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Originally posted by MCory1
Preamble: This is a long post. And it intentionally makes no claim one way or another about any of the reported happenings at Archuleta Mesa, more commonly known as the "Dulce Base." This is merely an attempt to determine whether or not it is reasonable to think that an installation could have been built at the time. I apologize for the length, but I could not think of any way to split it up as Gazrok did with Roswell, and while some of it is rather editorial, the majority of it is relevant. Any comments are most welcome; if you find any flaws, please don't hesitate to let me know. I hope that if nothing else this stimulates some more serious thought into the area, and any criticism is appreciated. So, without further ado...
Desert Secrets
There’s something happening here;
What it is ain’t exactly clear…
—Buffalo Springfield, "For What it's Worth"
In the ufology field, like any other research area, the material falls in a large spectrum of publicity. At one end, there’s the Roswell incident of July 6th, 1947, where the military allegedly seized a crashed space craft. There’s the Travis Walton abduction case, popularized in the 1993 movie “Fire in the Sky.” The abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in late 1961 has received lesser fanfare, but is still a favorite among believers. There’s the lesser known “Battle of LA,” where the military fired on an unknown object in the early morning of February 25th. At the other end of the spectrum lay the innumerable eyewitness accounts and tales that never receive any attention at all, and often are debunked without more than a cursory glance.
Somewhere in the midst of this spectrum, towards the more quietly spoken end, lies the story of the Archuleta Mesa, commonly referred to as the Dulce Base (due to Dulce, NM being the nearest town.) While a detailed account is beyond the scope of this paper, a brief overview of the story as accounted on AboveTopSecret.com is in order.
Under the Archuleta Mesa in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, the United States military maintains an extremely confidential, multi-level facility dedicated to research of extraterrestrial beings and technology. A large number of extraterrestrial beings are said to reside in this facility, from various races and worlds. In 1979, there was a revolt of the aliens, and the majority of the human workforce was killed. While the base was closed for a brief period of time, it was eventually reopened and operations recommenced.
Regardless of the validity of the story, it does make for excellent reading. Aliens, government conspiracies, secret bases, it’s all the bread and butter of any science fiction writer. Throw into the mix the various accounts of cattle mutilations, mysterious helicopters loitering in the area, and strange lights in the skies. You now have a plot worthy of any Hollywood production team.
While the story of the aliens being held and having a small war is farfetched, prior to dismissing it out of hand one of the more mundane aspects of the story needs to be considered. Is it even reasonable for such a base to have been constructed? In order to determine the plausibility of such construction, there are several variables that must be considered.
The Archuleta Mesa, as stated above, is situated in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. It is definitely tall enough to maintain a large internal structure, standing at approximately 9,236 feet in elevation. However, the mesa stands on an intrusion of augite andesite (granite) over 300 feet thick. While this in itself does not necessarily preclude an installation being built to any depth below the mesa, it would make for the extension of the base below this sill rather difficult.
Originally posted by MCory1
Thanks for the link Azathoth, I appreciate it. Unfortunately though it poses the same problem I've had with lots of research I've done into UFO's and other, more mundane topics: timeframe. It seems most of the statistics for measuring the drug trade start in the 1980's. Of course, this is probably due to the increase in public awareness at the time, and a higher demand for the government to do something about it. I did find some arrest information for the 60's, but as you state regarding your link, that only shows a small subset. Not everyone involved in the drug trade was arrested.