New Device(s) at Area 51 Border

Gariac and I discussed this in a post a while back.
I saw signs of trenching/cabling from the Area 51 guardshack along a trail to one of the Bald Mountain Gates, in the newer Bing Maps imagery. The spot is 37°29'30.74"N, 115°40'24.69"W


I just returned from a trip down to Nevada, and visited this gate among others. Here are pictures at this gate.




I should have taken more/better pictures, but what you can't see between the first and second pictures was the camo dude truck parked to the left of the new "device", that started coming after me when I started taking pictures!

I cannot deduce what this thing is. Looks like a cement pad, with two uprights imbedded in it, 2 -3 crossbeams, and also two pipes coming up support a rectangular something. The fire extinguisher has me baffled.

Ideas or conjecture, gariac, anyone?

EDITED TO ADD:
If you follow this trail back towards the guard shack, you will see a number of similar cement pads.

Good find, no idea what it could be. Maybe a fueling station, or an audio frequency weapon to deter curious visitors, ?

Just a guess-

Solar stations of some sort? The 'concrete pads' look very much like solar panels of some fashion IMO.
Would make sense for the extinguishers to be there as they(the panels) heat up dramatically.

Perhaps they are supplying power to cables in the trenches, as part of some sort of hidden perimeter sensor/detector/fence...

To me it looks like the back of a free standing electrical panel/ disconect. There are two uprights that have 3 pieces of uni-strut attached to them. Attached to the uni-strut is the electrical box, and the cable feed in and out (the large tubes attached to the square). Next to the whole thing is a fire extinguisher, which is good practice to keep near to electrical panels.
As to why it's there, I do not know.

It has been conjectured that one of these "gates" isn't viewable from the camera's on Bald Mountain. Being viewable is relevant, as it would be an entry point that someone could sneak in, possibly undetected. However, from what I can see in GE, this gate and others ARE viewable.


One of the reasons I was in that area was to check out a couple of old mines:
Andies Mine
37°33'34.83"N, 115°44'38.12"W
Don Dale Mine
37°33'34.83"N, 115°44'58.12"W

I drove in about 1/2 way, then took my quad/4 wheeler the rest of the way. Camo dudes were there pretty quick after I arrived. I kept them busy most of a Saturday afternoon, between checking out these mines and visiting gates. The blue lines are different trails in, so you can see how they know you are coming long before you get there, by monitoring the camera(s) on Bald Mountain.

It could be an emergency exit from the underground structures, thats why there is also a fire extinguisher.

Two cents

It is most definitely an electrical panel of some sort. The 2 pieces of conduit going into the ground.

It's feeding what looks to be a decent amount of power, those conduits would hold some thick teck cable, probably a 600a parallel feed.

Yeah, that fire extinguisher has me baffled as well.

I caught the uni-strut..looks stainless for some reason. Typical construction materials.

My my first thought was some sort of gas refuel,pressure release valve type thing but if that was the case the fire extinguisher im thinking should be mounted 10-12 feet away So as not rendered useless by being mounted in the fire???

My next thought is of the black rubber looking cover. I'm guessing here but im thinking a computer type tablet to show intruders..like a radar screen....the fire extinguisher for after they shoot said intruders vehicles to shreds with experimental weapons.

Maybe they have mastered the technique of harnessing free energy, and that box collects the energy, then sends it down through teck cables in the big conduits, successfully feeding power to an underground bunker?


Dun dun dun

Originally posted by topdog81
Just a guess-

Solar stations of some sort? The 'concrete pads' look very much like solar panels of some fashion IMO.
Would make sense for the extinguishers to be there as they(the panels) heat up dramatically.

Perhaps they are supplying power to cables in the trenches, as part of some sort of hidden perimeter sensor/detector/fence...

edit on 4-5-2013 by topdog81 because: grammer

Solar panels would be angled to 45 degrees to get the sun.

reply to post by FosterVS


From the satellite imagery it looks like they buried something beneath. The land is cleared away and the dirt looks disturbed in a tear shape pattern around the object.
It's a junction box for something bigger underground.
Maybe seismic equipment to sense upcoming vehicles?

Originally posted by randomtangentsrme
To me it looks like the back of a free standing electrical panel/ disconect. There are two uprights that have 3 pieces of uni-strut attached to them. Attached to the uni-strut is the electrical box, and the cable feed in and out (the large tubes attached to the square). Next to the whole thing is a fire extinguisher, which is good practice to keep near to electrical panels.
As to why it's there, I do not know.

I agree, it is a electrical panel.

kinda looks like a radiator/heat exchanger

Nice find. I'll go with the electrical panel theory.

I put the coordinates into my Bald Mountain GPS trails since that border location is very confusing. There are so many roads and border points there. This particular spot uses a camera that moves. I assume a pan/tilt/zoom. I only saw it move once (pan). That was when we had three vehicles in the immediate area. People don't believe me that it moves, but I have two witnesses, one being a writer at an aviation magazine. [Since these writers have to work bother sides of the fence, i.e. meet with vendors like Lockheed and such, I can't out the guy.] It totally freaked us out.

The cameras on Bald Mountain can't see this area since the mountain itself is in the way. The remote control camera has a solar cell, but I presume that scheme is shall we say suboptimal. So maybe they decided to power the camera in a more permanent manner.

There are other uses for such panels. Well heads and septic controls, but not likely here.

Getting back to the fire extinguisher, one has to presume there is a bit more on the panel that we can't see that could catch on fire. A simple switch and breaker wouldn't need an extinguisher since they are passive devices.

So I have two theories. If the panel was to power some pump, it could be the case that they have a booster (transformer) at the well head. But I doubt there is a well there.

The other possibility is they didn't feed 120VAC to the panel, but rather 48VDC. The code for piping around low volltage DC is less stringent than a 120VAC line. The limit for "safe" DC probably relates to the phone company settling on 48VDC in their backup circuitry. Some data center computers use 48VDC power as well. Assuming the camera gear is designed for 12VDC, they would use a small DC/DC converter, which in theory could catch fire. It seems kind of unlikely some camo dude will arrive in the nick of time to put out a fire before it spreads, but maybe there is some silly regulation that requires the extinguisher.

Over the years, people have looked at the size of the solar cells and the requirements for the camera, including a heater. The general consensus is the solar cell based system would have a very limited operating time, so a remote control to turn it on when needed would be required. So they have a VHF or UHF radio connected to the yagi antenna that is always on. But this radio could run on say 100ma. [Receivers are low power. Transmitting is another story.] Then if needed, they send a VHF/UHF signal to the radio to turn on the camera and the microwave dish to relay the video. They only turn on the camera once someone has tripped a road sensor (also battery powered).

A remote possibility is the incident I witnessed where the dude was driving his Raptor like he stole it to catch up with the guys by Baldie driving the washes (yes, not roads but washes) was enough to make the base think they need a better surveillance system in this location. Plus people in general have been poking around Bald Mountain in the last few years because it does get camo dude or even chopper action. The front and back gate are not as much fun.

If you get lucky, with the rats nest of roads and washes around Baldie, you might find yourself chasing the dude rather than the other way around. They have a hard time finding vehicles since some of the roads are in depressions deep enough to hide a car.

Taking a look at the photo it reminded me of a device we used in the army called a GSR (Ground Survalence Radar), these things can detect a mouse moving.

Found some pictures for you to compare them to yours. Enlarge the picture of the GSR and do a side by side

Let me know what you think.GSR

If it were a solar cell bank, you wouldn't have it vertical like that, now would you?

Does it look like they trenched in some power cables? How big would you say it was?

Just from looks alone, it could be a multistatic detection array or some new variant of Raytheon's microwave fencing, although it's not quite bulky enough. Maybe. The newer GaAs stuff is smaller.

reply to post by FosterVS


This is a KMZ type overlay I made of the Bald Mountain viewshed.
Bald Mountain viewshed kmz overlay for google earth
Of course, this is only as good as the DEM (digital elevation model) and my guess at the height of the large camera on Bald Mountain. The DEM is 1/3 arcsecond. But we don't know how much they can tilt the camera. However, since an additional ground based camera is in that area, I'm reasonably sure the large Baldocam can't see this area.

BTW, I noticed a consistent (over time) mark here. Maybe one of those radar calibration domes.
37°28'56.88"N 115°41'24.89"W

reply to post by FosterVS


Maybe its a test...
They are monitoring ATS and want to see what we think it is.
They may also time us to see how long it takes for us to get it right.

Originally posted by gariac
Nice find. I'll go with the electrical panel theory. I put the coordinates into my Bald Mountain GPS trails since that border location is very confusing. There are so many roads and border points there. This particular spot uses a camera that moves. I assume a pan/tilt/zoom. I only saw it move once (pan). That was when we had three vehicles in the immediate area.

Is this camera at or near this gate? Because I didn't notice anything, other than the usual signs, orange markers, chrome balls on a pole.

The cameras on Bald Mountain can't see this area since the mountain itself is in the way. The remote control camera has a solar cell, but I presume that scheme is shall we say suboptimal. So maybe they decided to power the camera in a more permanent manner.

I had kept in my mind as I visited each gate on my quad, that you had mentioned to me at some point one or more gates weren't viewable. So I made a point of looking towards Bald Mountain at every gate, to check. Except this one. Once I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures, the camo dudes started after me, so I bolted.

If you get lucky, with the rats nest of roads and washes around Baldie, you might find yourself chasing the dude rather than the other way around. They have a hard time finding vehicles since some of the roads are in depressions deep enough to hide a car.

I was chasing them out when I was done checking out the two mines in that area. They parked and sat beside the mysterious "flammable panel" while I visited two other gates.