Top Secret Transport--How it is REALLY done.

reply to post by minkmouse



Really, I do not know what was in the trailer still to this day. Since I saw nothing really unusual, there would be nothing unusual to photograph.
Someone asked if it "pulled" like it was only 500 lbs. Truth is, it was like pulling an empty trailer. If I stopped at a light, I would take off in fourth gear with no trouble. One of us had to remain awake with the truck at all times, so if I needed to stop for the bathroom, I had to wake up my team mate and we had to call the 800 number and report the stop and the reason.
Picking up in El Paso, TX, the load could have easily came out of Mexico, or it could have been delivered to El Paso from the Albuquerque area where there are a lot of Gov't facilities.
To clarify, the bills gave no Gov't entity for the shipper. It was listed as a business. The person who briefed us was in a car with Gov't plates. The bills also did not give a final destination....only the secure lot where we dropped. The drop was in Eastern TN...again a place near several Gov't sites (Oak Ridge--Nuclear facilities).
Modern trucks have the option of using an electronic device placed on the windshield to "pre-pass" us at scale houses. We have one of those transponders.
Neither of us have the endorsements that would allow us to carry explosives or radioactives (haz-mat) The bills were to be placed into an envelope and sent directly to the company upon delivery BEFORE we could be paid for the load.
I am at a loss as to what it was. Any guess would be pure speculation.

reply to post by Pajamathief


When this happens, go out to the road and just watch awhile. If all of the trucks have the same DOT number, then it is probably for some large project. May be Gov't, may be private. Different DOT numbers may just indicate a large number of loads delivered near the same time for a large company.

We were required to purchase and use two heavy padlocks. We were to keep one key and turn it in to the secure lot and give one to the briefing officer--it was over-nighted to the drop location. The locks were destroyed along with the keys upon delivery. We had to witness and sign statements to this effect.
We were paid our normal per mile wage.....17.5 cents per mile.
COULD have been organized crime, but I doubt it due to the type of security on this load. As for underground, tunnel-shipped loads, I am HIGHLY skeptical of this theory in general. We would have actually been better security than shipping a high-value load through tunnels that our enemies would obviously be watching....the same logic applies for military/ nuclear or military escorted loads. We are simply another lumbering semi load on the Interstate....65 mph top speed, slowing down on hills, stopping at truck stops, etc. The fact is, it looks totally legit. Anonymity is the very best security....our company has literally THOUSANDS of trucks on the road at any given time....50% are team trucks hauling loads across the country.
I have now hauled six loads like this...one from Pennsylvania to California that weighed in at a whopping 5 lbs.

reply to post by tonyb1968


Ok this was a High security operation not top secret. How do they get nuclear material accross the country? Easy, they(DOE) have trained security teams consisting of 6 guys, 3 vehicles. Here is an example. Two heavily armed guys in a suburban Lead. The truck with the material and 2 more heavily armed guys. Then a suburban and 2 more heavily armed guys follow. There is no route, usually different, no schedule either, it keeps rotating. For top secret stuff you'd need clearance. I had Confidential clearance when I was in the Navy(everyone has Confidential(the lowest clearance)). It is imparted when the FBI runs their background check if they don't find anything. Unless they did a background check without your knowledge(unlikely, they need a signature and fingerprints for the background check). Only one way to get those, only with your permission. So just a high security load, not top secret.
Troy Lawson

Sounds like a munitions run.They move around stuff like inert advanced components,tech and more.

reply to post by Stemo


You could be right but CNN would have already aired it. The flight 370 is basically all the air anymore its a bit too much imo but who am i. Did it cross your mind to peek at it i would of had to great read btw.

I'm just thinking how nice it would be to follow this fellow's journey on Google earth. I'm sure he could walk us through all the routes he took including finding those pit stop locations.

I've been told we may have a chase car for the first 250 miles on a load for a drug company, and my other half has had chase cars for a currency load.

High value loads can be anything honestly. I've had IV bags, pills, and even Victorias Secret clothes all have High Value Load tags, and have to drive a minimum of four hours before stopping.

AnteBellum
reply to post by tonyb1968

 

There is a whole new world going on underground, they've been digging for more then 50 years now.

Sounds like War of The Worlds

One should wonder why the government would engage a transport company in the delivery of sensitive materials. Are they out of official delivery transport? Or no one dared assume the risk?
That you were given "SPECIFIC instructions as to what we were to do if we felt we were being followed", sounded like a highly risky job. I would have refused the job. Lol. Besides, there was no telling if you were carrying explosives or radioactive materials. If you have to, at least carry a Geiger counter and insist on inspecting the goods next time, buddy. I wouldn't care if they were the government of the Universe. No one's life is worth 17.5c/mile.

Glad you made it alive this time, though.

reply to post by docnorton


I more worried about when it looks like war of the worlds!

I didn't mean aliens are digging underground, if that's what you inferred, the USA is.
They have become exceedingly efficient at it!
Matrix plug there, felt right. . .

Super interesting thread!

I agree, interesting. A couple things, as far as big rigs driving through weigh stations, that's pretty normal. Many companies, and probably all of the larger companies have what's called PrePass. It works by sending a signal ahead to the weigh station and the specifics are verified and the truck is either allowed to go through or called into the weigh station.

Inside the truck the driver sees either a red light or a green light, and I would think whether he gets to keep going or has to stop would probably be obvious based on the colors. Here's some more information on that www.prepass.com...

Also this might seem kind of rude OP and I apologize for that, but if you're really getting paid 17.5 per mile...ouch, that is amazingly low and I think it would be tough to even hit minimum wage at that rate. I'm assuming you mean as a team you're getting .35 cpm, which is still a bit low but I could see that for a newer team. Again, I don't mean that in a rude way and I apologize if it comes off that way.

reply to post by Kurius


They do it all the time. Companies transport everything from weapons to documents heading to military bases. I even know people that have hauled a trailer full of illegal substances across country to a burn facility.

reply to post by tonyb1968


Something from White Sands Missile Range, headed to Oak Ridge, perhaps so important or maybe security was a concern for. A. Particular reason, necessitating a random shipping truck rather than dedicated haulers.

Or, a very clever method of trafficking drugs which came over via Juarez. Either drug traffickers with a fake/real. govt plate, or a corrupt govt agent, working w them or alone.

Did you write down the plate number? Was it just one or two people or more? Did you ever see them together? i.e. trafficker hires someone to play a govt guy, someone loads it up (also part of traffiicking crew)... Etc.

Did you actually see cars follow you?

What was the phone number you called?

reply to post by tonyb1968


How were the padlocks destroyed? You had to watch, right?
If it were something from Kirtland AFb or Los Alamos. (Abq/Kirtland is approx. 270 mi from El Paso, Los Alamos an additional 75ish) there would probably be a reason it was in El Paso, rather than being shipped from Abq via I-40. HUGE amount of truckers in/out ABQ daily. Not as if it needed to be taken top El Paso to catch the bus.

So interesting! THANKS FOR POSTING, it's a refreshing treat: eyewitness, primary source, out-of-the ordinary.

Zaphod58
I've been told we may have a chase car for the first 250 miles on a load for a drug company, and my other half has had chase cars for a currency load.

We've had the same instructions, sans chase car, for loads out of a certain drug company, best known for their aspirin products. 250 mile min. travel before stopping to pee, let alone anything else. I think they calculate that on how far a car is likely to trail on a tank of gas before realizing it's not worth it and breaking off? Whatever the reason for that number tho, that was standard for than customer.

Same thing and enforced to absurd levels for physical security, even on our own main terminal yard..for baby food. Don't even ask, I don't know or understand, but dispatch showed me the fax'ed bulletin from the FBI one morning when I asked, just to see they weren't making us run circles for no good reason. Hijack and load theft was (and maybe still is) SO extreme on that one type of baby formula for the high dollar value, it was the single most guarded load we did on a regular basis at my last company.

All kinds of things get ridiculous (or seemingly so) levels of security, for all kinds of reasons, eh?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


They figure that most people trying to steal the load live in the area of the plant, and aren't likely to travel a long way to steal the load. It's usually not worth it to them.

Hell I had a Levis load that was considered high value once. It's weird what gets classified in that category.

reply to post by Zaphod58


No kidding on what gets that tag. Then, sometimes, you have companies that just qualify as brain dead.

They don't do this now, so it's not hurting anything to say. Hasn't been this way for years...but when I was with Covenant Transport, they did a large number of High Sec. loads for Eagle Freight, Fed-Ex and others. Team trucks make good security trucks, as you well know.

At the same time, on another side of the headquarters building in Chattanooga, sat some enterprising fellow who thought it would be BRILLIANT (brilliant!..I'm sure he thought) to port the truck tracking from dispatch to the public site so friends and family could easily locate the truck of their significant others. Why..you could type a truck number and have it give the same City/State which dispatch saw. When your inquiry returned the same City/State 3 times in a row, for a number to use, you could be certain it had stopped for an extended break or some other issue. Compare City/State with a truck stop book and.....

Well.... Security just wasn't always a universally considered factor, ya know?

years ago before I retired, I traveled about 50k a year as a network trouble shooter. I usually had an FM radio station on simply out of boredom during long trips. occasionally I would pass a semi, and my the radio would immediately turn to static, until I passed the cab, and the signal would revert to being clear as a bell.....always made me a little uneasy as to what I just drove by.