An Opinion on Area 51 Underground

I searched quite heavily regarding this subject on ATS and found the original apparent debunking by FredT of John Lear's hypothesis. -> Original Thread by FredT

Aside from giving us some really sensational information on a wine tour and some basic history of the base I don't really see many points arguing the case.

For starters, you assume workings would entail the surrounding hills and mountain ranges and not into the visible bedrock itself. This is how normal mining operations would be conducted, and you have admitted that anything nefarious going on at Groom Lake would be kept "black" so I'm not sure how you can formulate an opinion on something that even to exist would be denoted.

It's still personal conjecture that anything underground at Groom Lake would exist. So beyond taking our beliefs at face value or taking another persons word for it, we will probably never know what truly exists there. All we can do is speculate. In my opinion this kind of speculation is a healthy way to form constructive and critical conversations between peers with the understanding that we are all working towards an end goal.

This is purely an opinion and statement, somewhat of an open letter to John Lear and a thank you to him for continuing this pursuit of the truth. I cannot concede to agree with all the theories presented by him, but as I said thought provocation in any sense is a good thing.

I have a background in Civil Construction, Underground Infrastructure, Western Archaeology, Anthropology and Sociology among others.

All I have tried to do is take in any relevant information and share an opinion or two.

The term “conspiracy theory” is therefore often used dismissively in an attempt to characterize a belief as outlandishly false and held by a person judged to be a crank or a group confined to the lunatic fringe. Such characterization is often the subject of dispute due to its possible unfairness and inaccuracy. - Wikipedia

The principle of Occam's Razor is often incorrectly summarized as "the simplest explanation is more likely the correct one". This summary is misleading, however, since the principle is actually focused on shifting the burden of proof in discussions. That is, the Razor is a principle that suggests we should tend towards simpler theories until we can trade some simplicity for increased explanatory power. - Wikipedia

First of all, I'm not referring to D.U.M.B (Deep Underground Military Bases) in this post, instead I am referring to underground infrastructure in general. Some people purport Groom Lake to be some kind of "tip of the iceberg" sort of installation, that what is seen above ground is a mere fraction of what is contained below.

I don't believe these theories, but I do believe that there would be a need for some kind of critical infrastructure to be available to the site. The site has it's own Sewerage Treatment and Desalination capabilities and would involve underground pipes to transport waste.

I believe that considering the base was worked on heavily as early as 1950 and with political and international pressures at the time and decades to come (Cold War) would have assuredly afforded some form of critical protection for the 1,000+ workers to inhabit the site. This would have also undertaken large scale works.

Researching numerous books and websites for references to mining, I can understand the need for a wheel house/lift house for housing the gearing required for an elevator shaft. Numerous buildings around the Groom Lake site could easily house such a thing, although the height of a wheel house is often designated by the depth of the mine itself.

I can offer a brief description of an example.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e28d1aa643db.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cb2939350ff4.jpg[/atsimg]

The building circled in green references the header or shaft of the mine, everything else in the photo is irrelevant as it is used in Mining and not Infrastructure Construction. As stated previously i realize the elevator house is a very tall structure, but this is only indicative of the depth of the level required to reach.

Those pictures reference the Tau Tona gold mine near Johannesburg, South Africa. It is currently the deepest known point on earth where man can venture safely, and was constructed over an approximate time span of 65 years. At its deepest point, the mine reaches 3.9km vertical (2.4 miles) underground, waste and spoil is shipped by train, ship and truck.

This is an example of the extreme kind, it shows that a massive mining operation can be undertaken whilst still providing a somewhat small constructive footprint.

Another example I would like to point out is the Greenbrier (Project Greek Island).

The Greenbrier is a Mobil four star and AAA Five Diamond Award winning luxury resort located just outside the town of White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States. - Wikipedia

In the late 1950s, the United States government approached The Greenbrier for assistance in creating a secret emergency relocation center to house Congress in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. The classified, underground facility was built at the same time as the West Virginia Wing, an above-ground addition to the hotel, from 1959 to 1962. For 30 years, The Greenbrier owners maintained an agreement with the federal government that, in the event of an international crisis, the entire resort property would be conveyed to government use, specifically as the emergency location for the legislative branch.

Although the bunker was kept stocked with supplies for 30 years, it was never actually used as an emergency location, even during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The bunker's existence was not acknowledged until The Washington Post revealed it in a 1992 story; immediately after the Post story, the government decommissioned the bunker. - Wikipedia

Something far more interesting..

The project used a cut-and-cover style construction method for the creation of the bunker, where material, known as spoil, is removed from the surface and carried away from the site to create a space in which the bunker is constructed. In the case of the Project Greek Island Bunker, the spoil was used in the expansion of a 9-hole golf course and as fill material in a runway extension project at the local municipal airfield. This prevented detection of the project. The Government used the West Virginia Wing construction of the hotel as a cover-up for the shelter. The shelter was made to house over 1,000 people, including members of Congress. A huge vault door was placed in the shelter created so that one person could shut the massive door.

This suggestion had me thinking about a recent Telescopic Photograph of the Groom Lake site.

For pavement designs, borings are taken to determine the subgrade condition, and based on the relative bearing capacity of the subgrade, the specifications are established. For heavy-duty commercial aircraft, the pavement thickness, no matter what the top surface, varies from 10 in (250 mm) to 4 ft (1 m), including subgrade. - Wikipedia

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fe255ed2fddb.jpg[/atsimg]

Credit to Dreamlandresort.com for the usage opportunity.

This area is at the far Westerly end of the range and has been designated a quarry/concrete plant.

I am merely suggesting that as has been explained previously and documented many times over that I can understand the need for concrete and varying grades of gravels etc for construction of buildings, roads, runways and other infrastructure due to the location of the site. However, the requirements for bedding for huge runways would easily exceed that of the current abilities of the "quarry site" pictured here.

All I am saying is that the construction of underground infrastructure would easily go hand in hand with building and servicing runways, roads, etc. More to the point, spoil could even be spread on a larger scale instead of mounds making it less visible to satellite and telescopic photography. I believe the site would have to have their own earth moving equipment, and I just wonder how easily they could conduct secretive construction without public knowledge.

Everything required for secretive construction here is available, equipment, man power, location, energy, and money. In the argument against, all I seem to have indicated to me is that it would not be "feasible" to construct underground here, and not much more beyond personal conjecture.

The Greenbrier example was a massive undertaking of underground construction conducted at the height of the Cold War and in the midst of tourists and locals without anyone knowing better.

If they don't want you to know, you never will. I would rather speculate and create discussion points rather than use less credible sources and evidence to support my theories.

Just in case you thought I wasn't going to reply in full, I will also list points and argue them individually.

1) You leave nearly decade long gaps in your assumption of Soviet era and USGS satellite photography which can leave quite a lot to the imagination. Considering during these periods multi million dollar aircraft were being tested here, there wasn't an instance for someone to dig a hole in the ground?

2) I would look further West to the site to the possibility of wheel houses/elevator shafts considering it seems logical that any underground workings would more than likely entail the usage of the "quarry plant". I nor anyone else that I have come across can say with any great certainty what hangars at Groom Lake contain, to speculate otherwise would be misinformation in my opinion.

3) I can indicate numerous points where power lines run into and out of the Groom Lake site, I would also suggest the site would have redundant power systems comprising of diesel generators which can be easily hidden when operating. - See below for example (Credit Dreamlandresort.com)

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/625fcffa9705.jpg[/atsimg]

In the end it comes down to personal opinion and fact over fiction, the fact is we as a civilization are capable of dramatic constructional feats as tiny as a micron, or larger than some countries. I cannot comprehend that some kind of operational underground infrastructure doesn't exist at Groom Lake and other installations. I'm not suggesting it's some kind of technological mecca or super city, underground. But to try and disregard the idea completely also is hard for me to accept. As I said earlier, i enjoy sparking the imagination of people and I guess we may never know what is beyond the great unknown until we are meant to and as a result, informative, respectful discussions cannot be denied.

1) When you have such a remote area, you don't need to go underground. Underground construction is to harden the site, not to keep prying eye away. Groom uses sheds to hide planes with satellites overhead. With 26 miles to Tikaboo, they don't care about local photography.

2) The base routinely hauls away dirt during construction. I have witnessed dirt haulers at both the back gate and the NTS gate 700. They would never spread the dirt. To do so requires a water truck and some means of compaction (sheeps foot). The result would be very visible. If you grubbed then spread, the altered vegetation would be obvious. If they spread without grubbing and compaction, the dirt would flow in the heavy rain.

3) I don't rule out a bunker or two, or even basement construction. I have plans from other construction in the Nellis range with basement facilities.

4) Sewage treatment is routinely done with open pits. The probably have grinder pumps and that's about it. The pits are easily seen from Google Earth.

5) Road construction in the desert is usually done with mining rock locally. The remoteness of the area requires this since hauling in material would take forever. I see no reason why the runway could not be constructed from local materials. Nevada has no rock shortage.

reply to post by plexus


Nellis Air Force Base and the many sub-parts do include underground areas that are very deep according to people who did in fact work there. I have never had confirmation of what or why. It is important to remember that they used to test underground nuclear explosions there. I have met people that worked there; but, none have ever said what and to tell you the truth having grown up around people that worked at Skunk Works and Rockwell, I doubt they know what the areas were to be used for (they were construction people).

People have posted what they claim to be pictures of the underground areas; but, I find it highly doubtful that they are correct as cell phones and cameras would not be allowed. As for why they would build underground, too many reasons. It is a testing area and it may be that things are tested underground so that they don't get into the atmosphere. I don't claim to know, never heard anything about aliens and have not know anyone who cared to go into detail and that includes multiple family members.

Personally I have always assumed that it is just what it was designed for, an area for testing technologies. I can tell you this much, the security means that you will be checked going underground and when you return.

reply to post by AQuestion


There has never been a nuclear explosion on Nellis AFB. Underground testing was done at the nearby Nevada Test Site and some offsite locations, but never at the base. There have been some radsafe experiments on the TTR and project 57 near Groom Lake, but these were not explosions.

Note that Nellis Area II is/was a nuclear bomb storage site. The bunkers and double fenceline are clearly visible on Google Earth. It is believes all the nukes from Area II are gone. OST (Office of Secure Transportation) has been transporting the material out of the area, which is what caused the reported "men in black" sightings in Bullhead City. and points south of Vegas.

Nellis construction goes out for bid. Hard to keep construction secret when you hire the private sector. People get paid, bills get audited, blah blah blah. I seriously doubt there is much of anything underground at Nellis. Now I have some building plans for Creech that have a basement here and there, so yeah, a bit of underground sure, but not anything of appreciable size. The bids go out on the internet, so the construction isn't secret.

Regarding Groom Lake, I doubt much there is underground. No need to do it, so it's hard to justify.

Originally posted by gariac
reply to post by AQuestion

 

There has never been a nuclear explosion on Nellis AFB. Underground testing was done at the nearby Nevada Test Site and some offsite locations, but never at the base. There have been some radsafe experiments on the TTR and project 57 near Groom Lake, but these were not explosions.

Note that Nellis Area II is/was a nuclear bomb storage site. The bunkers and double fenceline are clearly visible on Google Earth. It is believes all the nukes from Area II are gone. OST (Office of Secure Transportation) has been transporting the material out of the area, which is what caused the reported "men in black" sightings in Bullhead City. and points south of Vegas.

Nellis construction goes out for bid. Hard to keep construction secret when you hire the private sector. People get paid, bills get audited, blah blah blah. I seriously doubt there is much of anything underground at Nellis. Now I have some building plans for Creech that have a basement here and there, so yeah, a bit of underground sure, but not anything of appreciable size. The bids go out on the internet, so the construction isn't secret.

Regarding Groom Lake, I doubt much there is underground. No need to do it, so it's hard to justify.

When I was referring to Nellis I was really using it for the whole place. In fact the area is known as the Nevada Test and Training Range. Beyond that it is part of Edwards Air Force Base. Well, actually it is part of a triad that includes the design (Skunk Works, Boeing, JPL...), construction (Skunk Works, Boeing, subcontractors in the Palmdale area) and testing (Edwards and Area 51). People often just refer to the whole thing as Nellis because they can't say they work in Area 51 or some of the other parts.

As for how much is underground, quite a lot more than you think. Enough to keep people busy working underground there for years and years. In regards to the bids, some of them go out publicly, not all of them. It certainly sounds as if you have some familiarity with the place if you have plans for construction.

reply to post by AQuestion


Last time I checked, Edwards is Edwards, Nellis is Nellis, and the NTS is the NTS. The NTS controls its airspace. Anyone who has monitored radio traffic in the area knows this. There are MOUs between organizations to share some tasks and infrastructure. . Nellis is on the NTS trunk system.

Lots of uindergrouind stuff at the NTS. They have their own tunneling gear. You can willy nilly tunnel anywhere you want. Any groiund penetration risks acquafer contamination. The tunnels have considerable environmental studiies.

Hi all. Long time lurker, first time poster. I created an account simply to share the following information but cannot create a new thread until 20 posts, so I tried to find a related thread.


I own a tobacco store and have a wide variety of customers that I chit chat with if the store isn't busy. Earlier this week I had a regular come in and we got into a casual conversation like we usually do.

In the course of the conversation he told me he was a truck driver for a company called "tri state trucking" from 1975-1980. They delivered things to government/military bases all around the country.

He said on one occasion he actually delivered to Area 51. He did not know what he was hauling. He explained that when you arrive at the front gate/guard outpost/whathaveyou personnel from the base take your truck the rest of the way.

He was led into the guard tower where there was an entrance to an underground facility, which he described as basically like a huge cafeteria. He said there was a smorgasbord of buffet food available and it was full of people. There were tv's and even what he described as "hotel rooms" for visitors having to stay for extended periods.

At one end of the cafeteria he saw a doorway with a tunnel behind it that he assumed ran to the heart of the base. Obviously he was not permitted through that door. He said judging by the distance from the actual base that tunnel most likely had SOME kind of transportation system - rail, golf carts, who knows.

He said he ate a ton of food and took a nap in one of the rooms as he was there for 6 hours. A PA system alerted him that his truck was back at the entrance.


So that's my story. No aliens or ufo's were seen But I think it proves there is very likely extensive underground structures at area 51. I do believe his story was sincere, as I don't see a reason to fabricate something so "bland".

reply to post by foox73


What you were told is true to a point based on a truck driver I met who made deliveries to the base. You leave your truck at the gate, in this case Gate 700. A "qualified" driver takes over, bringing your truck to the base to offload. It can take a while, so they might feed you. But no big tunnels seen by the driver who has done this many times. The shacks are quite junky looking.

The operation at Groom Lake has plenty of former workers that can talk about the base. They all say there is nothing underground. And why should they go underground. The place is plenty secure as it is.

Security? Hey, if any place is going to be attacked, it is Creech. There are plenty of jihadists that would like the place leveled. That is where they are beefing up security. They are buying all the private land between route 95 and the base, kicking out the casino and the overpriced gas station. The RPA center is getting a new fence with a tamper detector and a cabling scheme to prevent it from being rammed by a vehicle.

Groom has a huge buffer zone. It is plenty secure.

I for one have believed since day one, that most of Area-51 is kept kept underground. When it was first built, the miltary probably knew that it was become difficult to keep top secret air-craft, UFO's and other projects secret, with the rapid growth of technology. So shortly after it was built, deep miniing operations were put in to move stuff underground. In my honest opinion, hiding things underground is the best way to hide it. Although it's not impossible, it makes it difficult for satellites to get a decent read on something, depending on the depth it's searching. If Area-51 is known of for housing as much as press claims it does, then I would imagine that the depths of the base are pretty deep.

The more I think bout it underground instillations at places like groom lake don't make too much sense. You put stuff underground to protect it from bombardment usually. There's nothing for a foreign military to blow up of value at groom. two or three prototypes that can't even be used as a weapon against them yet? They would probably target bases that are used to actually house the aircraft squadrons and wings. Places like that I would make sense to have underground hangars for the planes that are nuke proof. So we could get our air craft up and patrolling after a nuclear strike on the homeland.

But places like Groom lake would have no need for any of this. A shack that obscures the aircraft from view will work just fine.

classic misdirection then - you hide something in the last place that it'll be looked for.
There's so much empty space above ground - why would they dig underground? precisely because they can, and it's the best way of keeping something very secret. We already know that the place is very secure from anyone attempting to get in above ground, but with satelites these days, you'd see too much if it was all above ground, so it makes sense that there's a lot below ground. You might look at the surface buildings, and see a few 100sqft of stuff, without realising that there's an entrance to several thousand sqft of space, on several layers deep underneath.

Originally posted by CrastneyJPR
classic misdirection then - you hide something in the last place that it'll be looked for.
There's so much empty space above ground - why would they dig underground? precisely because they can, and it's the best way of keeping something very secret. We already know that the place is very secure from anyone attempting to get in above ground, but with satelites these days, you'd see too much if it was all above ground, so it makes sense that there's a lot below ground. You might look at the surface buildings, and see a few 100sqft of stuff, without realising that there's an entrance to several thousand sqft of space, on several layers deep underneath.

Nobody has an unlimited budget. You spend money on something stupid, oh say like an underground bunker to hide an aircraft on a base far from public access, you don't get to spend that money elsewhere.

Satellites don't hover.They can be tracked and the asset placed in a scoot and hide shed while the satellite is overhead. The Red Eagles at the TTR got in trouble because they were creating nasty messages for the Soviet satellites to see. You're suppose to show a bit of restraint.

My opinion is that it is nothing to do with aliens, just secret government aircraft

"Satellites don't hover"

Geosynchronous orbit?

Originally posted by davjan4
"Satellites don't hover"

Geosynchronous orbit?

Well I suppose if you want to observe some equatorial banana plantations, then satellites do hover However, that is not the case for Groom Lake. PHOTOINT is done in sweeps.

The big advantage of UAVs is that you can hover, as long as the enemy is kind of 3rd worldish. Anything hover over Groom Lake would be turned into Swiss cheese.

Originally posted by gariac
... Anything hover over Groom Lake would be turned into Swiss cheese.

Hey Gariac, as always thanks a lot for your insight!

I was wondering if Groom Lake has SAMs? Have you seen such constructions on site? Do you think they have missile defense or "just" air defense (helicopters and jets) ?

reply to post by Dalbeck


You'd have to get Shadowfax in the conversation for air defenses. Do I think they have a MANPAD or two laying around? Yeah, probably. From Google Earth and panoramas, I don't see anything that looks like air defense. But you couldn't see AAA (anti-aircraft-artillery) from Google Earth or Tikaboo.

You can take a "lesson" on spotting this kind of stuff from
geimint.blogspot.com...

So uh what was some of the mean spirited messages we were leaving for Russian satellites. Just curious. Sounds pretty cool. Also, how'd they leave them? line up things on the ground to spell words?

I remember reading the Skunk Works book by Ben Rich where they had short stories from the pilots of the SR-71. I especially liked the one where they flipped the french mirages the bird when caught flying over their airspace and hit the afterburners in response to their demands for their authorization to fly over france.

reply to post by plexus


I think the whole area 51 thing is a put on job to divert our attention from where the real conspiratorial activities are going down.

I find it sad and annoying that people with limited experience with area 51 somehow think they know everything there is to know about that place based on rational probabilities alone. As though everything in the world functions rationally. Headlines...it does not!

If some people say area 51 serves as both a military test facility and as a ufo storage area, I have no problem believing them. Sure area 51 is very remote but still you would not want the people working above ground with only a secret clearance getting involved with those that work underground with a top secret clearance or better.

Do I think area 51 is the mecca of ufology? No, that would be dulce nm!

People who are interested in the truth spend lots of time doing research online and buying/reading books and videos. Those who only have a superficial interest spend their time here debunking.

Hell even the deceased former chief of lockhead skunkworks ben rich said on his deathbed confession:

"We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity….. anything you can imagine we already know how to do.”

Why would someone that important say something like that on his deathbed confession if there was no substance to the allegations of ufos at area 51? Does not make sense!