bLACKHARTT   
  CONTACT: dhartt@blackhartt.com

 

                                                   • Home • Teasers • Rides • Hollerdays • Yellowknife • Past Hats •
 


area 51
14 april 06

Area 51 (currently known as Air Force Flight Test Center, Detachment 3 and also known as Dreamland, Watertown Strip, Paradise Ranch, The Box, Groom Lake, Neverland, and others) is a remote tract of land in southern Nevada, located at 37.239° N 115.816° W, at the southern edge of a large dry salt flat called Groom Lake. It is owned by the United States Department of Defense and the United States Air Force, containing an airfield whose primary purpose is believed to be the operation / analysis of enemy aircraft and enemy weapons systems, secret development and testing of new military aircraft. It is famed as the subject of many UFO conspiracy theories.

Area 51 shares a border with the Yucca Flats region of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), the location of many of the U.S. Department of Energy's nuclear weapons tests. The Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility is approximately 40 miles (64km) southwest of Groom Lake.

The area is connected to the internal NTS road network, with paved roads leading both to Mercury, to the northwest, and west to Yucca Flats. Leading northeast from the lake, Groom Lake Road (a wide, well-conditioned dirt road) runs through a pass in the Jumbled Hills. Groom Lake Road was formerly the track leading to mines in the Groom basin, but has been improved since their closure. Its winding course takes it past a security checkpoint, but the restricted area around the base extends further east than this (unauthorized visitors who travel west on Groom Lake Road are usually observed first by guards located on the hills surrounding the pass, still several miles from the checkpoint). After leaving the restricted area (marked by numerous warning signs stating that "photography is prohibited" and that "use of deadly force is authorized" under the terms of the 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act) Groom Lake Road descends eastward to the floor of the Tikaboo Valley, passing the dirt-road entrances to several small ranches, before joining with Nevada State Route 375, the "Extraterrestrial Highway", south of Rachel.

l decide that getting arrested without identification in a top secret,non-existent, american airbase deep in the heart of the desert is a really bad place to end up buried. discretion gets the better of me...l steal the towels instead.


click on a picture to see a larger image. hit arrows at either end of the slideshow for more pictures.

.

road kill. area 51 is straight up.

 

• Up • Toronto • PS Air Museum • Joshua Tree • Carlsbad • SeaWorld • Disneyland • Hoover dam • Las Vegas • Area 51 •