ParaNet BBS/news51
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ParaNet BBS/news51
| File Name: | news51.txt |
|---|---|
| Author: | Unknown |
| Date: | Unknown |
| Posting BBS: | Unknown |
| BBS Main Page: | ParaNet Main Page |
| Key Words: | ParaNet, UFO, Ufology |
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ParaNet File Number: 00184
DATE OF UPLOAD: November 26, 1989
ORIGIN OF UPLOAD: User Contribution
CONTRIBUTED BY: Rick Dell'Aquila/Cleveland Freenet
========================================================
Going through my old files I found the two following
newspaper articles on "Area 51" which seem pertinent after the
latest allegations which have been made about this secret
testing facility:
Las Vegas Review Journal
July 7, 1984
REID MUM ON VISIT TO SECRET DEFENSE BASE
By Ed Vogel
Rep. Harry Reid kept his mouth sealed Friday about what
he saw during a visit to Area 51, the secret Department of
Defense base 100 miles north of Las Vegas.
Reid, D-Nev., refused to answer questions about what he
saw during a four-hour flight to the base aboard a Nellis Air
Force Base helicopter.
"I have no comment as to what is going on at Area 51,"
Reid said during a news conference called by his staff.
Reports have circulated for years that everything from
the new Star Wars defense system to the Stealth bomber is being
tested or developed at Area 51 on the dry Groom Lake in Lincoln
County.
In the past, Reid has been strongly supportive of
measures to bolster the national defense. His opinions about
the Air Force's need to acquire 89,000 acres of additional land
surrounding the base were not changed by the trip, Reid said.
"I have always felt there was a need based on the
information I received in Washington."
The congressman said he visited the base only to gain
firsthand information to present later this summer to a House
Committee.
The Subcommittee on Public Land, chaired by Rep. John
Seiberling, D-Ohio, will meet to discuss a bill calling for the
withdrawal of additional public land for the base.
HR 4932 would add 89,000 acres adjacent to Area 51 to the
3 million acres of land now used as the Nellis bombing and
gunnery range. Land just north of the secret base now
technically is under the control of the Bureau of Land
Management.
Nonetheless, guards prevent the general public from
venturing into these lands in the Groom Mountains. Access still
is permitted to miners Patrick and Danny Sheahan, whose family
has owned the Groom Mine for nearly 100 years. Rancher Steve
Medlin also continues to graze 500 head of cattle in the
restricted mountain area.
The Sheahans have expressed concern about what may happen
to their mine. They learned the Air Force sought to withdraw
their lands from the public domain only after reading a
newspaper article in March.
"Sheahan is in direct eyesight of what is going on," Reid
said.
Reid said he met with the Sheahans and Medlin to assure
them he will try to protect their interests. He also said the
Secretary of the Air Force has written a letter assuring the men
they will continue to have access to the Groom Mountains.
But Reid said the closure of the area to the general
public causes him concern.
"Whether they can keep people of is very, very
questionable," Reid said.
Sill, Reid refused to blast the Air Force, saying
Congress has been slow in acting on the withdrawal legislation.
"It is not altogether the Air Force's fault. Part of the
fault lies with Congress. The bill has been there for two years
and nothing has been done about it."
The congressman said he will meet next week with the
Sheahan's attorney to talk about compensation for the miners if
the Air Force is given formal control over the area.
"I favor whatever makes them happy," Reid said. "I am
going back to Washington to make sure they are protected."
Reid also said he will seek new wilderness lands for
Nevada in exchange for giving additional public land to the Air
Force.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Las Vegas Review Journal
October 11, 1987
AIR FORCE WILL SEEK CONTINUED
ACCESS RESTRICTION TO SECRET BASE
By Christopher Beall
It is perhaps the most secret military facility in
Nevada, a place with a history of dark rumors and speculation,
and a name that has even now become an object of folklore.
Lying about 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the base is
an expanse of aircraft hangars, technical facilities and a
12,000 foot runway that rises above a dry lake bed in a desolate
corner of the Nellis Air Force Range. The place has no official
name, although it is unofficially referred to as Area 51.
The base's radio call sign for the Nellis air traffic
controllers who maintain the strictly restricted airspace
overhead is "Dreamland." Even Nellis fighter jocks are not
allowed to fly over Dreamland without difficult-to-get
clearance.
The Air Force is preparing to defend a request, now
dormant in Congress, to keep almost 90,000 acres out of the
public domain to protect the security of the base.
Rumors about the base have variously attributed the
Stealth bomber development program or President Reagan's "Star
Wars" missle defense program to it. There are also people who
believe the remains of an alien spacecraft are stored at the
facility.
The secrecy around the base was lifted briefly a few
years ago when the Air Force illegally closed the 89,600 acres
of public land on the Groom Mountain Range overlooking the base.
The Air Force said it needed to close public access to
the Groom Mountain Range because if a person climbed into the
mountains, he could have easy sight of the top-secret base.
There were rumors then that the base was the site of
training for the failed mission to rescue Americans from Tehran
during the Iran hostage crisis in 1980.
There has also been speculation the the Groom Lake base
is the center of the nation's Stealth bomber developmenmt
program, with the initial tests and flight development for the
supersecret, radar-defeating planes taking place over the desert
range.
There is even a group of self-described UFO experts who
say that Air Force memos indicate the shell of and alien
aircraft that crashed in 1947 in New Mexico is kept at the
facility.
However, most civilian defense watchers believe the Groom
Lake facility is now the testing ground for many of the wea[pons
that make up the Strategic Defense Initiative, known as "Star
Wars."
When the first stories of the land withdrawal broke three
years ago, most Nevada officials agreed that the federal
government probably did need to take control of the land.
But they strenuously objected to the way it was done: The
AirForce posted armed guards on the access roads and denied free
passage to anyone without clearance, all in the absence of any
approval from Congress or notification of the state.
When the closure came to light in 1984, after hunters and
hikers were turned away from their traditional stomping ground
in the Groom Mountain peaks, a Nevada political brouhaha
developed.
Anti-nuclear protesters claimed that the land had been
closed because it provided easy access for them to infiltrate
onto the Nevada Test Site. And ranchers in the area complained
that their traditional rights to graze cattel on the open public
range were being usurped.
Then-Rep. Harry Reid, D-Nev., championed the cause of
those hunters, hikers and ranchers as well as the Sheahan
family, which operates a mine in the Groom Mountains.
Congress eventually approved the Air Force's request to
withdraw the land from public access, but only after Air Force
officials admitted their initial closure of the land was
illegal.
That land withdrawal is now due to expire at the first of
the year.
In the withdrawal bill, which set aside the 140 square
miles to the west of Alamo and just outside the eastern boundary
of the Nellis bombing range, the Air Force was required to
prepare an environmental impact statement on the effects of the
closure. The service was also required to prepare a list of
proposals that would mitigate the loss of the land for the
public.
That environmental report was finished last November, and
it included a host of mitigation measures the Air Force said
were not feasible and could not be recommended.
Some of the more extravagant plans that were not accepted
called for the Air Force to spend as much as $25 million to buy
private land adjacent to the Red Rock Recreational Area in Clark
County for public access and to spend $11 million to improve the
habitat of mule deer ranges in adjacent mountains in Lincoln
County.
The recommendations the Air Force accepted include
building water guzzlers throughout Lincoln County for wild game
and opening 26 square miles in the Stonewall Mountains for
bighorn sheep hunting.
The AIr Force has also said it would like to rebuild the
road leading from Rachel into the Nevada Test Site, but it needs
congressional funding for that proposal.
All these offers to mitigate the loss of the public lands
will come up again for discussion as the Senate moves closre to
hearing a bill to renew the withdrawal.
When the original withdrawal expires Dec. 31, the Air
Force will again be caught in a position of closing access to
the land illegally, unless the new bill is approved.
But Maj. Victor Andrijauskas, spokesman for Nellis, said
the Air Force expects that the bill will be passed and signed
befoore the expiration date, and no legal problems will result.
No hearings have been held on the bill, and a spokeswoman
for Sen. Reid said Reid has placed a legislative hold on the
bill because of "sertious concerns" about how the Air Force has
handled the withdrawal.
"We are very concerned about how the Air Force has
treated the Sheahans and their mine out there, " Mary O'Driscoll
said. "We understand there have been a lot of problems for the
Sheahan family and they are not happy about the situation."
"We also want to make sure the AIr FOrce goes ahead with
the plans for the Rachel road."
O'Driscoll said the legislative hold means no action can
take place on the bill until Reid is satisfied with the Air
Force's position.
Leaders with environmental groups in Nevada said during
recent interviews that they are still not satisfied with the Air
Force's offers to mitigate the withdrawal, even though those
leaders agree that the withdrawal is necessary for national
security.
Bob Fulkerson said his lobbying group Citizen Alert does
not oppose the renewal of the Groom Mountains withdrawal, but it
does want more effort at mitigation from the Air Force.
"What they've proposed just isn't adequate," Fulkerson
said.
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