Jack Bessler’s UFO, Aliens, Ghosts and Zombie Adventuress in Nevada, California and Louisiana: Chapter 5 Area 51

On May 4, 2015 I hopped on Amtrak for the trip from Sacramento to Bakersfield through the Central Valley of California and then on Amtrak Bus traveling across the Mojave Desert to the crown jewel of Nevada, Las Vegas. After a night of giant margaritas and fish tacos at Vince Neal’s (Motley Crue) bar and grill I get to bed at Circus Circus.

The next day I hopped on the double decker tour bus for the Las Vegas Strip with a two hour stop at the Atomic Testing and Area 51 museums on Flamingo Road which is ran by The Smithsonian Institute. This is the third time in 3 years that I have visited these museums. You get a wristband after paying $20 from the Wackenhut guards and are told that photos are forbidden in the Area 51 museum but not in the Atomic Testing museum.

As you enter the museum you go down a dark hallway where you watch a video where an image of a Man In Black warns you that will come after you and find you divulge any secret information! Next a fuzzy image of an alien warns you of possible abduction if you disclose information!

There are a series of different rooms with copies of newspaper reports on Kenneth Arnolds sighting of the flying saucers in 1947 near Mount Rainer and an audio of Kenneth Arnold describing the UFOS. Newspaper clipping of the July 1947 Roswell incident including the military press release saying that a flying saucer had crashed on a ranch outside of Roswell.

There headsets in front of video screens where you can listen to Stanton Friedman talk about the “Cosmic Watergate”, Seth Shostak of SETI talks about the “Wow Signal”, Erich von Daniken on ancient astronauts, George Knapp and Bob Lazar on Area 51 and Anne Druyan on the Voyager record that her and her late husband Carl Sagan created.

After the Area 51 museum I go next store into the Atomic Testing museum where you see pictures of the tests in Southern Nevada during the 50’s and early 60’s including pictures of tourists on the top of the casinos watching the mushroom clouds.

On the morning of May 6, 2015 at 7:45 AM I meet the tour SUV from Adventure Photo Tours outside Circus Circus for the all day Area 51 Tour. There is a German couple and an English couple joining me for the tour. The first stop is McCarran Airport where we get a glimpse of the passenger jets, Janet Airways that fly workers from Las Vegas to work at Area 51. After that we drive to the city of North Las Vegas and Bigelow Aeronautics where the building has a logo of a gray alien on its headquarters. Bigelow has been connected to MUFON.

We now start the long trip deep into the sparsely populated Mojave Desert heading north to Rachel, NV about a 100 miles north of Las Vegas. On the way we stop at a dry lakebed where on the rocks are pictographs that look like aliens dating back to 500 AD by the Anasazi Indians that are mind blowing.

Next stop is the Extraterrestrial Highway sign decorated with flying saucers on it. It was originally Highway 375 but the Chamber of Commerce lobbied to have its name changed due to the success of the hit movie Independence Day put Area 51 in the minds of millions of moviegoers. The guide took a picture of me standing in front of the ET Highway sign earning him a $40 tip.

We hop back on the SUV heading to Rachel, NV population 34 and the world famous Little Ale Inn and the area around it that was used in the movies Independence Day, the science fiction comedy Paul and the recent Area 51 movie. A few hundred feet from the restaurant is the sandy dry lakebed where Will Smith was dragging the captured alien and meets Randy Quaid and the RV’s and hitches a ride to Area 51. I stood there looking at it imagining the movie.

Inside the Little Ale Inn are all sorts of statues of aliens, alien T-shirts, coffee mugs, alien tequila and other souvenirs for sale. There 4 different SUV’s with tourists there for lunch.  On the wall was an autographed poster of the science fiction/comedy movie Paul with autographs from actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost who both starred in the movie. I buy Alien Ale that has a picture of a Gray on the bottle but the Alien Burger and coleslaw were included in the $175 tour fee.

After lunch we head out 35 miles into the mountainous desert toward the parameter of Area 51 where we climb to an elevation of over 5,000 feet through a Joshua tree forest (more resembling a cactus then a tree) that is rocky and sandy and inhabited by desert tortoises, Gila monsters (a large lizard) and rattle snakes. You get the feeling of being in a desolate area but also like you are being watched like in Wes Craven’s movie The Hills Have Eyes about mutant cannibals whose parents genes were affected by atomic testing in this area who attack, rape, kill and eat lost tourists and their pets.

We finally arrive at the perimeter of Area 51 and the signs say “Military Facility, Keep Out and Use of Deadly force Authorized.” The driver tells us the story of a tour guide was distracted talking to the tourists and buzzed right pass the signs and was soon surrounded by the “Camo Dudes” with automatic weapons drawn who called the Lincoln County Sherriff who detained the driver and the tourists (news clip on YouTube) and the tourists were going to be fined $675 for trespassing on Federal property. The tourists got off when the SUV video camera showed it was an accident but the tour guide was fired and fined.

Area 51 is where the U2 spy plane and Stealth bomber and other top-secret devices were developed. We headed back toward Vegas and a brief thunderstorm came up and made the vicinity look even creepier. We stopped outside the now deserted Campbell Area 51 Research Center and I took a picture of the giant statue of a gray alien outside it. We got back to Circus Circus about 5PM. If you are a UFO alien fan this tour is a must!