Dyson's Dock: Groom Lake classified musuem; also the Groom Lake aircraft burial ground

I can't vouch for the accuracy of what is on this webpage. I noticed the author managed to find two photos of F-117As in storage in the barns at Tonopah. However, I wouldn't call them public domain. I have no idea how the ideas made it off the page.

Now we do know that planes have been buried at Groom, but perhaps not as told here. Regarding a classified museum, well having T/S classification doesn't mean you get to see everything. There is still that nagging issue of "need to know."

www.urbanghostsmedia.com...

In addition to burial sites, there’s another top secret facility at Groom Lake for mothballed projects. Known as Dyson’s Dock, it is said to be housed in the lower bay of Hangar 18 and may be a sort of classified museum, where base workers can view retired aircraft that have not been publicly unveiled. But even these individuals aren’t, it has been claimed, cleared to view every craft in the dock.

Strong evidence also suggests that a number of as yet unacknowledged aircraft lie buried near the dry lake at Area 51. One former Groom Lake employee, speaking in 2001 on condition of anonymity, said he witnessed an earth-mover spend a day excavating a burial site in 1982. He said the wreck of a top secret aircraft had been stored for months in the ‘Scoot-N-Hide’ shed, a hangar near the taxiway designed to swiftly hide planes from orbiting satellites. According to the witness: “They put it on a flatbed truck and put it in a hangar. Then one day they scraped it off the flatbed into the hole and buried it,” he said. “They attached a cable to the aircraft and just pulled it off. The thing was shattered like an egg.”

Actually, this article seems to be reasonably accurate though it is just a rehash of previously published material. I have heard testimony from multiple sources (including former high ranking base command staff) about the "secret museum" in which examples of classified aircraft were preserved for VIP show-and-tell. A lot of crash debris and cancelled/completed projects were also buried at the site back in the days before it was subject to more strenuous environmental regulations.

reply to post by Shadowhawk

Is it true that this museum of sorts in a lower bay/area of beneath 'Hangar 18'..?

Or is that just speculation? Any other details regarding this, Shadowhawk?

I always enjoy reading both yours and Gariac's posts.. Ps, have you two ever met outside of ATS? Lol, I figure you'd both have loads of info and stuff to hash out amongst yourselves!

reply to post by weavty1


I can neither confirm nor deny meeting Shadowhawk. Nor can I confirm or deny handing him a New Balance 11 1/2 6E shoebox full of declassified CIA documents. ;-)

I see Lt. Col. Norman K. "Ken" Dyson isn't a Roadrunner member. He obviously qualified, and I didn't find anything about him hitting the earth in a pile of smoldering composite. Perhaps bad blood with someone in the group. As far as I can tell, Ken Dyson is still ticking. He is listed as "1938-" making him around 75.

Originally posted by gariac
I can't vouch for the accuracy of what is on this webpage.
Now we do know that planes have been buried at Groom, but perhaps not as told here. Regarding a classified museum, well having T/S classification doesn't mean you get to see everything. There is still that nagging issue of "need to know."

Strong evidence also suggests that a number of as yet unacknowledged aircraft lie buried near the dry lake at Area 51. One former Groom Lake employee, speaking in 2001 on condition of anonymity, said he witnessed an earth-mover spend a day excavating a burial site in 1982. He said the wreck of a top secret aircraft had been stored for months in the ‘Scoot-N-Hide’ shed, a hangar near the taxiway designed to swiftly hide planes from orbiting satellites. According to the witness: “They put it on a flatbed truck and put it in a hangar. Then one day they scraped it off the flatbed into the hole and buried it,” he said. “They attached a cable to the aircraft and just pulled it off. The thing was shattered like an egg.”

Thanks for the thread S + F. On the surface, I can't bring myself to believe that due to the highly secretive experiments that take place at Area 51, that it is totally plausible, to hide/bury all the stuff that didn't work, and to try and take it elsewhere for disposal could raise other concerns.
When you are testing advanced aviation vehicles like this:

And they crash and the project is canceled, they bury it on site. If it crashes off site, they send a clean up team to sanitize the area and bring as much back as they can find and bury/burn it.
Additionally, it is no secret, that a lot of the fuel and propulsion accelerants that are discarded, were/are routinely burned and buriedl In fact a federal law suit was filed to protect the workers exposed to the highly medically inflicted ailments which were incurred by the workes.

Former workers and widows of workers claim injuries resulting from illegal hazardous waste practices at Area 51 in the 1970s and 80s. Highly toxic resins were allegedly dumped into open pits and burned, and workers at the base were exposed to the fumes. The most prominant plaintiff is Helen Frost, window of Robert Frost, who died in 1988. An autopsy of Frost's body revealed high levels of dioxins and other carcinogens which the widow contends were caused by exposure to fumes at the base. In 1996, the lawsuit was dismissed by a Federal judge on the grounds of military's national security priviledge. That decision has since been appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and the appeal is pending.

]
Area 51 hazardous law suite

weavty1: My understanding is that the "Low Bay" is on the west side of Hangar 18, under or adjacent to the office spaces.

gariac: Ken Dyson is still around. I saw him in November when we shared the honor of inducting the late Dave Ferguson into the Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame.

ItDepends: Although the people who filed the lawsuit were pretty much screwed, the Air Force has done a lot to clean up the Groom Lake test site, and allow oversight by EPA inspectors.

Sorry to bump old thread but came across this wikimapia.org...

a reply to: BlackDog10

Talk about a bump! But yeah, that would be the lowbay of Hangar 18, aka "Dyson's Dock" as told by "some guy named Pete Merlin" Unless we all misunderstood what the lowbay of Hangar 18 is. :-P

I've always been far more interested in exactly when and why Hangar 18 was built. We have pictures of the Red Hat hangars, U-2 hangars, Baja hangars, photos of Hangar 8, all from the ground at Groom, but not of Hangar 18 and as far as I know, none of Hangar 17.

There's been suggestions on what H-18 was built for, by both Curtis Peebles who wrote the book "Dark Eagles" and by Pete Merlin, who seems to have the best civilian insight into Groom that I know of. But I've never read or heard of a definite explanation on when and what H-18 was built.

I believe the last thing guessed, that Hangar 18 is/was being used for (excluding the lowbay), was a general purpose maintenance hangar based on a satellite picture from Google Earth, showing a Janet 737 being towed from the hangar.

I'd kinda like to see what Shadowhawk and gariac have to say next...

a reply to: DesertWatchdog

That's a good question, actually. Perhaps it was built, as you say, as a general maintenance space, or perhaps it was for a specific (large) project. It's interesting in light of the new hangar at the south of the base which is almost as big as hangar 18!

According to the Groom Lake timeline on Dreamland Resort hangar 18 was built in the mid 1980s, it is visible in the 1988 satellite image. Additionally Tacit Blue's final flight is listed as Feb 1985, and this aircraft was destined for Dysons Dock.

a reply to: DesertWatchdog

Do you mean like this? thetruthbehindthescenes.files.wordpress.com...

DLR has a photo (albeit with poor zoom) of something classified outside H18, supposedly a Lockheed SST demonstrator.

A common rumour (key word) I've heard for H18's purpose is that it was built to mate two platforms together, think Blackstar.

I have seen the 737 picture and I do think it's a bit interesting that ti was that that ended up on GE, considering their awareness of satellite overflights.

originally posted by: gfad
a reply to: DesertWatchdog

That's a good question, actually. Perhaps it was built, as you say, as a general maintenance space, or perhaps it was for a specific (large) project. It's interesting in light of the new hangar at the south of the base which is almost as big as hangar 18!

According to the Groom Lake timeline on Dreamland Resort hangar 18 was built in the mid 1980s, it is visible in the 1988 satellite image. Additionally Tacit Blue's final flight is listed as Feb 1985, and this aircraft was destined for Dysons Dock.

I don't believe it was built specifically as a maintenance hangar (who knows). It just seems it, is/has, been used for that purpose at some point. Following history, most hangars/buildings at Groom were built, or moved to Groom, in support of a specific project.

(Side Thought)
Here's a stupid idea for a recent use of Hangar 18... IF... again, IF... there has been a fly-off for the LRSB contract, it would kinda make sense that one concept would use the Hangar 18 facilities, and the other would use the new hangar to the South. Now with the Government saying they plan to announce a winner of the contract in a few months, and the newest Hangar (seen here at the LazyG) just getting around to being finished... In my mind, it would make sense to have the newer hangar by 32L for general test purposes, for quick access to the active runway, 32R. I like gariac's assessment that it may be a kind of scoot-n-hide.

But yeah, that's just a random guess. There's folks here far more in-tune to what may be going on with all of that.

I've never seen the Janet-Hnagar 18 picture, does anyone have a link?

a reply to: BlackDog10

I think he means a photo of Hangar 18 from actually within the base, like some of the pictures you can find online of U-2 operations taken by base personel, rather than with a long-lens from Tikaboo. Although this might be more to do with the age of the hangar...

a reply to: DesertWatchdog

I'm not sure the timeline works for the new hangar to be used for the LRSB, general speculation is that the fly-off has already taken place, likely at Groom, of demonstrators, and the hangar hasn't been finished yet. The reason I shy away from the idea of a new scoot-and-hide hangar is that I don't know what new development would make the existing scoot-and-hide hangars no longer sufficient. What has changed since the 90s?

a reply to: gfad

Afaik the last photos taken on the ground at Groom that have been released are from Have Blue. That was before H18 was built (80s?... not sure).


LRS-B is supposedly Edwards. If the details and possibly an unveiling are soon to be released it wouldn't make sense to build a new hangar at A51 now.

Maybe the purpose as a scoot-n-hide is as an extra security measure. Instead of having to taxi back up to the current one if an aircraft lands towards the south.

a reply to: DesertWatchdog

Actually I am against the new new hangar being scoot and hide. Those things are just coverings, open on both sides. The other thing is the new new hangar is very tall. Since most modern aircraft don't have much of a tail, the extra height could be for overhead cranes. Someone else suggested a project with a plane on top of a plane. Like a revisited D-21.

There is a FAA rule on hangar door clearance. It is 10ft, but I don't recall if it is 10ft on both sides or if the door open has to exceed the wingspan by 10ft. But you could deduce the maximum wingspan of whatever goes in the new new hangar from satellite photos and the correct FAA clearance rule.

a reply to: gariac

I agree. Its far too unusually tall for it to just be any old hangar or scoot-and-hide.

The other thing is that spy satellites have existed for 40-50 years and the existing scoot-and-hide shelters have been sufficient in that time. What's changed? What new development has caused a requirement for such a huge scoot-and-hide shelter where one wasn't needed before?

originally posted by: gfad
a reply to: gariac

I agree. Its far too unusually tall for it to just be any old hangar or scoot-and-hide.

The other thing is that spy satellites have existed for 40-50 years and the existing scoot-and-hide shelters have been sufficient in that time. What's changed? What new development has caused a requirement for such a huge scoot-and-hide shelter where one wasn't needed before?

I'm not sure when it started, but oblique satellite imagery shows up once in a while on the interwebs. Usually what you see is orthorectified imagery, because you can stitch those images together, while the oblique imagery is a one-off.

My point is an oblique image could look into a shed with open doors. But this is a stretch to say this makes the new new hangar a scoot and hide.

Another stretch would be the new new hangar is an indoor RCS.
www.thehowlandcompany.com...

Maybe that would explain the taller building.

a reply to: gariac

The placement of the new hangar suggests a Scoot-N-Hide shed. It is much bigger than the old Scoot-N-Hide (Hangar 19). In fact, it is large enough to accommodate bomber or transport aircraft, or multiple small aircraft and servicing equipment. Besides being useful for quickly sheltering an airplane in the event of an approaching satellite overhead, it would also serve as a good place to work on an airplane in preparation for an upcoming flight. Unclassified aircraft at other bases sometimes sit on the "last chance" pad for days before actually flying.I'm not sure why this is necessary, as opposed to just doing the preparations on the parking ramp or in the hangar, but it happens.

The height of a hangar is irrelevant to its use. I have seen many hangars that are way taller than they need to be. They do not have any special accommodations for overhead cranes or mate/de-mate devices. It may simply be that they are built from a standard prefab kit, or that they have been selected to accommodate the widest array of possible aircraft configurations.

a reply to: Shadowhawk

I doubt they would make the hangar taller than required. Beyond material cost, height means wind loading, with cost not being linear.

Now if it is there to hide aircraft, it might be to hide ANY aircraft. That is, modern military aircraft don't have much of a tail, but if you wanted to hide a cargo plane, you would need a taller hangar.

I'm sure the base is aware of the few photoint faux pas, such as the PC-12 near the Yucca dry lake facility or the Beech near the old new hangar. (First implicating LMCO, second implicating Northop.) So hiding a cargo plane could prevent leakage of vendors.) However ATC and ADS-B leak vendor identification.

a reply to: Shadowhawk

Hi Shadowhawk, I always appreciate your insight. The main argument I see against the hangar being a scoot-and-hide is that there has never been a need for one at the south end of the base before, and what has changed? I think it's far more likely to be needed for extensive testing of a new platform away from the main base.

I quite like the idea of an indoor RCS testing facility, although why would it need to be so far away from the main base area? Also is there any need for that at Groom? Wouldn't it make more sense to have the RCS facility closer to the manufacturing facilities as theres no need for covert flight testing?

a reply to: gfad

Actually, there has long been a need for a Scoot-N-Hide near the southend, but for some reason they never built one (until now, perhaps). Also, as I said earlier, it could be used for preflight preparations of test aircraft (as hangar 19 was also used). I doubt that it is an indoor RCS facility or anechoic chamber (though I had suspected the last new big hangar of being exactly that. Like many things at the base, it remains a mystery. It's interesting that they just keep building more and more hangars.