Copyright 1994 THE BERKELEY GROUP THE BERKELEY GROUP "ENCOUNTERS"/AREA 51 INTERVIEW WITH: AGENT X JULY 3, 1994 Q You've mentioned the black... M Black World. Q What does that mean? M The Black World is the colloquial term that I use to refer to a group of projects within the Pentagon and probably the CIA and NSA that refers to special access programs. There's two sets of these. There's special access programs and then waived special accessed programs. Within these programs there's very little congressional oversight. A lot of times it's strictly limited to the senior members on a committee for either intelligence or defense appropriations or in the case of the ultra secret waived SAP's, that it's only the chairman. So, sometimes with these Black World programs you get maybe just a handful of people that are actually elected representatives that give the go ahead to spend the billions of billions of dollars which are consumed out here. Q So, unlimited funding basically. M It's not as good as it used to be in the Reagan years, that's when if you had some... some project, something that could possibly give us the edge, particularly in the areas of precision attack or very fast speeds, advanced air dynamics or perhaps reconnaissance capabilities and nuclear strike the money was unlimited. The Black World programs really too off under Jimmy Carter with the authorization for the Stealth Fighter program and the Advanced Cruise Missile and the Cruise Missile and then Reagan went, you know, great guns, B-2, Advanced Tactical Fighter, a whole bunch of missiles. Q What does the government acknowledge that goes on here? M They acknowledge nothing. The government says that this place does not exist, that there is not a flight test facility. I've confronted various authorities with the pictures I've taken of the facility and for the most part received back, "What's that?" That's a question back to me. So, the only thing they will say is that that is part of the Nelles Range and that there is a sensitive military installation out there, but they don't say that there's a 35,000 foot runway. They don't say that there's hundreds of thousands of square feet of hanger space. They don't say that there's thousands of people flying in everyday and a private air force owned by EG & G. They don't say any of that. Q You have pictures of that? M Yes. I have pictures of the base, of the sensors, of the security forces, of the aircraft. I've kept a pretty close eye on this place. Q What do you believe, based on what you've had... you've taken pictures of, what do you believe goes on here? M I mean, this can only... this is a deduction and this is what I'm taking from the information I can find in open sources, within trade publications and engineering journals and people who work within the industry and people who will say things to me, but what I think goes on out there is a great deal, much more than people think. I think it has an operational base for advanced and exotic weaponry and technologies that we've developed and also a wide range of aircraft are being tested out there, the Aura Hypersonic Spy Plane with strike capabilities mostly likely, the Black Manta, second generation attack Stealth aircraft with reconnaissance capabilities also, the Pump Concede, an unmanned Mock-10 strike vehicle, the mother ship, which carries small rapid contingency space launcher or perhaps a manned space plane. Q What? M There's a whole bunch of stuff out there. There's... particularly the mother ship, which you just expressed an interest in. It's a huge ship that carries either on its back a small winged launcher that can launch small satellites or as I think we have the ability to... I mean, we've had it since the late 60's, to build a space plane, a small, you know, one or two man space plane for things that you need to fix in the rapid... you know, like a military reconnaissance satellite's failing or you need to go take a look at somebody else's gear up in space. Q A shuttle that doesn't need a rocket to get it up there. M Well, it has a rocket, but its first stage is the mother plane, the mother ship as we call it. There's a big hanger out there, Hanger 18, and it's... it's over 500 feet across, a couple hundred feet high and inside that facility along the center line is probably huge gantry cranes to where they can bring the mother ships in and lower whatever they're going to put on their back on top of them, or at least that's what we think. Q We've thrown out some names of aircraft and things that most people have probably never heard of. Any idea of things we've heard of that have been used in recent years that have been tested here? M Certainly. Prior to the B-2, the advanced technology bomber, being rolled out under great fanfare and all of that, some sub- scale demonstrators were flown out here for that program. The F-117 Stealth Fighter was developed in total secrecy here at Groom Lake. It first flew back in 1981 and it took six years for people to know about it, a project that nearly rivals in scale and complexity and secrecy of the atomic bomb. From there it would get... we're getting reports filtering out that a Black World version of an existing sparrow missile, except with a different kind of seeker, an infrared seeker, was the first missile to down an aircraft in the Gulf War recently. There's a lot of stuff out there, electronic warfare, advanced technologies are being... being explored and tested, decoy technologies for aircraft, flares and decoys that will fly literally ahead of the aircraft and maneuver away from it, radar cross section testing of stealth and advanced technology aircraft to make sure that they meet the signals, admissions capabilities that they need to have besides the manufacturing and the operational basing of all the stuff. Q With so many people who have worked out here over the years why hasn't any... I mean, I... obviously some have, but I guess you've got to promise you won't say anything about the place when you go to work here. M You do more than promise that you won't say anything. You sign a paper that basically says that if you were ever to divulge what you were doing you could possibly serve life in prison. I think at some point at these very highly classified programs that people give up most of their rights that they have who work there, that they are constantly monitored, that probably some sort of... some sort of persuasion techniques are used. I mean, just by constantly monitoring somebody's life and telling them constantly they can't say anything I imagine it changes your view on things and after a lifetime of working like that I don't think you would be... you know, I don't think anybody's going to say anything. There's very few people that do and the people who do are generally afraid. Q Some have talked. M Some. We have... all of us have our sources and it's all a matter of figuring out to yourself whether or not the source is credible, if the information you're getting is proved, you know, it can be replicated in some other source or something like that. Some people talk but they don't say much. You know, you get bits and pieces and that only furthers the lack of knowledge and only winds up making more questions usually. Q And probably making more stories... M Yes. Q ... about what they believe. Let's get to one of them. One of the things that's talked about... M One of the things that's talked about is the subterranean part of the base, that there are vast spaces underneath the base for housing these weapons and test articles, that when you look at the base there a couple of big hangers. There's four large hangers that house the Soviet and Russian equipment that we have. There's the big Hanger 18 that probably has the mother ship and can bring in the big cargo planes when they're off loading sensitive items, but for the most part for... there's not enough hanger space there, so that tends to make one think that there's something underground. Q Alien space craft. M Persistent rumors of alien space craft for 40 years out of here and as far as I can tell and in my own research no proof exists, a lot of very interesting stories... Q Like? M ... many of them convincing. Persistent tales of disk shaped craft flying around the nuclear test site and around Dreamland and these start in... in the early 50's and going through to times now, the Lazar story of which I have serious questions about, of aliens being at the base, once again, you know, unprovable. I mean, stories were out there that the aliens had bases and were eating people and other times that they liked to stay up late watching t.v. eating strawberry ice cream and listening to Haden. So, I don't know. I don't know what's out there in that respect, but I can only make estimates based on my photographs, based on my experience out here in the desert and the people that I talk with that I believe are credible. Q One of the articles I read relating to that talked of experimental aircraft that have been developed here based on technology from some of these alien craft. Have you heard that? M Yes, there's... there's many stories that somehow or another these advanced articles that we are making are hybridized, that they're both advanced terrestrial technology and with an infusion of off worldly stuff that we found and recovered saucers or what not. I can see nothing that proves that. Everything that... that I know of that's being worked out there or that I know that's rumored of being out there seems to be terrestrial. Q Why in seemingly peaceful times... I know there are places, but you know what I mean. M The threat's there still. I don't believe Russia is going to be a very good friend or an ally, that times will change there. They're bound to and most likely for the worst. We have a lot of rouge country still and half renegade countries that have enough money and resources to access ballistic missile technology and weapons of mass destruction and to insure that nonproliferation of those technologies is critical to our survival I believe. It's only a matter of years before third world nations or even sub-national states will be able to lob ballistic missile warheads into the United States, so the ability to defend against ballistic attack, the ability to go out and seek out people producing weapons of mass destruction and the ability to neutralize deep underground bunkers and facilities that make these weapons is very important. Q Is that technology here? M Yes. It's here. The... the ability to deliver a bolt from the blue is what our military command structure wants. They literally want to be able to come from any direction anytime and hit a target anywhere without those people being able to know about it and even if they do know about there would be no way to counter it. In my estimation that's a good thing, that we need to maintain that edge, that we have to have that, but at the same time the secrecy involving this facility and the continued denial of its existence is ludicrous. Q Let me... let me stick with that for a second. Obviously if you're talking about defending the United States you're getting into issues of national security. We don't want anybody else to know what we've got or what we're developing. What's wrong then with keeping this quiet, keeping it secret? M Why is it that I go to our former cold war advisory to get my night vision devices? Why is it that I go to the Russians once again to get spy satellite shots of this base and the things that are around it when my own country won't tell me that? My opinion is that involved in the excessive secrecy is a lot of money, that in some reports and most recently the Federation of American Scientists have come out and said that it's possible as much as 40 percent of these programs is spent on secrecy. It also prevents from technology from one program being infused into another program where it could be very valuable. So, there are legitimate concerns of national security. You know, I'm not going down past the... the barrier that says don't go, you know, I'm not tempting these guys to shoot me. I'm not putting them at risk, but at the same time there needs to be accountability for the money that's spent there. There needs to be accountability for the environmental issues of the waste that's been, you know, disposed of there and there needs to be accountability for the people that live nearby here both in terms of them, you know, getting some sort of tax revenues from this multi-billion dollar facility and some sort of accountability for the things that go on out there. Q You lead me to the next topic then. Things have gone on there. What was I reading that some of the chemicals that may have been used to help develop stealth technology, those sorts of things have been burned off down there. Environmental is this place a problem? M The new technology, aircraft and weapons that we build now are largely made out of composites and are coded with radar absorbing materials, all of which are toxic and extremely hard to deal with, both in their manufacture and their disposal. At the end of these programs whether or not it goes on to be an operational item or whether or not it was a one off prototype it seems that the chemicals involved in the production, the actual scarp composites, all the stuff gets put in a ditch and burned or at least it used to. We don't see the burn pits anymore when we look in the pictures. Its puts a lot of people at risk, probably, you know, PCB's and TCE's and all sorts of nasty stuff was open burned out there and the people that live in the (unintelligible) over... the next range over into Alamo were exposed to it. Q You were showing me some... some instruments awhile ago. M The radiation monitoring instruments in (unintelligible) of which there... in all the small communities surrounding the nuclear test site, considering that we're also down wind from the nuclear test site where they used to do atmospheric testing. This area here is still radioactive. Q Would they have those things there now because of what goes on at the base now? M There are two buildings at the base, explosion proof buildings, which are either housing conventional weapons or... they also are of similar design to a nuclear weapons bunkers, so there are mostly likely nuclear weapons are area 51. It would stand to be that way, that if we have some of these advanced aircraft that are operational that have strike capabilities that they would also be armed with nuclear weapons. As far as nuclear testing as an issue I don't think it goes on too much. We are developing new weapons called Microminiaturized Nuclear Warheads that are very small and they're used in earth penetrating weapons that you really can't tell whether or not it was a nuclear explosion or a conventional explosion. So, the threshold with some of these weapons that we may be testing out here is so small we might not be able to detect them. At the same time the nature of the weapon doesn't release much radiation. Q When you go in to take pictures, to look around, it's not easy to get there. M No, you've got to want to go there. I mean, you have to take the time to... to find out where it's at and... and what... I mean, it's only prudent that a person that was to come out here would read up on the location, the conditions of the desert, what kinds of security forces, what the legal issues are and then you have to ask yourself, I mean, really is this what you want to do Q And the... the security force, it seems like a strange operation. M The... the security guys... Q What do you call them? M Well, we... we call them lots of things, but for most times just Camo Dudes as a good generic... a good generic term. Q Because? They don't have a name do they? I mean... M No, they... they look a lot like myself. As a matter of fact I pattern myself after them. I figure if you can go anonymous in camouflage and be heavily armed and have all sorts of paramilitary equipment and walk around the desert and harass people I can be allowed probably the same thing and go in and take pictures. Q Is that what happens if you get too close? M I mean, it's their job to preserve the operational integrity of the boundaries there. Q And it's beyond them just parking and seeing you. I mean, they have a lot of sophisticated technology to detect you, don't they? M They have electro-optical devices. They have an entire remote sensing network all over the Taboo Valley, which is public land along with the restricted area border is monitored by television cameras and magnetic sensors and we think ammonia sniffing detectors, seismic detectors. They have thermal viewers so they can watch us at night. I mean, we have night vision devices, but they have the thermal viewers and that gives them the edge. So, I'm pretty certain they have a good idea of what's going on at most times along with... I mean, there's a high likelihood, there's a good probability that they tap all the phones in the area and they also keep an eye on the people that come out here. It would only be the correct thing to do, you know, to be able to access the threat. Q They catch you a lot, don't they? M I've only been caught once, but they do see me a lot. It's... it's very hard to go in there without them seeing you. It takes a lot of effort. Q They probably didn't want you to get those pictures out of there. They probably didn't want you to get those pictures out of there, did they? M They... well, the signs say that taking pictures is illegal and that publishing them or giving them to anybody is... is the wrong thing to do. Their job is to stop that from happening. Their job is to make sure that nothing is disclosed and they do a pretty job of it. I mean, it's a large area that they have to do there and what they do, you know, is... is what they do. Q Are you ever fearful of them? M I'm very respectful of them. I know that they're well armed and that they're pretty well trained and that there's very little accountability. I mean, when you work for a secret base and particularly when I'm alone out here camping that I try to... to reduce the amount of... of any sort of contact with them to the point... because they could damn well do what they want. Q We're... given the warning we're about to make the trek in. Tell me what we're going to do. M We're going to go in along Groom Lake Road and go into Road Block Canyon and come up the back side of Freedom Ridge and since there's a lot of us with a big crew we'll just go in up through a ravine and use flashlights and go slow and they will most likely know that we're coming, but at the same time as long as you don't make any provocative gestures as towards going towards the border or you're not real obvious about sticking the lens towards the base or those kind of things there's a good likelihood you can avoid a confrontation for the most part and there's safety in numbers also. Q If they... they saw our camera they could very well come take our... our tape away, couldn't they? Our film? M Yes. It's their job. What they would do is they would radio to the Lincoln County sheriff and say that they had seen us up there taking pictures of the base, a warrant for our search and the seizure of all of the electro-optical video equipment would be issued by the justice of the peace in Alamo and the Lincoln County sheriff would come out here and detain us while the Camo Dudes would... they're also there. You know, they make sure they would look through everything and then they would take the gear, take it into the base, see what we shot pictures of and the previous precedence indicate that you receive your gear back for the most part. You don't get your film back sometimes. If you take pictures of their helicopters or the facility, but if there's not pictures of the base or the security guys or those kinds of things almost without exception you get your gear back. Q Tell me about the.... M (unintelligible) where they've got nine... nine alien space craft, you know, that he worked on the antigrave drive on the drive (unintelligible). The problem is is that... he... the problem is that his life, which he claims has vanished, all the records and stuff. We've gone in, my friends and I, and we uncovered a lot of records that really incriminate his... Q His story? M Yeah, his ability to... his educational record, his ability to tell the truth, all these kind of things. Q He's the guy who says he was educated at... M MIT. Q MIT can't find any record of it. M And we've looked all over the place and we've got a lot of interesting stuff. He... he married one woman while he was married to his first wife and she committed suicide three days later. He's a bigamist during the time and... Q What's wrong with leaving it a secret? M Well, there's... there's a lot of problems with leaving it a secret. Q Okay. Why are they keeping it a secret in... if it's peaceful times? We're living in seemingly peaceful times. Why would you keep something like this a secret? M There still is a threat out there. I believe there is legitimate national security concerns. Q They have the technology to detect us out there. They have the technology to detect us moving around out there. M Yes they do. They have an extensive remote sensing network in the Taboo Valley. Q Why here? Why this place? M Because it's the perfect place. Q What does the government acknowledge is going on there? M Well, I can only tell you based on a deduction, on the limited amount of information I get from open sources and from the people who will talk to me who have worked there .... that there's very little. Q Now, tell us where we are. M Okay, we are right in this area right here. Okay, here is Groom Lake off over there, off over those hills and Papoose Lake down that way. When I was... when I saw the object I was right in this area right here. Q What did you see? M I saw a... an orb that was surrounded by... Q What's an orb? M A circle, a sphere. Q Okay. A saucer. M No, it was a sphere and it was surrounded by some sort of electrical or plasma discharge and it was multicolored. It was blue-green on top and crimson on the bottom and as it would move this field around it would lag a little bit. As it would move one way there would be a little lag to the... the direction opposite of the movement. As it would stop there would be a little lag as it would stop and go by and I... Q (unintelligible) M Yep, about 10:15 when I saw it at night. Q Like nothing you've ever seen before? M I can identify almost every military aircraft in the world. I know decoy technology. I know most of the stuff of what they're doing out here, at least to be able to identify it and I have never seen anything like this was. Q Either something from somewhere else or something we've developed based on their technology? M I don't... it was in this area right here that is reportedly a spot where we have alien space craft in our possession, but I'm very skeptical of those stories. It may be a holographic projection to make you look in this area when they're actually doing something secret up here. It may be some sort of Star Wars defense system. Who knows what it was, but it wasn't anything conventional. Q Do you want to talk abou twhere we're going. M Okay, well this map is almost entirely irrelevant. Q That's alright. M (unintelligible) covers both the Edwards area and the Nelles Range. Boom Lake is here. You notice there's no airstrip which is on the map. We are basically back here, which is well out of sight of anything from 15 miles actually from the border, but last night we went up... if I had gone we would have gone up there. Now, you were thinking of going to Mount Sterling, right here whereby you can see right up this valley. Q Right into Taboos Lake. M Right into Taboos Lake alleged saucer haven. What's kind of mysterious about Taboos Lake is it makes it less than an ideal site is the fact that the wildlife range coincides with Taboos Lake. Now, if you were to build yourself a secret saucer base I would think you would want to be (unintelligible) fish and wildlife people. Q Unless they are... M Unless the fish and wildlife people are one of them. You can't trust (unintelligible) Q Now, what have you heard about Taboos being a radioactive wasteland? M (unintelligible) I know a person who has been (unintelligible) when he worked from Wackenheim, back at the test site. He says, "Ain't shit at Taboos." Someone (unintelligible) or something, but it's a nice place to put something, do something. It seems that they might... must have had some plutonium tests or something like that out there. (unintelligible) and if you built some roads up into those mountains those are very rugged mountains and there's lots of hidden... hidden places like this... this place right here. Q (unintelligible) goes up 15... well, 1,200 meters and... M (unintelligible) really awfully exposed. It's exposed to the fighter pilots who are bombing in here continuously. Q And they fly right up this way. M Yeah, yeah and... Tom says (unintelligible) total fraud. Where is that... where is that saucer base anyway? END OF TAPE.