Whatever They're Hiding, I'd Like to Know What It Is
Memorial Day at Area 51
By Skylaire Alfvegren
Bishop lived in Las Vegas for 29 years, where he worked as a private investigator. He left in 1989, the same year Lazar's claims began luring the curious out to the Little A 'Le' Inn. "A lot of interesting things are going on out here," Bishop says. "I'm using my background as a private investigator to see if I can help uncover some of the facts, some of the truth, about what's going on."
Some 70 attendees filed into the Rachel Senior Center to take in lectures with titles like "The ABCs of ETs" and "Scrutinizing Roswell, Area 51, Underground Bases and Pyramids." But the highlight of Bishop's conference is the nightly "skywatch." After dusk, those gathered bundle up against the chilly desert wind and point their binoculars in the direction of the mysterious base.
"I have spent a lot of time in the past in the desert, watching what goes on, and I do know that if you want to see anything, you can't go out during these events expecting to see the latest and greatest," remarked Rachel resident Bill Whiffen. "You need to spend a lot of nights in a row, waiting them out, with binoculars and cameras and a lot of patience. And you've got to stay up all night, because I've had sightings ranging from dusk to 4 a.m."
"It's crazy here from the end of April until the end of November," says my waitress. Rachel plays host to a number of non-Area 51-related events every year. It's a pit stop for The Great Race (featuring vintage cars motoring from Philadelphia to San Rafael, California) and well as the TSCO "Vegas to Reno," the longest off-road race in the United States.
But Rachel's biggest bang, sky-wise, occurs during Red Flag training exercises, when pilots from all over the world come to participate in mock combat training within the Nellis complex. Held over a period of weeks, aviation buffs and UFO enthusiasts alike converge on Rachel to watch the show. "If you have a scanner with the proper channels, you can often hear a voice saying 'That over there—doesn't exist' in reference to Area 51," Whiffen says. (The next Red Flag events are scheduled for August 5th to September 2nd).
"My interest piqued down here when I came for a Red Flag exercise two years ago and got a glimpse of the black triangle," Bishop tells me. (Impossibly gigantic, black triangle-shaped craft were first reported over European skies, and gradually made their way west—they have been reported over the skies of Southern Nevada since the 1990s.) "It was a HUGE craft. We saw it three nights in a row and got it on video. It had no sound, and the craft itself was about a half-mile across. I used the mountain peaks that it came through as reference points.
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