Area 51 Series: Restricted Area Geocoin

Sorry folks!  The original one is for discovery only, but I did recently release a copy.  I won the bidding war on Ebay for this coin because I had to have it!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take it with me TO Area 51!  We were doing "Under the Stars in Rachel 2013" a couple of weeks ago and I could have kicked myself for not bringing it.  However, this also gives us a reason to head back that way for more caching on the Extraterrestrial Highway!  And I do have a pretty good Area 51 story (see below).  Please discover me!

The AREA 51 STORY: Ok, so here's what happened... I've always been a conspiracy theorist and of course, Area 51 is one of the biggest ones out there. Being so close (near Rachel), I wanted to go see it and take pictures of whatever I found. Every account of people going out there talked about the security guys in the white pick-up seen on the top of the ridge. If nothing else, maybe I could harass them a bit. So we headed up the long, dusty 13-mile road off the E.T. Highway (I suspect the dust trail helps the security guys to see you coming).

I love traveling with my mom. She'll do almost any weird thing I want in the name of adventure! On this particular ride, she wasn't digging it so much. Fortunately, there were two caches hidden on the road as well, so I had a secondary excuse to go. We only found one before we got to the end of the road. Now, rumor has it, they have motion detectors, ammonia detectors (allegedly for urine), audio etc, etc., and they know everything about you before you get halfway there. There were no fences. Mom and I argued about the 26 mile out-of-the-way trip to get a picture of a picture I could find on Google. Not the point! At then end of the road, we came upon 2 signs: "Nellis Bombing and Gunnery Range Warning!" and another saying, "Warning! Photography of this area prohibited" (that doesn't mean I can't take a picture of the sign that says no pictures, right?). Basically, if you literally cross this line and you get arrested. Period. And there were the boys up on the ridge! 

So, of course, I have to jump out and get a picture with the sign. I was disappointed because there was no gate, no "Area 51" sign and no "Use of Deadly Force Authorized" sign. Now I'm telling mom it's probably an empty, dummy truck, like us cops use when we put a car out with a mannequin in it because it's cheaper than using officers, but it keeps people out of mischief. Uh, apparently not. Mom and I mulled it over a few minutes, but we're just too damn honest so we turned around.

About a mile down the road GOING BACK to the main road, here comes this military chopper from behind us. Mom's like, "Are they coming after us?" I'm like, "Nah!" But after it turned and got in front of us and practically landed on the road forcing us to stop, I was getting a little concerned. The pilot circled around us once to be sure we could see his really big gun. Mom's like, "What is he doing?" I said, "Threatening us, mom! He's probably trying to get a good shot of YOUR license plate!" I think I probably pissed them off more because I just kept taking pictures of them. We were on a public road so there wasn't much they could do (in theory, although making us disappear out there would have been no problem at all!). About the time the chopper flew off, the security truck had come up behind us but stayed about 200 feet back. We came to a branch-off road where we thought the other cache might be and sat for a minute deciding if we'd had enough excitement for the day or if we were going after it. Security was still behind us and watching our every move, so we decided not to test them. It was another mile before they stopped following us, but even farther before they turned back. We agreed that made the drive worth it even if we didn't get to the gate! I was telling mom though, if they have the listening devices they're suppose to have, they would have heard us talking about geocaches and arguing about going down the road and known we were tourists. But thinking back it may have sounded like we were looking for "it" and maybe we should take another road to get to "it". We did have a geocaching sticker on the back of the car, so who knows if they figured it out. I then said, "They're probably just bored and giving the tourists and good show". Yeah, no. The folks at the Little A'Le'Inn said they don't go down that road at all, but there is a gate and the Area 51 / Deadly force sign, had we managed to get any further up the road without being arrested. I told the guy that hid the cache there what happened and he said he's been going back there hiking for years and never had a chopper chase him down! Ha, ha, ha! Mission accomplished!!

(Lady Nomad and mom, Cachinmychips, at the infamous Black Mailbox. Unfortunately, the cache there had been abducted that day!)