As long as you don't look you will never see

Thursday, June 26, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Knappster: Terrorism panic goes too far at Area 51


By George Knapp


Chuck Clark wasn't even home when law enforcement personnel assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force roared up to his rented trailer in tiny Rachel, Nev., the other day. He didn't know about the still-sealed search warrant until he returned from a road trip and found that his files, photos and computer had been seized.

"They didn't ransack the place. Overall, it was pretty professional," Clark says. "But it looks like they took a lot of stuff that wasn't covered in the warrant."

Is Chuck Clark a terrorist? In the world that existed before the attacks of 9-11, the answer would be no. These days, the answer is less clear. Is he a pain in the ass? There seems to be little doubt about that.

"Of course I'm a pain in the ass. I know it, and they know it, but I'm not a terrorist," he says.

Clark moved to Rachel about 10 years ago, drawn, in part, by the stories about a mysterious military base now known the world over as Area 51. Before 1989, few people outside Nevada had ever heard of the place. A series of TV news reports produced by this humble reporter in 1989 , rightly or wrongly, put Area 51 on the map. The reports included sensational allegations about Area 51 being home to spectacular technology, alien technology, some said.

In the ensuing years, almost every major news organization in the world has made a pit stop at Rachel. Thousands of print and broadcast news stories have been generated, along with documentaries, books, magazine features, websites, movie screenplays, TV dramas, songs, poems, T-shirts, bumper stickers, greeting cards, ashtrays, posters, refrigerator magnets, Christmas ornaments and Conspiracy theories. There are bars named for Area 51. Rock bands, too.

Chuck Clark was as intrigued as everyone else. He retired from a job at a California observatory and moved to Rachel. He immediately fell in love with the wide open spaces, the rural lifestyle and the continuing mystery about a massive military facility that didn't really exist, according to the military. Armed with sophisticated cameras and long-range lenses, he began to document the true story of the nonexistent base. His daily desert forays and excellent photos were eventually compiled into a book.

Along the way, Clark has had numerous run-ins with base security. Unlike many of the gung-ho yahoos who wanted to violate the perimeter and ignore the ominous warning signs, Clark says he has always operated lawfully. He takes his photos from public land. He doesn't tell tall tales about E.T. commandos who abduct milk-carton kids for use in human-alien hybridization experiments. He doesn't claim to have personal knowledge of almond-eyed Martians cooking up earthlings in giant underground vats at Groom Lake or plots by the United Nations/New World Order to put us all in concentration camps.

His interest in Area 51 is more mundane, but just as compelling. The Pentagon has repeatedly denied the existence of the base, even though it has been documented in undeniable detail. Clark finds that intriguing. Millions of people around the world feel the same way. The budget for Area 51 is shrouded in secrecy but there is little doubt that billions of public dollars have been invested at the site. It is the testing ground for the most exotic aircraft on the planet. (This planet, anyway.) Employees say they are required to sign away their constitutional rights when they take the job. No kidding, there is a form letter they must sign. On any given day, they arrive at the base in unmarked planes or in buses with blacked-out windows. Federal lawsuits filed by unnamed workers allege that base managers have routinely disposed of toxic or hazardous materials by dousing tons of waste with jet fuel

before burning the poisonous garbage in open pits, a practice that generates huge clouds of foul fumes and contaminates the lungs and tissue of employees, many of whom are now dying of unknown diseases.

If you are one of those people who still insist that the public has no business asking questions about Area 51, then I don't know what to say to you. Yes, it is a classified, black budget facility, (existent or not), and there is no doubt that the mission of the base is important, but those are your dollars out there. Presidents Clinton and Bush have issued yearly executive orders that exempt "the operating facility near Groom Lake" from all environmental regulations. Congressional oversight is infrequent and incomplete because few members of Congress have ever been allowed to set foot on the base. From what we've been told, the commander of Nellis Air Force Base doesn't have a high enough clearance to drop by, even though the base is technically part of the Nellis Range. (He must be a security risk, you think?) So who is supposed to watch the place?

This brings us back to Chuck Clark. Clark is on the ground, you might say. He lives out there and probably knows the perimeter of Area 51 better than anyone. On occasion, he tells Knappster what's happening in Rachel. Back in mid-May, he told me that security personnel at the base had been planting an unusual number of sophistcated sensors on obscure dirt roads that lead to the facility. The sensors are on public land, he said, several miles from the legally prescribed perimeter. It sounded intriguing.

In mid-June, your flawed but intrepid journalist asked Clark to demonstrate his claimed knowledge. It took him less than half an hour to pinpoint two of the devices, hidden under dirt and sagebrush at locations that were miles away from the posted border of the base. Using something called a frequency counter, he drove past the sensors, which triggered them, then pointed them out for the camera. He carefully brushed away the soil cover, described the devices, then covered them back up. He also warned us that security personnel were on the way.

Fifteen minutes later, as we were driving back toward Rachel, we encountered a duo of "Cammo Dudes" speeding toward us in an unmarked truck. They pulled off the dirt road, allowed us to pass, dutifully jotted down our license plate numbers, but didn't hassle us in any way. I asked Chuck afterward what the point was.

"It's overkill, in my opinion. They have a 25-mile buffer zone around the base. There's no way Al-Qaeda or anyone could get anywhere near the facility itself. But they put these things way out here on public land and they don't care if it's a camper or hunter or photographer or four-wheeler. There's a plane crash site up this road and a lot of people like to research those things. There are Native American archaeological sites too. Not everyone who comes out here is interested in the base, but if you drive up here, they send out these guys in trucks and they intimidate people. It's not right."

That reasoning doesn't impress the law enforcement authorities assigned to pursue such matters. Their position is that by handling the sensors, he effectively disabled them. It could be argued that he damaged government property. One day after our last visit with Clark, Knappster received a phone call from a friend in law enforcement. "So, what the hell are you doing up at Area 51?" was the central question of the conversation.

Two days later, six cars filled with FBI agents, Air Force Office of Special Investigations operatives and local cops converged on Chuck Clark's trailer. Their search warrant authorized them to take his computer, thousands of photos and any other records that seemed pertinent. As mentioned earlier, the lawmen were attached to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, although no one will officially confirm this tidbit. My TV report about the incident was picked up by other news outlets, including an Internet megasite called the Drudge Report.

By the time I arrived at work Monday morning, I had dozens of e-mail messages sent by Drudge devotees from all over the country. The missives were mostly pro-Chuck. The writers vigorously defended his right to do whatever he wants on public land. Many of the writers decried our country's collective loss of personal liberty since 9-11 and described the law enforcement response as ridiculously excessive. Others were harsh in their condemnation of Mr. Clark, this reporter and my employer.

"Maybe the government has sensors around that area to make sure that unauthorized people who want to harm America do not enter the area. They are trying to protect this great country. Did you ever consider this?" one angry critic wrote. "Hikers, photographers, etc., who have nothing to hide should not care if their license plates are captured by sensors. If Area 51 is supposed to be top secret, responsible media organizations would help maintain its privacy. There are people out there who want to harm America. Why do you help them?"

Where to begin. First of all, Area 51 isn't much of a secret. That cat slipped out of the bag more than 14 years ago, whether anyone admits the place exists or not. Second, it isn't unpatriotic to report what our government does with our money, even when we are assured that it's a matter of national security. After all, federal authorities have used the "national security" excuse to hide numerous instances of high crimes, constitutional transgressions, illicit drug operations, arms deals, assassinations, chemical and biological experimentation, bombing campaigns, buggings, break-ins and blow jobs. Put it this way--if they truly didn't want to attract a lot of attention to Area 51, they probably shouldn't have told the world that the base didn't exist. It's hard to imagine a response that could have attracted MORE attention. If they want to know why so many people are fascinated with the base, they should ask whatever Pentagon PR genius who first advised them to pretend the oft-photographed facility was only a mirage.

Third, and most importantly, it most certainly is NOT our patriotic duty to roll over and say thank you to anyone who flashes a badge. Unlike the majority of my new e-mail pen pals, I still think of the FBI as the good guys. I'm guessing that some of these agents have expressed personal reservations about their post-9/11 role. They know that disagreeing with the government isn't the same as treason. They surely cannot believe that arrests without

charges, incarceration without sentences, interrogations without representation, wiretaps without warrants and the indiscriminate evaluation of credit reports, library records and other personal information about private citizens is just part of the job, justified because of our paranoia about Osama bin Laden and his brethren. But that's what's developed elsewhere.

Chuck Clark is undoubtedly a pain in the ass. But I'll bet the issue of his potential criminality in exposing secretive military sensor devices (on public land) could have been handled in a less heavy-handed manner. I mean, come on, the Terrorism Task Force? (Chuck admitted to me that if someone had told him to back off, he would have conceded.) Is it okay for the military to install spy gear on public land? Knappster put that question to the BLM...twice...but that agency is still scrambling to compose an answer. Put it this way: If a private citizen encounters devices of unknown origin while on open, accessible acreage, should that person drop to all fours and assume he or she has commited a terrorist act? If you or I accidentally kick one of these hidden transmitters, should the feds be able to seize our Macintosh and photos of Aunt Betty? Is it public land or not?

If the folks who run Area 51 truly need all that public land, they should do what they've always done--steal it--then wait for Congress to legitimize the acquisition. The Cammo Dudes who responded to the sensor warnings were simply doing their job. The Terrorism Task Force guys who raided Chuck's trailer were doing their jobs. But I will bet that somewhere in the back of their minds, they were wondering if their field trip to Rachel was a worthwhile expenditure of their time and energy, especially in light of the actual terrorism threats that face our country.



If only there were evil people somewhere
insidiously committing evil deeds,
and it were necessary only to
separate them from the rest of us
and destroy them.
But the line dividing good and evil
cuts through the heart of every human being.
And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn
©†ƒ……•™¼‡_Original_Message_¾€š½ž¢«»¬ï°©

Thursday, June 26, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Knappster: Terrorism panic goes too far at Area 51


By George Knapp


Chuck Clark wasn't even home when law enforcement personnel assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force roared up to his rented trailer in tiny Rachel, Nev., the other day. He didn't know about the still-sealed search warrant until he returned from a road trip and found that his files, photos and computer had been seized.

"They didn't ransack the place. Overall, it was pretty professional," Clark says. "But it looks like they took a lot of stuff that wasn't covered in the warrant."

Is Chuck Clark a terrorist? In the world that existed before the attacks of 9-11, the answer would be no. These days, the answer is less clear. Is he a pain in the ass? There seems to be little doubt about that.

"Of course I'm a pain in the ass. I know it, and they know it, but I'm not a terrorist," he says.

Clark moved to Rachel about 10 years ago, drawn, in part, by the stories about a mysterious military base now known the world over as Area 51. Before 1989, few people outside Nevada had ever heard of the place. A series of TV news reports produced by this humble reporter in 1989 , rightly or wrongly, put Area 51 on the map. The reports included sensational allegations about Area 51 being home to spectacular technology, alien technology, some said.

In the ensuing years, almost every major news organization in the world has made a pit stop at Rachel. Thousands of print and broadcast news stories have been generated, along with documentaries, books, magazine features, websites, movie screenplays, TV dramas, songs, poems, T-shirts, bumper stickers, greeting cards, ashtrays, posters, refrigerator magnets, Christmas ornaments and Conspiracy theories. There are bars named for Area 51. Rock bands, too.

Chuck Clark was as intrigued as everyone else. He retired from a job at a California observatory and moved to Rachel. He immediately fell in love with the wide open spaces, the rural lifestyle and the continuing mystery about a massive military facility that didn't really exist, according to the military. Armed with sophisticated cameras and long-range lenses, he began to document the true story of the nonexistent base. His daily desert forays and excellent photos were eventually compiled into a book.

Along the way, Clark has had numerous run-ins with base security. Unlike many of the gung-ho yahoos who wanted to violate the perimeter and ignore the ominous warning signs, Clark says he has always operated lawfully. He takes his photos from public land. He doesn't tell tall tales about E.T. commandos who abduct milk-carton kids for use in human-alien hybridization experiments. He doesn't claim to have personal knowledge of almond-eyed Martians cooking up earthlings in giant underground vats at Groom Lake or plots by the United Nations/New World Order to put us all in concentration camps.

His interest in Area 51 is more mundane, but just as compelling. The Pentagon has repeatedly denied the existence of the base, even though it has been documented in undeniable detail. Clark finds that intriguing. Millions of people around the world feel the same way. The budget for Area 51 is shrouded in secrecy but there is little doubt that billions of public dollars have been invested at the site. It is the testing ground for the most exotic aircraft on the planet. (This planet, anyway.) Employees say they are required to sign away their constitutional rights when they take the job. No kidding, there is a form letter they must sign. On any given day, they arrive at the base in unmarked planes or in buses with blacked-out windows. Federal lawsuits filed by unnamed workers allege that base managers have routinely disposed of toxic or hazardous materials by dousing tons of waste with jet fuel

before burning the poisonous garbage in open pits, a practice that generates huge clouds of foul fumes and contaminates the lungs and tissue of employees, many of whom are now dying of unknown diseases.

If you are one of those people who still insist that the public has no business asking questions about Area 51, then I don't know what to say to you. Yes, it is a classified, black budget facility, (existent or not), and there is no doubt that the mission of the base is important, but those are your dollars out there. Presidents Clinton and Bush have issued yearly executive orders that exempt "the operating facility near Groom Lake" from all environmental regulations. Congressional oversight is infrequent and incomplete because few members of Congress have ever been allowed to set foot on the base. From what we've been told, the commander of Nellis Air Force Base doesn't have a high enough clearance to drop by, even though the base is technically part of the Nellis Range. (He must be a security risk, you think?) So who is supposed to watch the place?

This brings us back to Chuck Clark. Clark is on the ground, you might say. He lives out there and probably knows the perimeter of Area 51 better than anyone. On occasion, he tells Knappster what's happening in Rachel. Back in mid-May, he told me that security personnel at the base had been planting an unusual number of sophistcated sensors on obscure dirt roads that lead to the facility. The sensors are on public land, he said, several miles from the legally prescribed perimeter. It sounded intriguing.

In mid-June, your flawed but intrepid journalist asked Clark to demonstrate his claimed knowledge. It took him less than half an hour to pinpoint two of the devices, hidden under dirt and sagebrush at locations that were miles away from the posted border of the base. Using something called a frequency counter, he drove past the sensors, which triggered them, then pointed them out for the camera. He carefully brushed away the soil cover, described the devices, then covered them back up. He also warned us that security personnel were on the way.

Fifteen minutes later, as we were driving back toward Rachel, we encountered a duo of "Cammo Dudes" speeding toward us in an unmarked truck. They pulled off the dirt road, allowed us to pass, dutifully jotted down our license plate numbers, but didn't hassle us in any way. I asked Chuck afterward what the point was.

"It's overkill, in my opinion. They have a 25-mile buffer zone around the base. There's no way Al-Qaeda or anyone could get anywhere near the facility itself. But they put these things way out here on public land and they don't care if it's a camper or hunter or photographer or four-wheeler. There's a plane crash site up this road and a lot of people like to research those things. There are Native American archaeological sites too. Not everyone who comes out here is interested in the base, but if you drive up here, they send out these guys in trucks and they intimidate people. It's not right."

That reasoning doesn't impress the law enforcement authorities assigned to pursue such matters. Their position is that by handling the sensors, he effectively disabled them. It could be argued that he damaged government property. One day after our last visit with Clark, Knappster received a phone call from a friend in law enforcement. "So, what the hell are you doing up at Area 51?" was the central question of the conversation.

Two days later, six cars filled with FBI agents, Air Force Office of Special Investigations operatives and local cops converged on Chuck Clark's trailer. Their search warrant authorized them to take his computer, thousands of photos and any other records that seemed pertinent. As mentioned earlier, the lawmen were attached to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, although no one will officially confirm this tidbit. My TV report about the incident was picked up by other news outlets, including an Internet megasite called the Drudge Report.

By the time I arrived at work Monday morning, I had dozens of e-mail messages sent by Drudge devotees from all over the country. The missives were mostly pro-Chuck. The writers vigorously defended his right to do whatever he wants on public land. Many of the writers decried our country's collective loss of personal liberty since 9-11 and described the law enforcement response as ridiculously excessive. Others were harsh in their condemnation of Mr. Clark, this reporter and my employer.

"Maybe the government has sensors around that area to make sure that unauthorized people who want to harm America do not enter the area. They are trying to protect this great country. Did you ever consider this?" one angry critic wrote. "Hikers, photographers, etc., who have nothing to hide should not care if their license plates are captured by sensors. If Area 51 is supposed to be top secret, responsible media organizations would help maintain its privacy. There are people out there who want to harm America. Why do you help them?"

Where to begin. First of all, Area 51 isn't much of a secret. That cat slipped out of the bag more than 14 years ago, whether anyone admits the place exists or not. Second, it isn't unpatriotic to report what our government does with our money, even when we are assured that it's a matter of national security. After all, federal authorities have used the "national security" excuse to hide numerous instances of high crimes, constitutional transgressions, illicit drug operations, arms deals, assassinations, chemical and biological experimentation, bombing campaigns, buggings, break-ins and blow jobs. Put it this way--if they truly didn't want to attract a lot of attention to Area 51, they probably shouldn't have told the world that the base didn't exist. It's hard to imagine a response that could have attracted MORE attention. If they want to know why so many people are fascinated with the base, they should ask whatever Pentagon PR genius who first advised them to pretend the oft-photographed facility was only a mirage.

Third, and most importantly, it most certainly is NOT our patriotic duty to roll over and say thank you to anyone who flashes a badge. Unlike the majority of my new e-mail pen pals, I still think of the FBI as the good guys. I'm guessing that some of these agents have expressed personal reservations about their post-9/11 role. They know that disagreeing with the government isn't the same as treason. They surely cannot believe that arrests without

charges, incarceration without sentences, interrogations without representation, wiretaps without warrants and the indiscriminate evaluation of credit reports, library records and other personal information about private citizens is just part of the job, justified because of our paranoia about Osama bin Laden and his brethren. But that's what's developed elsewhere.

Chuck Clark is undoubtedly a pain in the ass. But I'll bet the issue of his potential criminality in exposing secretive military sensor devices (on public land) could have been handled in a less heavy-handed manner. I mean, come on, the Terrorism Task Force? (Chuck admitted to me that if someone had told him to back off, he would have conceded.) Is it okay for the military to install spy gear on public land? Knappster put that question to the BLM...twice...but that agency is still scrambling to compose an answer. Put it this way: If a private citizen encounters devices of unknown origin while on open, accessible acreage, should that person drop to all fours and assume he or she has commited a terrorist act? If you or I accidentally kick one of these hidden transmitters, should the feds be able to seize our Macintosh and photos of Aunt Betty? Is it public land or not?

If the folks who run Area 51 truly need all that public land, they should do what they've always done--steal it--then wait for Congress to legitimize the acquisition. The Cammo Dudes who responded to the sensor warnings were simply doing their job. The Terrorism Task Force guys who raided Chuck's trailer were doing their jobs. But I will bet that somewhere in the back of their minds, they were wondering if their field trip to Rachel was a worthwhile expenditure of their time and energy, especially in light of the actual terrorism threats that face our country.

Tweet