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Good Reasons Why There is Something Odd at Papoose Lake


Bob Lazar’s Story

Face it, Bob Lazar is the main reason the public is aware of Goom Lake (and to a lesser extent, Papoose Lake) today. Whether his tale is true or not, when he went public in 1989, he ignited a firestorm of interest in Area 51 which burns to this day. As most of you already know, Lazar described how he was flown from Las Vegas to Groom Lake, then taken on a bus with blacked out side windows to a facility he determined was known as S-4.

Now when Lazar arrived at S-4, he wasn’t warmly greeted with a “Howdy Bob, this here underground facility is under the Papoose Mountains and that there dry lake over there is Papoose Lake.” He was simply driven in the bus for about 30 minutes and there he was. At some later date, he, Gene Huff, and John Lear got together and worked out where it must have been, based upon various clues Lazar noted during the trip. From what they deduced, S-4 would have to be on the east side of Papoose Lake, where the Papoose Mountains slope down to meet it. Since the short flight test of the one disc he witnessed took place on the dry lake bed, the edge of the dry lake must have been very close to the installation.

Lazar described the facility to Timothy Good as being built into the base of the Papoose Range, with 9 hangar doors sloped at about a 60 degree angle. He said the doors had a sand-like texture coating to them, and Gene Huff later said the doors were rollup type doors. There were 9 of the hangar bays in all.

Per Lazar, the disc he described as the “Sport Model” had an approximate diameter of 52′. Allowing for adequate work clearance, it’s reasonable to assume a hangar bay would be at least 70′ wide. So for 9 bays, the overall length of the facility would have to be at least 630′, maybe more.

On the “Billy Goodman Happening” radio show, Lazar described the dirt road the bus took to S-4 as a “good dirt road.” When a caller asked him if the facility was underground, he replied, “No, it’s not underground; it’s just butt up against the side of a little mountain, a little hill kind of, but it’s kind of inside the mountain.”

A while back, Gene Huff and I had a Usenet exchange of questions and answers on the subject of S-4. I was digging around for details that might have been overlooked in the past. A few interesting items (at least to me) did turn up out of the exchange. The following are excerpts of three exchanges that have been combined in to one Q&A session. I deleted information not pertaining to the S-4 topic. As you read it, remember that what you are reading are Gene Huff’s replies to the questions, as he remembers what Lazar told him. In that sense, it is second hand and errors or other distortions may be introduced:

Question:

Did the bus drop off Lazar in front of the hangars, do a U turn and return to Groom, or did the bus remain on site?

Answer:

-No, there was an area enclosed with a chain link fence on the non-hangar side of the installation and they entered through that side. Apparently the installation is/was on a corner of one of the jags in the mountain. The only night he entered through the hangar side was the first night they showed him the sport model which is the night he walked right by it and rubbed his hand on it. He and Mariani went inside after they were dropped off so he never knew the time schedule or whereabouts of the bus after that.-

Question:

Do I understand you correctly that the facility passed completely
through a ridge, with the hangars on one side and the “entrance”
on the other?

Answer:

-“Through a ridge” might be somewhat misleading. I don’t think Bob was enough places in the facility to state that it passed through an entire ridge. However, yes, it did pass through the corner of a jag/ridge in the mountain. The hangars were on one side of the corner and the pedestrian entrances were around the corner from that.

Question:

What was the size of the chain linked area and could it have been visible from certain directions?

Answer:

-I don’t know and I’ve never heard Bob guestimate that. In fact, you’re the first one who’s ever been that interested. This chain link fence was big enough to have gates on it and the gates were opened to allow the bus in.-

Question:

Since you said one night he entered through the hangar side after Lazar was dropped off, I assumed the bus pulled up in front of the hangars instead of he and Mariani walking around the hill.

Answer:

-I should have clarified that, as that must also be the reason you thought Bob should have been more aware of a synthetic tarmac if there was one. That night the bus dropped them off at the regular spot and, when Bob started walking toward the door, Mariani said, “We need to go this way tonight, Bob”. Then they walked around the corner, more or less hugging the building and entered through the hangar side. If I remember correctly, there was also another gate they had to go through to get to the hangars. I think this gate was simply the side of the chain link enclosed area which the bus entered.-

So in summary, what have we been told by Lazar and company? That S-4 is on the east side of a dry lake (most probably Papoose Lake), about a 30 minute bus ride from Groom via a good dirt road. The facility seems to be either built into a ridge spine, or disguised as a ridge spine, with portions of the facility being on either side. The hangar side must be at least 600′ long, perhaps longer. There is a chain link fence with a gate surrounding the personnel entrance, but it’s possible to walk around to the other side of the ridge to access the hangar area directly.

“Alfred’s” Story

Alfred is the pseudonym of a gentleman I interviewed in April of 1994 at the suggestion of Glenn Campbell. Parts of his story have been reported by Campbell in his Desert Rat, issue 23. What follows is a very brief summary of what he had to say.

Alfred was a civilian photographer who worked at the Test Site from around 1960 to 1964, under the supervision of one Otto Krause, who in turn worked for Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. His photo group was allowed liberal access to various areas of the Test Site, as well as use of a generally restricted item, binoculars. He told me that on several occasions he was up on Rainier Mesa, with a clear view toward the Groom area. During some of these times he said he sighted several glowing discs, usually emanating from an area south of Groom, Papoose Lake. He said he saw them both during the day but mostly at night when he had to work late. During the day they appeared as grayish aluminum, and at night as glowing discs. They apparently had tremendous manuevering capabilities as he stated, “They could be out of sight going straight up in about 3 or 4 seconds. I mean totally out of sight, where with binoculars you couldn’t see them.”

Alfred had an interest in UFOs since his childhood, when he spotted some (along with the rest of his Farmington, New Mexico town) during a major UFO flap in 1949. During a card game with his photo group one night, he asked Otto about what he had seen. Otto then related how the US had recovered a vehicle from the Roswell crash (remember this was in the very early 1960’s before anyone had heard of Roswell), and also one from Aztec, New Mexico. Otto said the materials were eventually taken to “the Test Site”, (implying Area 51) and the US was working to unlock the secrets of how they worked. Otto said they functioned on some sort of magnetic principle.

Otto said that a 3 man version had been constructed and had been taken to the west Texas area for testing. Apparently things did not work out well with it and due to its magnetic effects, power was knocked out in several west Texas towns (It sounds like the Loveland, Texas incident).

Taken by itself, it could just be another tall tale of the Test Site. However Stanton Friedman got interested in the story and did a little research. He found that Otto had died in 1990, but was able to get in touch with Otto’s son. His son recalled his dad telling similar stories to him, but had simply dismissed them as tall tales. Friedman also found a few of Alfred’s co-workers. They recalled the night of the card session and generally corroborated Alfred’s account of what Otto had to say.

Hesemann’s Tape

In 1995, German filmaker Michael Hesemann produced a videotape called “Secrets of the Black World’. It is a look at Area 51, as well as other conspiracy topics (underground bases, etc.) in the southwest. It contains interviews with a large number of people, including Bob Lazar, George Knapp, John Lear, Norio Haiakawa, Gary Schultz, Sean Morton, and others. One of the interviews is with someone Hesemann identifies as Derek Hennesy, who claims to be a former guard at S-4.

The interview takes place somewhere in the desert because, as Hennesy says, ” ..he’s on the run…kinda scared”. Hennesy goes on to describe a large underground facility consisting of 4 levels, of which the hangars are on level 2. He didn’t know what was on level 3 or 4 as his responsibility was only on level 2. He said he did see alien bodies in vertical containers at one location on his level. For the benefit of the camera, he sketches a crude map of level 2. Supposedly he and his story were “checked out” by Wendell Stevens”.

The A-12 Mechanic

This story is from a worker who was a repair mechanic for SR-71 or A-12 aircraft. Around 1969, he found himself doing duty at Groom Lake. He considered it pretty undesirable, as he found there was nothing to do and they were stuck out in nowhere. As he put it, “There was nothing to do but drink.” He said there were a few places that the staff at Groom weren’t allowed to go, one of which was “over the hill”, meaning Papoose. He had heard rumors, and he and his buddies made some attempts to push the limits of where they were allowed to roam, but they never saw anything out of the ordinary. The point of this story is that even as far back as 1969, the Papoose Lake area was strictly off limits to even the highly cleared Groom personnel.

A Former Groom Worker

This is related by a person I have met and have a feel for his credibility. To me he seems quite believable, and I can think of no reason to question his story.

He worked at Groom for a limited time in the early 1980’s. While socializing with the other workers (i.e., drinking at the bar), he heard stories of a big project going on at Papoose Lake, at a facility called, as he was told, “S-4”. A great number of people were involved, but he did not know on what. Beyond that, he never saw or heard anything else unusual during his stay at Groom.

Other Reports

There are quite a number of odd and strange reports of happenings in the Groom/Papoose area. Rather than go through the rather large a list, I’d simply suggest any of George Knapp’s videos, or perhaps Timothy Good’s “Alien Contact” book. The latter part of the book contains quite a few sightings, of varying quality.

Sightings in the Area

While sightings accounts are not quite as substantial as eyewitness, on-site descriptions of what might be going on at Papoose, they should be considered. Probably the vast majority of sightings made near Area 51 may be dismissed as the misinterpretation of aircraft testing and wargames. Then there are the just plain stupid ones, like the mis-dentification of the landing lights of the incoming Janet flights to Groom as “Old Faithful”. Still, after all the even remotely questionable sightings are discarded, there remain a few by credible observers.

As an example, one of the sightings I have some knowledge of was made by Mark Farmer. I know Mark and have a lot of respect for his knowledge of aircraft and various forms of cutting edge technology. On a visit to the area, in January of 1994, on a Wednesday night, he was in the desert off Hwy. 375, west of Hancock Summit. At 10:14 PM, he observed a glowing light rise in the southwest from behind the mountains. The bearing of the light was not that of the Groom base, but rather more to the south. Although he had no solid idea of the distance, the bearing would put it in line with the Papoose area.

As he watched it for the next hour and 45 minutes, it made sharp, instantaneous horizontal movements, near-instantaneous turns, then it would slowly wobble for minutes at a time, then become rock solid. Although his photographs show little more then an interesting light streak, he reports that through his Celestron telescope the object appeared as an oblate spheroid (a squashed ball). The upper most portion appeared crimson, and the bottom most portion was green. The area in between was a golden color. He said it appeared the colors were the result of some sort of discharge, and than the colors obscured whatever might be below.

Despite Mark’s considerable aerospace knowledge, he freely admits he has no idea what the hell it was he saw. It certainly behaved like no conventional aircraft he had ever come across.

One Last Bit of Possibly Related Weirdness:

This report is also from the illustrious Mark Farmer. It is one of those “friend of a friend” reports, so its reliability is difficult to assess, but it is an intriguing bit of weirdness.

The story comes from an Air Force communications specialist stationed in Alaska, whose job it was to monitor radio traffic, both ours and the Soviets, back when there was a Soviet Union. This individual had standing orders to relay any intercepted radio traffic dealing with UFOs (either Soviet or ours) to a certain department in the National Security Agency. This person never had occasion to implement those orders ,as no UFO radio traffic was ever picked up, but those were the orders.

The Department in the NSA? The routing header was “S4B, Doughboy”.


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