What's New?

The Grand Tour: Earth Saucers and Star Wars

08.28.2006

By Richard J. Boylan, PhD (1992)

For several years articles have been appearing about secret government bases where exotic space weapons and U.S.-made saucers are built and tested, but always the testimony for such was "off the record" or from "sources who cannot be named." So I determined to go see for myself. On April 9 of 1992, I set out in my S-10 Blazer on a six state grand tour of reported Southwest secret sites. The reality turned out to be much more startling than what I had seen in print until now. For the curious or suspicious, my background is that I am a research and clinical psychologist in private practice in Sacramento, California. I have had a hobby interest in UFO's since 1947, and a research interest in extraterrestrial encounters since 1989. My formal education is in Psychology (Ph.D.), Education (M.S.Ed.), Social Work (M.S.W.) and Philosophy (B.A.). My knowledge of physics, astronomy, nuclear physics, gravity, SDI, and the Intelligence and military cover-up workings is self-taught by reading books such as Intelligent Life in the Universe, Carl Sagan & I.S. Shklovskii, The Anti-Gravity Handbook, D. Hatcher Childress, The Puzzle Palace, James Bamford, The Cult of Counter-terrorism, Neil Livingstone, and Missing the Target: SDI in the 1990's, Union of Concerned Scientists, as well as L. Fletcher Prouty's JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot To Assassinate John F. Kennedy. I have never been in the military or intelligence services. I am a loyal, but disquieted American.

The Grand Tour took place between April 9-15, 1992. The sites reconnoitered include: Tonopah USAF Air Defense Command Headquarters, Tonopah Test Range, the edge of Area 51 and S-4 (Groom and Papoose Lakes bases), Archuletta Mesa outside N.M., Los Alamos National Laboratories, Kirtland Air Force Base, the Western Regional Headquarters of the Department of Energy (SDI), Sandia National Laboratories, Defense Nuclear Agency headquarters, the National Atomic Museum, the National Solar Observatory, U.S. Army's Sacramento Peak Frequency Surveillance Station, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the site of the Very Large Baseline Array near Pietown, N.M, and the Northrop saucer plant near Lancaster, CA.

My selection of target sites was based on information from articles about Stealth and Black Budget aircraft bases and Star Wars weapons research and development sites appearing in newspapers such as the L.A. Times, and various magazines such as Aviation Week and Space Technology, Popular Mechanics, UFO MAGAZINE, and MUFON Journal. I used many useful leads from Howard Blum's excellent Out There, as well as Timothy Good's essential Above Top Secret. I also sifted out as best I could the verifiable information from the unverifiable in William Hamilton III's Cosmic Top Secret. Another source was a November 26, 1991 lecture on "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" given by NASA Ames Research Center's Dr. Jill Tarter, whose too vigorous protesting of Blum's book Out There only increased my suspicion that Blum was onto something. Additional information sources were conversations with two CIA officers I have met, as well as from my years inside the University of California as a graduate student and instructor.

My reconnoitering was done without any formal guides or inside informants. As a follower of Native American spirituality, I asked for and apparently received guidance and protection from the spiritual forces.
My first objective was the town of Tonopah, Nevada, a gateway to Black Budget aerospace/SDI projects. If you draw a line between Lancaster, CA, Arco, ID, Denver, and Alamogordo, NM, most Black Budget aerospace/SDI projects are built, tested and based within this quadrangle, according to my research. Although Tonopah is a tiny town with mining as its ostensible economy, it houses an Air Force Air Defense Command headquarters. This is a paradox, since Nellis Air Force Base (the nearest official USAF facility) is 180 miles south. Unless, of course, there is a secret USAF presence at the north end of the Nevada Test Range requiring aerospace defense. Which there is. Also spotted was the "Shuttle to Sandia." Very interesting, since Sandia National Labs is two states away in Albuquerque. Unless, of course, there is a secret Sandia presence nearby. Which there is.

From Tonopah I drove east 15 miles on U.S. 6 to the turnoff to the Tonopah Test Range. The entrance sign misleadingly gives the impression that they test small rockets there. But after driving 12 miles south on the entrance road I came to a huge sprawling base operated not by the Department of Defense but rather by Sandia National Laboratories for the Department of Energy (DOE). "Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is AT&T," according to SNL public information officer Joanne Pigg. (Personal communication, 04/20/92.) Yes, AT&T is the corporation behind the application of physics research to Star Wars weapons. When AT&T reaches out to touch someone, it may be with one of their electromagnetic pulse weapons.

By the front gate are 30 huge two-story buildings where Test Range workers are headquartered. Through binoculars (7X35 power) I could see downrange five miles where an equally large additional buildings complex was located. To the south and east extend hundreds of square miles for operational testing of DOE weapons, such as electromagnetic pulse, particle beam, tactical fusion (Leonard Stringfield, in The UFO Report, T. Good, ed.) and laser. Strategic nuclear weapons are tested 100 miles farther south at another DOE facility, the Nevada Test Site, while U.S.-made saucers are test flown 100 miles southeast, over the Groom and Papoose Lakes bases.

The guards at the Tonopah Test Range were not dressed in military or police uniform, but rather wore desert camouflage jumpsuits with a cryptic shoulder patch reading "ASI-SWAT." A military convoy was let through the gate and headed downrange. When I approached the main gate on foot, the two guards were surely and aggressively poised. They carried strange weapons which I have never seen before, although I am familiar with the appearance of U.S. and international military, police and elite unit weapons, as found in, for example, Soldier of Fortune magazine. Their weapons looked like a fat, black, cylindrical oversized rifle stock (about 5" diameter), about a yard long, but no barrel or muzzle at the end. Not wanting to experience this weapon pointed any closer to me, I accepted their refusal to let me pass through, and retreated.

About 80 miles east of Tonopah Test Range on State HWY 375 is the hamlet of Rachel, NV. Mostly a mobile home complex housing workers employed at Area 51, Rachel's central spot is the Little A'Le'Inn bar and restaurant. Proprietors Joe and Pat Travis are quite informative about Area 51 and host the Air Force personnel who come there to drink after work. The walls of the Little A'Le'Inn are a veritable museum of USAF unit insignia, UFO photographs, drawings and souvenirs, as well as autographed photos of UFO researchers and investigative journalists, such as George Knapp of Las Vegas radio/television. Joe told me of a UFO having come down once at night after closing and illuminated the entire interior of their restaurant.

I then proceeded 25 miles southeast to the Groom Lake dirt road turnoff, marked by the infamous black mailbox. Using USGS topographic maps (Pahranagat Range) I carefully drove west on the dirt roads towards the Groom Lake base. While still five miles away from the military reservation boundary, I encountered two men in camouflage jumpsuits armed with rifles, sitting in an unmarked Ford Bronco with a lightbar on the roof, parked off the roadbed facing me. Just as I drove past them, my left rear tire collapsed and I rolled to a stop. The tire had a side wall penetration, although the tread was good. Nothing on the clear dirt road could have caused a sidewall blowout. I concluded that the tire had been shot by one of these men. After a minute the camouflaged duo did a U-turn, drove up next to my vehicle as I was changing the tire, and sarcastically asked, "Anything wrong?." I was next questioned as to whether I had a badge, and whether I was "headed up ahead." When I said I had no badge, they said "It's no use going up ahead." I learned that there is a guarded closed gate at the military reservation boundary. A USAF Lt. Colonel James W. Hutchinson is Installation Commander in charge of Area 51. (USAF warning document, Area 51 issue, 1992.)

Since it was late afternoon I retreated until dark, then returned and parked prudently about a quarter-mile east of the Bronco and got out my binoculars to observe the ridgeline of the Groom Range above Area 51 and S-4 from 9:00-10:30 p.m., April 9. After a half-hour I spotted an intense burning bright orange-gold round light rise up vertically from behind the Groom Mountains. It hovered several minutes, drifted slowly south about 1000 feet, then slowly descended vertically behind the mountains. This object had the same color and shape, and was viewed from the same direction, as the object photographed by researcher Gary Schulz, who enlarged and computer-enhanced his photo to reveal a flying disc with a cupola on top, surrounded by an ionization haze of light. Schulz' photographs of what he identifies as a HPAC (Human Powered Alien Craft) hang on the wall of the Little A'Le'Inn, and appear in Cosmic Top Secret.

Soon a second brilliantly shining round object rose vertically and hovered about 500 feet above the ridgeline. This object was strobing and emitting a blue-white intense light apparently from the skin of the craft. It then began a series of incredible, impossibly blindingly fast pendulum, zigzag and back-and-forth maneuvers at fraction of a second intervals, covering perhaps 900 feet at a "jump." The object executed 180-degree turns and appeared almost to be in two places at once. After this dazzling aerobatics performance it settled down to hovering awhile, then resumed the gyrations again. Both episodes of gyrations lasted over a minute each. Finally the object hovered motionless, then began flying downrange south at a constant altitude and direction at about 80 mph. I tracked it through my binoculars for about 30 miles before it became indistinguishable from the starfield.

About a half-hour after it disappeared, a third brilliant round object, glowing with the same burning bright orange-gold color, rose above the Groom Range, hovered, drifted slowly, then began strobing. Then it began gliding downrange at a constant altitude and speed of 80 mph, but with somewhat irregularly spaced erratic jumps forward. Also odd was that the appearance of the craft alternated between strobes; on one phase it was a bright sharply defined orb of orange - gold light, on the alternate phase it was a smudgy golden smear of light. It repeated this phase shifting all the way downrange.

These craft were navigated in a conservative and slow fashion, and did not display the confident maneuvering and extremely rapid departure style so often reported for extraterrestrial UFO's. Thus I concluded these are the U.S.-manufactured discs at a primitive stage of technology and/or pilot mastery. On the other hand, the extreme hyper-fast aerobatics in place of the one craft indicates that inertial forces, and therefore gravity, have been overcome by these craft.

My next destination was Archuletta Mesa just north of NM. Reported in Blum's Out There and Good's The UFO Report as an underground base, Archuletta Mesa straddles the New Mexico-Colorado border. I drove around the mesa and discovered a mysterious "ranch" on the north side near the base of the mesa. The "Redding R Ranch" is supposedly a buffalo raising outfit. However, in the front yard of the ranch between the road and the two ranch buildings were four odd, 25 foot high guard towers on stilts, defining the four corners of the inner property. No movement or personnel were detected. The ranch ranges for two miles along the road, with four fancy expensive wrought-iron gates and arches with "Redding R Ranch" spelled in wrought iron, spaced at intervals along the fence line. However, three of these gates lead to nowhere, either bordering a cliff over a creek or bordering a dense forest with no road behind the gate. A self - confessed Intelligence operative I interviewed in 1992, Dr. John Alexander, working as a member of the Board of Directors of PSITECH, (a commercial intelligence company using psychics with remote viewing powers), expressed great interest in seeing my photographs of the "Ranch" and "had heard of it" in his intelligence work. I shared with him that a remote viewer in Sacramento, CA I consult with, Nancy Matz, had spotted several levels of excavated chambers in the mesa, but that there had been a great disturbance inside the mountain which caused some of the chambers to cave in on others. Dr. Alexander replied to this that "we set off a nuclear explosion inside the mountain" (personal communication, 06/16/92), but then added the dis-information that "it was to search for oil." (Oil is found deep under the ground, not up in the air on a 2000 foot high sandstone mesa. Thus, I did not completely penetrate the mystery of Archuletta Mesa (Dulce), but there appears to be more there than meets the eye.

Next I headed back into New Mexico to reconnoiter Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL), where theoretical research having weapons applications is conducted for the Department of Energy (DOE) by the University of California. (The University also operates Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California for the same purposes, specializing in laser and nuclear fusion research.) A huge sprawling complex covering much of Los Alamos County, Los Alamos Labs stretches for 5 miles by 13 miles, and, according to John Alexander, has extensive underground facilities in addition to the surface installations, (Personal communication, 06/16/92). LANL retains a heavy, but not exclusive, emphasis on nuclear research. It helps to explain why this country is not making more progress in safely disposing of nuclear waste that there is one small building at LANL dedicated to Nuclear Waste Management Research, while there are hundreds dedicated to making more waste. DOE "No Trespassing" signs, with dire penalties, are everywhere at LANL, as are radiation warning signs. Certain curious anomalies were noted at LANL. Building T10 houses the Center for Human Genome Studies, and the HIV (AIDS) Database : a pair of rather strange enterprises for a military weapons-oriented research complex to be involved in, rather than the National Institutes of Health. One cannot help being reminded of the rumors that AIDS is a biological weapon gone amok. Even more curious is another building which houses LANL's Theoretical Biology and Biophysics studies. Perhaps less curious if the rumor is true that the extraterrestrial corpses from the crashed UFO near Corona, NM were brought to Los Alamos for study. Los Alamos' Theoretical Biology department may be linked to NASA Ames Research Center's exobiology studies, which include having constructed lifelike figures of alternative evolutionary models of what intelligent life may look like on other planets (Blum, H., Out There).

Besides nukes and exotic biology LANL also researches military applications of intense magnetic fields at its National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, (a prerequisite to gravity/anti-gravity research). And the military connection at LANL is not subtle. The Air Force has its ATAC Technical Support Facility there, staffed and guarded 7 days a week.
Another anomaly at Los Alamos is its central nuclear reactor. This is the only reactor I have ever seen with personnel quarters (extremely secure) located right next to the reactor, in violation of the principle of keeping optimal separation between persons and radiation.
The theoretical weapons physics of Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore Laboratories is translated into actual working models of high tech weapons at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque. So I headed for Albuquerque, arguably a center of the Black Budget/SDI effort. Located on the southeast edge of town is Kirtland Air Force Base. Kirtland provides cover for and houses: the Southwest Regional Office of the Department of Energy (DOE), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), the Defense Nuclear Agency, the Interservice Nuclear Weapons School, and DOE's National Atomic Museum. To say that DOE and SNL keep a low profile is an understatement. They do not even list themselves in the Albuquerque phone book, although other federal agencies have long listings of even minor departments.

Part 2 -->