CNI News Reports California Man Sees
Saucer At Nevada's Area 51
By Frank Batts
April 30th, 1997, a friend and I went to Area 51. We arrived in
Rachel Nevada at 2200 [10:00 pm] and my friend got directions to the "Mailbox".
By 2220 we were on the road.
[Note: Rachel, Nevada is the small town on Highway 375 which serves
as the starting point for most investigative forays toward Area 51, which
is located at Groom (dry) Lake almost due south of Rachel, just inside
the Nellis Air Force Range. The "Mailbox" (or Black Mailbox) is a well-known
landmark along the road between Rachel and the boundary of Area 51. --
ed.]
We saw red and yellow lights on the ground out in the desert by
around the 19 mile marker. We never found the mailbox, but went back to
where we saw the lights. They seemed much closer and bigger than any shots
of the base I had ever seen in films. We parked on the side of the road
by the Rachel 20 miles sign, and waited. After about an hour, we saw a
blue "ball" appear above the mountain ridge and hover. After about one
minute it began hopping in a pattern that looked like the letter "n". It
did this twice and did some other left-to-right and right-to-left maneuvers.
The whole thing seemed to last about two minutes, but I was excited and
blown out. Then the blue light lowered below the ridge.
We waited about another 45 minutes watching what we thought was
the Base -- the red, yellow and white lights. We noticed sometimes the
red lights flashed -- like a revolving light announcing the opening of
doors or something. Sometimes they were on, but constant. The yellow lights
went on and off. We assumed the red lights announced someone bringing a
new craft out to test, and excitedly waited to see if anything else appeared
above the ridge. But nothing ever did. After about an hour and a half,
I was watching the Base and it suddenly lifted off the ground, hovering.
The white light reflected off the desert floor and the starlight above
suddenly revealed the perfect shape of a very large silver saucer -- the
curved saucers on top and bottom with the middle being a bank of lights.
This thing was huge. I don't know sizes, but it was really big
-- maybe 200 feet across. We watched it do side-to-side hovering manuevers
from left to right, right to left, and up and down for over an hour and
fifteen minutes. My video camera was suddenly not working and I could not
get anything on film, though it worked fine in Rachel that night and the
next day when we went back to the same spot to confirm the terrain we had
been observing in the dark of night. The lights on the craft, both red
and yellow, did many sequencing events -- from left to right, right to
left, and alternating runs, though I couldn't figure out if they had anything
to do with which maneuver the craft was going to do next.
After an hour and 15 minutes, a mist or fog was coming up off the
desert floor and began to obscure our vision, and we gave up and left.
The next day I was so upset by the whole event I asked to speak with someone
at The Ale Inn [the "Little A'Le'Inn," a landmark in Rachel, Nevada where
many UFO watchers gather]. We found out we had gone 20 miles the "wrong
way" and had ended up at the back end of the base, but had had a great
sighting by fluke anyway. The person, Bob, who goes there once a month
was really excited by our story and was going to go that night (Thursday)
to see what was going on. He said they shifted testings from time to time,
and that area had been inactive for months but obviously was reactivated.
That is my experience. I saw unmistakably a saucer with MY OWN EYES. It
has been a really upsetting experience -- which surprises me. I thought
I was so cool, and that it would be so cool. The reality totally topples
the order of beliefs and leaves one confused and vulnerable. I ended up
a crybaby, but I have gotten through it and I'm definitely going back.
It was incredible to me, and I need to share the experience with people
-- the reality is so powerful, beyond any ideas that I thought I had...
These "whatever they weres" were absolutely stunning and beautiful to watch.
