New Device(s) at Area 51 Border

reply to post by FosterVS


Great post and replies by members - I don't have anything useful to add except to say - firsthand visit and pics , replies by electricians or people with plenty of knowledge of electrical installations, - fantastic. Couple that with good o' fashioned speculation...love it! I'll be reading thru the rest of the replies. While there may be no answers, this is the kind of material I love to see on ATS!

Originally posted by intrptr
Weird about the fire extinguisher. Way out there, in a desert. What would need putting out? If that structure is burning how do you get close enough to the fire to grab the extinguisher?

It is there because of code or regulations says it should be there, common sense doesn't apply. Radar would not work since it doesn't move and we don't know if they are aligned up like a sensor field, but its design looks stupid for anything other than electrical conjunction.

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

Actually, I think all the gates are viewable, but there are parts of the road that are not viewable. I flagged this location as a spot where the Bald Mountain transponder interrogation could not be heard:
N37.49392 W115.69918
Obviously if you can't hear the ping, the location doesn't have line of sight, though the KMZ overlay says otherwise.

There are spots along this branch of the road where you can pull off. Looking at Google Earth, I think these two locations:
37°29'39.40"N 115°41'51.93"W
37°29'40.53"N 115°41'46.85"W

One is a campsite of sorts. I assume a dude has to camp out too you if you spend the night there. ;-)

reply to post by FosterVS

Until whatever they are building there is finished, they are keeping it from prying internet eyes by covering it with an Indian blanket...

My guess...

It looks like a sythetic aperture radar of some sort. No moving parts on those, just a grid of tiny antennas inside a compact flat panel package. Would make sense too. Any movement at all or changes from the normal background reflection should be detectable. Can't spoof that with camo or IR masking, etc. (Likely a newer variation of the thing the army guy mentioned in a previous post. If that's what it is, they really could detect a mouse moving out there.)

Might also serve double duty as one of those microwave people repellers. The high output mode from the emitter needed to do that might explain why it has a fire extinguisher on the side. (Possible experimetal equipment not quite reliable enough in that particular role. With people being nosy out there, that base might be a rather good location for field testing perimeter detection and defense.)

Closest thing I could find using my google-fu skills is this...
www.armada.ch...

Following up a bit...
More googling shows the ELM-2112 is a fairly close match if not the exact model.

reply to post by pauljs75

Can't spoof that with camo or IR masking, etc. (Likely a newer variation of the thing the army guy mentioned in a previous post. If that's what it is, they really could detect a mouse moving out there.)

How about when the wind is blowing? Shrubs waving in the breeze, the air filled with dust...

reply to post by intrptr


Shrubs they might see moving, but after having an install there for a while they probably know what that kind of movement looks like.

Dust typically doesn't give much of a radar return. You need something with metal, water, or something else fairly solid.

Rain may noise it up a little bit, but if you know what to expect and have fast enough computers with the right software to adjust for that - it's no biggy either. (In terms of processing hardware, the graphics card on the typical desktop PC is likely able to do it. Cheap pervasive OTS equipment. So all the clever stuff is in the software.)

Sure somebody could point a can at the thing and blind it with their own microwave emitter, but then every person monitoring the system on that base would know which sensor you're messing with and send a guard out to deal with you.

Synthetic aperture radar has been used for over three decades now, military wouldn't use it if it didn't work. (Only thing really new is that it's likely becoming more common as cost and understanding of the technology makes it cheaper.)

reply to post by pauljs75

Thanks for the tech rundown about radar.

To me it just looks like they covered whatever they are working on with a blanket. Maybe to keep the dust out or ?


The twin poles look like telescoping masts. Like these here maybe...

Telescoping masts

phone scanner?

Originally posted by gariac
I have my doubts on a buried propane tank. The BLM/DRI would take a dim view of that. And the fuel truck would be kind of obvious. But I could believe a hard wired system.

I am starting to think that perhaps there is a hard-wired phone(s) there, for the use of Medlin Ranch, to advise them when they need access to the restricted area to round up cattle, maintain their cattle watering spots, etc. I notice that the "trench line" also follows that road that heads from Medlin Ranch into the restricted area. And if they were going to that trouble, I am sure they have installed surveillance equipment as well, and power as well to operate the "phone(s)" and camera's. Or is this too simplistic.

EDITED TO ADD:
To all the radar/audio/microwave/whatever crowd - Medlin Ranch is close to the border, and have a herd of FREE RANGE cattle. FREE RANGE = onto the base as well. So movement sensors would get tripped every time a bovine intruder is within the restricted area. There is no "fence" as such to keep the cattle out, in fact you can see corrals/watering equipment INSIDE the restricted area.

ANOTHER EDIT TO ADD:
Perhaps there is a base policy or safety regulation regarding running hardwire voltage out to remote devices, that a fire extinguisher is required?

For those interested, here are some more pictures and coordinates where they were taken:
Bald Mountain Gate #5
37°30'22.27"N, 115°42'7.19"W



Radar(?) chrome ball on stick.
On border, between gates 5 and 6.


Bald Mountain Gate #6
37°30'22.04"N, 115°43'5.70"W


Looking roughly NE from gate #6, Hwy 375 in the distance.


My rig, camped out at Coyote Summit
37°34'17.36"N, 115°40'7.69"W

First it is visible with a clearing, so it isn't that high tech, and the world knows about it if ATS knows, so there may be similar tech elsewhere.

It could be a target or reflective panel for something. Can't imagine why the fire extinguisher is there, a metal object, attached to something that could be catching very hot frequencies. Therefore it isn't microwave-like, but to be sure, throw a piece of bacon at it and see if it sizzles; maybe it is neutron instead. Farthest guess would be it is a decoy or dummy extinguisher.

Farthest guess is that it is a temporal lens, a future movement catcher, catching the trespassers before they arrive. Second farthest guess is that it is a repelling technology. The parallel pipes suggest fiber optics, so it could be an ordinary, yet advanced phone station.

Homing beacon for the flying disk travelers?

Bald Mountain Gate #5 37°30'22.27"N, 115°42'7.19"W

I've never been to that gate, but it is quite some distance from the border on my Garmin mapsource map. Interesting that the actual sign is some distance from the orange poles. Same goes for gate 6. Both are about 0.4m from the border. I think the USGS map is accurate in that location. The USGS map doesn't reflect the land grabs in the 90s.

If I hadn't mentioned it, the radar balls are for the aid of the sky patrol. The door gunner needs to insure you have crossed the border before terminating with extreme prejudice and issuing the "clean up on isle 5" call over the radio.

Checking an older set of waypoints, I have this one named "bmhide", which I guess it where you can't be seen by the baldocam.
N37.49392 W115.69918

Medlin has a radio to talk to the base. From a person that got a ride with Steve to cross the border, it is described as "old." If I got that ride, I would have photographed the radio and probably logged the serial number. ;-) My guess is the base has a simple NFM frequency to talk to the guards. I can't see the base handing out expensive trunking scanners to infrequent users, let alone having to insure the radios get rekeyed as needed. All these trunking systems have patch capabilities, usually for phone calls, but I suppose for two-way land mobile radio as well.

I see the trench from the general area around BM to the ranch, but it could just be a pipeline to bring water to the ranch. The pipelines at Cedar Ranch are quite extensive. These ranchers try to use as much free water as possible. That would be a lot of infrastructure for the base to run on public land.

Just looking at the pipes, the third copper pipe (maybe) running up the side of it and the dust collection adhering to the joint points on the pipe. I would say it was a fuel point? Complete with in and out pipes connected to underground tank ans a breather pipe?? But no air strainer on top of pipe? Also the cabinet might be a electric pump.

Perhaps the spooks have run out of fuel at one or more times

Anyway that is what it looks like to me.

Thoughts??

Originally posted by CaptainBeno
Just looking at the pipes, the third copper pipe (maybe) running up the side of it and the dust collection adhering to the joint points on the pipe. I would say it was a fuel point?

Perhaps the spooks have run out of fuel at one or more times

Anyway that is what it looks like to me.

Thoughts??

That would make more sense to me than some radar installation. Who places a fire extinguisher next to a radar station? It must have some kind of fuel or high voltage.

reply to post by libertytoall


Yeah me too. After all, what with "health and safety" today you can't fill from a can! So who's gonna drive back to camp when the heat is on?? No, no one.

Defo a re-fuel point.

As others have mentioned that it is electrical of sorts. I would have to agree you can clearly see that there is 2 outer copper looking rods and in between them are aluminum grounding buss bars. Furthermore, you can also clearly see that it is grounded on the right side down on the bottom and top with a black wire. The rods serve as a stabilizer and a grounding. Whatever it is it's producing large amounts of electricity. It's probably some kind of pain field generator or possibly a seismic reader to detect movement on the ground for intruders. Any motion can be triangulated if there is a breach of their area, that's probably why you see little poles out there too with little aluminum or stainless steel balls on top of them.

The whole point of using Area-51 was because it was secret. Now that it's been in movies and TV shows, I'm betting there isn't anything super-secret there anymore. The government wouldn't allow it to be in "Independence Day" if they really kept secret stuff there.

It's a great decoy though ... with the guards and everything. In another 40 years we'll learn about where the secret stuff currently is being worked on.

it has a fire extinguisher on it. It heats up? Some sort of coils?

From looking at the picture the only thing in that area that I see that could catch on fire is the brush, so it seems that the fire extinguisher is there to put out a brush fire.That thing doesn`t look like it`s very flammable so I don`t think the fire extinguisher is there to stop it from burning.Whatever it is and whatever it does it seems to have a high potential for creating a wildfire or they wouldn`t have mounted a fire extinguisher on it.
I think it`s a laser or microwave reflector or generator.