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Area 51
Strange Places: Area 51
Created 7/25/2000 - Updated 8/24/2003

Isn't it funny how everything points to Florida and Texas these days? Take Wackenhut Security Services, for example. Founded in 1954 by former FBI agent George Wackenhut, they provide security for numerous private ventures and government facilities worldwide, including the Nevada Test Site. Former employees of Wackenhut have, however, denied the company operates perimeter security for Area 51. Wackenhut employs 2,500 people in Dade County, Florida and over 140 in Kyle, Texas according to the UFOMIND site.

Groom Lake Road and the Yucca Plants

If you take the mailbox road towards groom lake road, there is a three way split in the road.

Don't expect street signs. Here you are out in the middle of nowhere. Did you bring a map?

From the next picture of the map, you can see that we decided to go straight.

This turned out to be correct.

It really was an exciting thing to be out there for the first time.

I've always enjoyed exploring, but this was like walking on the moon.

What would happen? Where we getting close?

No UFOs or aliens yet. Are they ever seen during the daylight? If not, why not?

I think it was only a few miles, but it may as well have been fifty. Distances are difficult to judge out here and I wasn't watching the odometer.

After a while the road we were on spilled into Groom Lake Road.

Since Groom Lake Road connects with the Extraterrestrial Highway, we could have actually missed the mailbox and still turned right onto Groom Lake Road headed to Las Vegas from the town of Rachel.

This picture is looking up towards the ET highway, away from the Area 51 entrance.

Looks like any other of a hundred different endless dirt roads in Nevada, doesn't it?

When we finally turned on to Groom Lake Road, we had to get out and get some pictures.

Wow, was it hot! Half our digital pictures came out bleached and strangely colored.

Groom Lake Road is guarded by thousands upon thousands of giant Yucca plants.

These things were really something to see: huge spiked trees, each staking out its own large territory.

They were very alien looking to anyone unfamiliar with the desert.

Giant spiky trees were good enough for me. Even if we didn't see anything else, this was worth the drive.

I wondered if any of the thousands of trees were actually artificial. Some stories on the net say that Area 51 is guarded by sensors.

I wondered how many video cameras were hidden in this desert forest.

We continued down Groom Lake Road in the direction (according to our map) of Area 51.

The car was holding up fine. We had excellent AC and plenty of gas, but I was still a bit nervous about a breakdown.

How far to go? No way to know. We watched the hills in the distance silently as we drove on.

The sky was clear and not a single aircraft was visible anywhere.

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