subject: Still a Fool: Report from Groom Lake
Date: 23 Nov 1994 21:25:42 GMT
Organization: Tektronix

Yes, it's true.  I am *still* a fool.  But frankly I find some relief in
being lucid enough to *recognize* and *admit* that I am a fool.  
There's nothing more awkward than being a fool and not knowing it - 
with the possible exception of being a fool, knowing it, not being
able to admit it and hoping that it will just go unnoticed.

So I mentioned that I was going away for a few days to get a
fresh perspective.  I guess it's safe to say that having seen the
Groom Lake Test Facility (aka Area 51 & 'Dreamland') with my own
eyes, I now have a new perspective.  Yes, it's one thing to read
about it for years, and talk with others who have seen it, and then
it's another thing altogether to see it with your own eyes.

So anyway, Irene and I spent Wednesday through Friday of last
week doing the COMDEX thing in Las Vegas.  I was supporting
third-party vendors who were using Tektronix gear in their
displays.  (For those of you that don't know COMDEX, it is the
world's largest high-tech, computer-oriented trade show.  Approx
180, 000 people attended this year.)  Irene got to run around and 
explore all the nifty new 'state-o-the-art' toys on the market.
We also got to enjoy a performance by Dennis Miller at the MGM
which was most entertaining.

After tearing down Friday evening, we got up the next morning, 
checked out and drove to the world's tiniest famous town. 
Rachel Nevada, where we met Glenn Campbell (aka PsychoSpy)
and swapped stories and ideas around the UFO/'abduction'
phenomenon.  We agreed to meet him back at his "Area 51
Research Center" a little later to go up to the top of "Freedom
Ridge".  Meanwhile we tooled off to "The Little A'Le'Inn" for 
lunch and to see if we could get a room.  The Little A'Le'Inn
is a famous little resaurant/bar (the only one in the town of Rachel,
which consists of the 'Inn', a gas station/store and a few little
trailer homes scattered about) that is owned by a wonderful
couple named Pat and Joe Travis.  We sat down and I ordered
myself an "Alien Burger".  It was good.  Tasted a lot like our
own terrestrial burgers.

We had the pleasure of speaking with one of the local gals who
described some of the strange arial phenomena she had experienced
in Rachel: from globes of light flying right through her home
to strangely lighted discs that actually landed near the back gate
of Rachel (leading off into restricted land) and then disappeared
a few minutes later.  She stated that everybody in town had seen
many strange things, and if they said that haven't then they were
likely hiding something.  She also enjoyed sharing how a friend
of hers that works in "'51" (as she called it) emphatically
tried to convince her over and over that the strange globes
in her home were *not* alien.  She seemed to think that he
knew a few things that he wasn't letting on.

Pat Travis, co-owner of the Little A'Le'Inn, sat down with us for a 
while and shared how she had come to move to Rachel, and how her
husband and her came to buy the Inn, and how they had been 'guided'
to turn it into "a safe place for people to come from around the 
world to share their own UFO-related experiences.  

When asked about the many autographed photos on the wall (Bob
Lazar, George Knapp, Sean David Morton ("Worlds Foremost UFO
Researcher"),  et. al.), she was kind enough to share a few of the
stories behind the pictures.  "Bob Lazar is a friend of ours", she
said.  "He comes in here all the time."  Also found hanging on
the wall is a colored poster showing a cutaway view of Lazar's
reknowned "Sports Model", and some of the working details.
Another poster shows a 'grey' standing there with a map of
the alleged locations of there 'hiding places'.  The words
on the poster say something simple like "We Are Here".

We thanked Pat for her time, rented a room (a trailer out back, 
actually), paid for our lunch, and then headed back to meet Mr.
Campbell for our next adventure.

When we got back to the "Research Center" (Which is actually
Glenn's trailer home complete with "the town's largest library"
- mostly books about UFOs and gov't conspiracies - many different
books, charts, studies, photos of the Groom Lake facility, plastic
models of secret aircraft that were tested out of the non-existent
airbase, and of course the "Area 51 Viewers Guide" written by
Mr. Campbell himself (A must for anybody curious about Rachel
and Area 51), all for sale to the curious public who pass
through this tiny town for their own clues, or even a glimpse of
a real 'flying saucer' in the night sky.  And his tiny yard is
decorated with the bones from dead cattle, a listless looking
'grey' propped up against the side of the trailer, the tail section
of an F-4 fighter plane that crashed somewhere nearby and other
curious nick-nacks. ) we jumped into his tan 4x4 filled with
scanners, frequency counters, binoculars, telescopes and odd
wires and cables leading to various antennae and power supplies.

Next thing we knew, we were off.  Headed straight for those
ominous signs that state "Deadly Use of Force Authorized".  A
few miles down the hill we turned right at the famed "Black
Mailbox", from which numerous UFO sightings have been reported,
and then another right onto Groom Lake Road.  A few miles from 
our destination, Glenn pointed to the top of a hill on the horizon
to where a small glint of light was reflecting back from the
otherwise natural surface.  "There they are, waiting for us", 
he said. 'Cammo Dudes'!  The infamous security teams that
patroled the perimeter of the non-existent airbase!  Irene's
and my eyes got a little wider as we turned towards each other
barely surpressing our anticipatory grins.

Moments later the radio squawked, "CHRRRrrrrrrrk-Beep!"
Security knew we were here!  They were talking about us!
Mr. Campbell knows all the frequencies that the Cammo
Dudes, the non-existent control tower, and the local sheriff
communicate on, and is constantly monitoring them for activity.
Irene and I cannot hear what the 'Dudes' are saying, however, 
because their communications are scrambled, and we have
no way to unscramble them.

After another few minutes we turn onto the "Freedom Ridge
Expressway", which is immediately greeted by another
series of squawks from the scanner.  "They're coming up here", 
we imagine the 'Dudes' are saying to each other.

Freedom Ridge, was so named by Glenn Campbell himself as
he discovered a new and relatively convenient spot to view
'Area 51' from.  Needless to say, the "Expressway" was named by
him as well.  It's important to note here, that "Freedom Ridge"
will likely *not* be "free" at all within a few short months 
(weeks?) as the government is about to seize another 4,000
acres surrounding the Groom Lake region to prevent 'We, the
People' from seeing where our tax dollars are going.  Mr.
Campbell has been active in lobbying *against* the land seizure
as he would like to see the government be held accountable for 
whatever is going on out there.  Fortunately, through his
newsletters ("The Desert Rat"), his Research Center, his political
activism involving the BLM and gov't/millitary parties and his
several appearances in major magazines and on popular television
shows, he has brought the knowledge of 'Area 51' out of the
tiny UFO circles of five years ago, and into primetime television
viewing and the immensity of the Internet.

(BTW, there is another peak nearby called Tikaboo Peak, that will
still offer a line of sight to the airbase that is *not* to be 
included in the 4,000 acre land-grab, but it is apparently not nearly 
as easy to access as Freedom Ridge is.)

The trip to the top of the ridge is a rough one, and not for low-
clearance vehicles.  In fact it is not recommended for anybody
who has not experienced some serious 4-wheeling before.  By the
time we got to the top, the sun was nearing the horizon to set
behing the hills that silhouetted the secret airbase.  Irene and
I picked up our binoculars and looked to the west, and sure enough,
there it was:  a non-existent, top secret airbase the size of a
small city!  This place was huge!  There was the worlds longest
known landing strip.  And microwave dishes the size of huge
buildings pointed straight up into the sky.  And there's the control
tower.  And there are a whole bunch of other buildings with God-
knows-what inside them.  Geez!  It's right there, yet for some reason 
we are supposed to pretend that it's not?  We're supposed to just let 
the government *take* *away* another *4,000* *acres*, and not ask 
them what it is that our taxes bought, that they say we have no right
to see?

Now that the cold war is over, what the hell could possibly be going 
on there that is so critical to 'national security' that we can't
even know what it is?  That we can't even get with in *miles* of it?

These kinds of thoughts kept going on in my head (and still are)
over and over and over.  How many more secret facilities the size
of cities are there in this country that we've never heard of yet?
So that's what is at Groom Lake, what is there a little bit further
at Papoose Lake, where Bob Lazar claims to have worked on alien
craft?

The immensity of the implications, the sheer enormity of the
secrecy that needs to be overcome is boggling to me.

For what it's worth, Glen Campbell has my respect as a researcher
and an activist.  He seems to be very conscious of the line
between empirical data and circumstantial evidence.  He seems
also consciously not attaching himself firmly to either the
'believer' or the 'skeptic' camps, and is quite willing to be both
and neither.  He genuinely seems open to all different kinds
of perspectives, and is able to award even the most flakey and
unlikely stories a degree of respect and reverence, out of
apparent appreciation for the colorful quality of humanity.
I sincerely wish him my best in whatever he does.

Anyways, we slept at the A'Le'Inn that night, and when I awoke in
the morning just before dawn there was a huge bright white light 
hovering in the sky!  Okay, so it was Venus, but it was the biggest
and brightest I had ever seen it before.  It was beautiful.

We drove down the hill, and back to Vegas for the annual Nellis
Air Force Base Open House (which we would not have even known
about had Mr. Campbell not told us).  That was fun.  For you Av-buffs 
there were performances by The Thunderbirds (based out of Nellis), 
an F-15, an F-16, an A-10, a Christien Eagle, a Pitts Special, there 
were some warbirds: a P-51, a Spitfire, etc..., there was a Bede-5J
that was kind of fun, and a fair ammount of static displays, 
including the B-1 bomber and the ominous looking F117A stealth 
fighter.

Dean, I couldn't help but wonder if *you* were there.  I know
you've attended that show before.  It would have been a real kick
to have run into Mr. Adams, in the flesh.  It would have made Chuck
jealous, anyways.    ;-)


So, I'm back and I've got a new attitude:  I'm going to do some
more ignoring of the butt-heads, and watch my manners a bit more.
Just for spite, I'm going to be sweet and civil, even to those who
have never tried the same to others with divergeant opinions.
It's gonna be a challenge, and sometimes I may ever-so-verily
inclined to start blasting at certain kinds of people.

Overall, I'm just going to work on my art of subtlety a bit.


Wish me luck!


Peace through deliberate change -

-- 
-Steve Frost             "My sole intention is learning to fly
charlefr@qm.wv.tek.com     Condition grounded, but determined to try
                          Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
                           Tongue-tied and twisted
                             Just an Earth-bound misfit, I "